30 June: Royal Norfolk Show

One of the delights on offer in Norfolk is the possibility of complimentary tickets to the Royal Norfolk Show.  It is on this date so there should be reference to it somewhere round about here.  Also a few other things close to Norwich.

30 June was designated as Royal Norfolk Show Day. I don't think Ms Windsor (neither Babs nor Betty) was in attendance because they were both in London. However most everyone else was. Jeez there were a lot of punters there, and this was just day 1 of 2.  The photo below was taken at about 9:45 when we first got to the site!

We took the back road to the show to avoid queues on the A14 which could be some kilometres long. This plan basically happened and we slotted into the Members car park with our Vice-Presidents pass. We also had international visitors badges (both of these courtesy of our hosts at Coach House – thanks Mike and Mary) which generated a few conversations with folks over the day.

There were some instructions accompanying our tickets which mentioned a dress code.   Basically not torn jeans, but we did dress a bit more than we did for going birding.  Some other people did meet the dress code, but did terrible damage to the concept of good taste!

The Show was great. There were a number of elements to the event:

1. Events in the ring, of which we saw a bit of some trick motorcyclists (far quieter than the half wits that drive around Carwoola), some draught horses pulling brewery drays; and a bit of show jumping.
2. Farm machinery displays, which astonished me with the size of the kit (most tractors were 140HP while those I remember were less than 70HP);
3. Sideshow alley – we passed on this, but it looked terrifying:
4. Retail stalls. These showed a lot of products, of which we got quite a lot. Wellies for Frances; a vest and a couple of shirts for me. The surprising thing was that there was very little tat around. Most of the material was pretty good.
5. Various countryside groups: these ranged from overtly conservationist (eg Norfok Wildlife Trust) through the Raptor Trust with a display of tethered raptors, several of which don't occur in the UK and the gundog club to a mob seeking to repeal the ban on fox hunting. The gundog club put on interesting demos of working dogs and the same area was used for the terrier racing (see above). I reckon a certain small fox terrier could do well at that. I also reckon PETA would have a fit with it, despite the small dogs enjoying it greatly!
6. Various rural themed areas, such as cows (very entertaining but one couldn't get close for OHAS bullshyte reasons); flowers (pretty good, especially where the judges had left their views on entries); and dogs (weird – the dogs all seemed to be out in the show generally except for the brief time they were on deck to be inspected); and
7. FOOD AND DRINK: never, in the course of human history has so much good stuff been got together in one place. Many good sausages and pies (the latter being acquired in some number). Lots of brewers Adnams, St Peters, Wolf (the best names of beers ever found, including “Granny wouldn't like it” which at a sip was very tasty) Woodforde, and Calvors (very light and bitter, but tasty). St Peters got the nod for purchases and are earning their stripes as I type. Wolf and Calvors didn't make it to the Beer page as I didn't have enough of it.

There were some interesting OHAS elements to the livestock exhibits.  Everywhere that one could get close to livestock had a wash station outside it, which seemed a bit extreme to me.  The bigger animals (cattle and horses) were not accessible at all.

In summary the Show was marvellous. Congratulations to all involved.

We stayed at the show for 6 hours and then went home. After a short while we went for a walk around the village. I did take a photo of a linguistic road sign: the use of the word 'bor' took me back 45 years in very short order. One of the roads was called Milestone Lane which I though a bit odd, until we cam across a milestone showing “London 100 miles” which had the vegetation cleared around it (unlike the linguistic sign which I had to clear up to take the photo).

An annoyance was going to the library to check my email to find that it was shut from 1pm. Perhaps a remnant of early closing day, although the Co-op had been open to sell us some fruit and wine.