and again.

Not content with being at The Burghley Food Fair over the Bank Holiday weekend we returned a couple of days later for the International Horse Trials - arguably the most prestigious 3-day event in the Horse world calendar. Up before dawn and home after dark for four days on the trot really tested our metal. We caught a glimpse of the occasional horse but mostly we were head down and hands on battling to tempt the hungry horsewatchers to sample our tasty wares. Each day presented a different challenge either because of the vagaries of  the weather or the mood of the people.

Pork pies normally 'walk' off the shelf but could we shift them here? Mandy-who-makes-pies and had been up at 4.30 am in the middle of the week to bake was particularly pleased when we rang to cancel the provisional delivery for Sunday - not least because they were moving 'shop' over the same period. The Boss, ever flexible and open to opportunity, quickly decided on the Friday homeward journey that something needed to change so Saturday morning saw us frying sausages for our 'Bangers in a bap' offer which went down very well indeed, particularly at breakfast time - so much so that we shall be presenting a very different offering next year!.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

We had many compliments for our wares over the four days and met a host of interesting (and a few strange) people.The Iranian stall next to us, which was selling a huge selection of olives, cashews and Baclava, provided a running floor show -the "Lovely Jubbly" sales guys from Thursday drove us nuts with their endless banter and hard sell techniques (not to mention zillions of bees who were attracted to their honey coated treats). Luckily for everyone they were replaced by much quieter, though no less hard selling, colleagues for the next three days.Many of the stallholders probably passed the entire four days totally oblivious to the fact that it was one of the premier horsey events in the calendar - in fact the guy looking after the Devon Cream Teas stall next to us first couple of days asked halfway thru the second afternoon "What exactly is going on here?" It's an amazing event. Setting up starts as early as July; it is organised with military precision; we, as stallholders, received 6 pages of rules and instructions; there are more shopping opportunities than probably anywhere else in the country and the 150,000 strong crowd are treated to the most amazing array of food and beverage offerings. I'd guess that many people attended for the whole weekend with hardly seeing a single horse and a large number of them only came in order to see and be seen - some of the fashions were extremely interesting. And Dogs! Thousands of them in every shape and size; a passing onlooker could have been forgiven for thinking it was a dog Show and virtually every stall provided a bowl of fresh water for the weary canines.

And the excitement of the weekend was not just happening at the show. Life back at the Reserve continued. Pigs were moved here and there and Linda successfully and single handedly reweaned Truffle's little family. We returned home late on Sunday evening to find The Flowers safely esconced in the barn and their Mum securely shut into the Stalls on her own. The fact that the Boss and I had been scratching our heads over the weekend wondering how we were going to achieve that outcome was neither here nor there! Easy peasy, just like that, the job was done. And very happy and contented everyone looked too.

So tomorrow we shall move Truffle back to Samson and hope that she does not decided to part rapidly from him again. Or we may end up weaning her again, again......