All Things Agricultural & Pastoral, All Creatures Great & Small

Today I thought it would be nice to take myself along to the Royal Canterbury A&P Show, so that is precisely what I did. I packed a picnic and slathered on the sunscreen, though I really needn't have bothered (I knew I should have packed an umbrella or windbreaker at least).

Highlights: old farm machinery, tractor pull event, wood-chopping, whip-cracking and cows.

What I came across first was some working antiquated farm machinery. It was great because usually this kinda thing just delapidates in a shed or museum somewhere passing itself off for a boring unuseful piece of junk. Most were manufactured during the early part of last century, but there was one at least from 1895. Some ran on oil, others on gas but it was all smelly and great! So many of these ancient beasts congregated in one place attended by their equally aged sapien counterparts. All hissing, slapping, clacketting and spluttering, trying in vain to rattle free of their wooden constraints.

I walked around and got a feel for where everything was. Bumped into Steve all dolled up in a clown costume selling balloons.

Then it was time for the Super-Modified V8 Tractor Pull Competition. Great stuff!! My ears are still pounding. Two tractors drag off towing a massive sled and slabs of concrete. The very earth quaking and the air trembling with as they say "Lots of loud raw noise". Clods of earth flying up. Those vehicles are fast super fast. Oh-so entertaining. Then it started to rain, but somehow that just didn't matter.

For lunch I settled down on a hummock overlooking the Wood-chopping arena to watch the underhand (where the axeman stands on block whist chopping it in half) and standing block chop heats and finals. Also, the jill and jill woodsawing. I always like the wood-chopping events. I was not disappointed.

The sideshows and trade pavillions are pretty much like the Auckland Easter Show -filled with overpriced goods that you'll only use maybe once.

Had a good half hour of whip-cracking entertainment by the Manwaring family, before being lured into the food tent. I, propitiously sucumming at the precise moment when the acceptible ratio of precipitation became unbearably high. There I sampled a whitebait (ah, haven't had those lil' fishys for years, ?decades, maybe even) pattie open sandwich. Kaituna goat cheese from Gruff Junction (in fact I'm fixing to have some right now) and my first sip of Himalayan Goji juice (but at $85 a litre {yes, $85 that's no typo!} that's probably the last time I'll have it). It tasted very berryish, surprise, surprise for that is indeed what it is derived from (the Goji Berry) but with the sweetness and tartness somewhat akin to apple juice and then on the verge of swallowing it became all thick and chilli-like. I approve, yes, it was much to my liking. Such an exoticity my tastebuds have never before encountered.

Then I traipsed round the cattle stalls. It was good to be able to see what different breeds look like in the flesh (as opposed to just reading about them on the net). I love bovine eyes. Saw an alpaca getting shorn/shaved/having a full body hair-cut. At about one-fifth the size of the largest male, some of the banty roosters' crows were so twee. The ducks just wanted outa there.

Then the clouds that had been re-brewing all afternoon cracked open just when I had to find the bus to take me home, but I missed he last bus, much to my dismay, so I resigned myself to trudging along in the gutter, in the rain.

After all that dirt, hay, cows, gas, oil, dampness, my hair now smells really gross, if I may say so myself. And I just did. So I'll probably wash it tomorrow.