Denbigh and Flint show
When I started my travels, it was with the intention of visiting as many places as I could, having lots of different adventures, meeting wonderful people and above all learning new things along the way. Well I have learned loads whilst in North Wales. Today I went to Denbigh show with Nicola and Bim who have a stand there selling their lovely sauces and nut butters and all, so I went for a little walk and have always been interested in learning more about what is involved with showing animals? Cows in particular! Why would you? Lol!!
Anyway I went into the huge cow shed where all the prize cows were being prepared for the show, and wow did I get a shock, I really didn’t realise how much work goes into just keeping them clean, for example their back ends which seem to evacuate their entire bowel contents very frequently were continuously being sponged down to keep them in pristine condition.
I chose to talk to the owner of the cows I thought were the prettiest. J He was a lovely man called Chris Hopley who didn’t mind chatting to me explaining what is involved, he had reared British Blonde cows and was originally showing them as a hobby but they had now become winners many times over so they were actually making him a profit.
While I was there Chris explained the type of thing the judges are looking for, he said that the particular judge who would be presiding over his competition liked her cows to have their hair ruffled and not lying down flat against the body, so Chris had this wax soap which he had to rub all over the cows hide against the weave of its hair to make the hairs stand out instead of lying flat, this he would have to do all over each cow before they paraded onto the field. He said sometimes he would use gold glitter in the soap to try and draw the judges attention, so that when the sun shines down on his cows they would be glistening, therefore catching the judges eye. It’s all in the tactics guys!
There was a lady helping Chris, whose job it was to back-comb the bushy ends of the tails and spray them with hair lacquer to make them look more attractive! Who would have thought that making a cow look pretty could be such a job Lol! Anyway he was really interesting to talk to and I enjoyed learning all about his cows, who he was immensely proud of! I wished him well before going off to inspect some of the other specimens.
There were fat cows, skinny cows, pink cows and generally all sorts of cows and I really did find it quite interesting to learn about this hobby. Even though I live in an area where farming is very prominent I haven’t really spoken to any farmers or talked to any of them about their livelihoods or hobbies.
The show was very big and covered many areas of country life as you would imagine, two very large food marquees with lots of homemade produce including beautiful cider, which I just had to try out! Lush it was too! They also had a lovely stall selling flavoured liqueurs, there was one called Black mountain and it was a flavoured brandy using blackberries, it was absolutely divine. I had to really stop myself from buying a bottle.
There was a huge array of different tractors and farm machinery which ranged from the old threshers to newer combine harvesters; I preferred the old threshers, fab machines. There was also a classic car show, got to love them old cars, wouldn’t want one mind they look like too much work and that’s just to keep them clean!
All in all it was a fab show, Bim’s kitchen sold lots of stuff and there were a lot of people showing a lot of interest in their products, which was the whole point of the exercise. I enjoyed helping them out on their stall and learning all about show cows, or should I say prize cows????
