He did it!!!

The cup awarded to the winner of the Supreme Champion Angora Goat at The Royal Show. And Smiley won it!!

The Royal is the biggest agricultural show in the country, and although our breed society show is a little more prestigious, the best breeders also show at The Royal. I always show Smiley as due to his being slightly small, it's better if I, at 5'2" show him rather than Eddie who's 6'1"! We won our class, Junior Buck, so were put forward for Champion Male. I honestly thought the adult buck would win that, but, no Smiley won. So we were then put forward for the Supreme Champion, against a beautiful doe. Honestly, I couldn't believe it when the judge walked towards me with the Championship rosette. I had a lump in my throat as big as my fist, and it was all I could do to stop from bursting into tears and showing myself up as a complete wuss. As I bent down to Smiley and was telling him what a clever boy he was, there was a voice in the back of my head saying "He's a goat - he hasn't done anything, he just happens to be exceptionally beautiful" but I was soooo proud of him at that moment.

What a wonderful end to the showing season - more than we ever could have dreamed of. Every goat we took was placed, and we were chuffed to bits.

The end of the show season always leaves us feeling a bit deflated, and this year has been slightly worse with the Royal being our last show. It's a long show - we were away for 5 days, and we had such a good time. We only see the other breeders during the showing season - the animals and the distance between us all make meeting up at other times quite difficult. It's amazing that a group of people so different, but with one main thing in common, can spend 20 hours a day in each other's company (not a lot of time was spent sleeping!) and not get sick of the sight of each other. I haven't laughed so much for ages. The weather was wonderful, which helped, and I really feel - in spite of the, it has to be said, basic living conditions - as though I've had a great break.

Little knitting has been done in the last week. But that was ok. Still firmly in sock mode I've been working on some of the patterns in Sensational Knitted Socks, but rapidly coming to the conclusion that the variegated, short colour run sock yarn which appeals to the magpie in me really isn't any good for patterns. So I splurged and bought this

70% merino, 30% cashmere in Crocus from Posh Yarns

It feels wonderfully soft and I'm really looking forward to knitting with it.

I've a million blog entries to catch up on, and haven't been near the Knittyboard for ages so need to immerse myself gently back into the knitting world. Oh, and back to work tomorrow :(