Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Good morning 🙂 6.7 for me today 🙂
How did the Tandem go? It always looks such a difficult thing to do.but hot and humid all day at Kelso at the Border Union show and I was melting in my show gear! It is a really great show and incredibly well organized and really friendly
Yes, it is extremely difficult and sadly GGs didn't go as well as at home but no major disasters (which is the important thing) and lots of praise from other competitors for having the guts to give it a go and the judge gave us a few pointers although he has only tried tandem a couple of times himself and his observations were pretty well spot on and he was very encouraging and thanked us for entering. We won by default in the multiples class as we were the only entry, and came 3rd in the private driving with Zak driven singly which I thought was generous (I expected us to be last as Zak was very lacklustre) and the standard of turnouts was very high as befits the Scottish nation championship. Then Ian came 4th in the cone driving with Zak driven single..... we joked about him doing it tandem but it would have been a demolition job! He was already severely handicapped anyway by the fact that our horse was the largest and vehicle by far the widest and the course was set to accommodate our vehicle width so the others were driving through each set of cones with a foot clearance on either side of their wheels whereas Ian just had a couple of inches, so I think he did incredibly well just to get 2 down. The cone driving is more just a bit of fun at this event and since we don't have proper cones ourselves at home to practice, just a few plastic plant pots and no flat grassed area to put them out, we are happy of the opportunity to have a play with proper cones. A local farmer very kindly let us practice driving in a field that he had just taken a cut of hay off this week but sheep will be going into that field soon, so it was just a very temporary solution. We really need to find somewhere that we can practice rather than just jogging round the roads before the end of this month when we are entered in a more formal competition involving cone driving. Ian is very optimistically suggesting he is going to do it tandem.... I love his confidence and ambition (and his lack of fear of failure) and of course they will only get better the more they do. Anyway, we came home with a traffic light of rosettes... red, yellow and green and a big silver salver for the multiples class win, which seems a bit of overkill when we were the only entry but he deserves his name on it for sheer guts of publicly having a go, especially when we have had so little practice!How did the Tandem go? It always looks such a difficult thing to do.
Sounds like a very successful day, both from the trophy/rosette point of view and for the driving experience.. Anyway, we came home with a traffic light of rosettes... red, yellow and green and a big silver salver for the multiples class win, which seems a bit of overkill when we were the only entry but he deserves his name on it for sheer guts of publicly having a go, especially when we have had so little practice!
Thought we had a day off today (actually a day of catching up on everyday chores and pulling ragwort), but turns out there is a club drive, so I better get a wriggle on.
So pleased you had such smooth outward and return journeys for your holiday. I think you are in the minority for achieving that this year, so definitely jammy! Well done.... I bet it was a relief!