Feeling A Bit Outdone

Its 3am and L’s mobile rings. All four of us sit bolt upright in bed. Hearts beating like crazy. It’s Daughter. OMG, what’s happened? She’s just letting us know she’s staying out tonight... we already knew that... it’s good of her to confirm and I certainly don’t wish to knock a good habit but she did scare the life out of us all.

I arrive for the second day of our show and the judge whose course we tried to setup last night is moaning we got it wrong. Then when he’s adjusted it, the competitors start moaning the judge has got it wrong... thankfully I don’t have to run that particular course or manage that ring but I do have to run the next one he sets up... and that turns out to be worse. So bad in fact he has to change it twice or else at least half the competitors would have refused to have run it. I can see their point, it was potentially dangerous if you had a fast dog but I’m (secretly) a bit disappointed he gave in and changed it because I would have taken it steady (and safely) with Doggo and with most of those with faster dogs boycotting it, it would have been a hollow victory had we sneaked it but I’d have taken it.

On my ring, my judge has a bit of a reputation as a Rain God and true to form as soon as he starts judging it starts to rain. When he stops for lunch, the rain stops too and the sun briefly comes out but then he starts judging again after lunch, the rain comes back.

Back home, L reckons there might be two hangovers in our household and none of them belong to her, I think she’s feeling a bit outdone.

Doggo and I have a better day today with four clear rounds out of four, including the one set by the evil judge but no rosettes, except in the team event where we get fourth but... it should have been better than that because our first three dogs, including Doggo, all go clear. No team has got four dogs around yet, in fact the leading team has 15 faults, so all our final team member needs to do is get the dog round with less than that and we take the lead. Their dog goes over the wrong jump, which is an elimination and incurs 100 faults, then just for good measure it does it again. Thankfully 100 is the maximum you can score per dog. Amazingly it’s still good enough for fourth, even more amazingly is that the team with 15 faults ends up winning. It should have been us.

The Tour De France finishes in Paris where Mark Cavendish gets his wish and becomes the first Briton to win on the Champs Elysees, his sixth win of this tour. Despite that he lost the green points jersey to Thor Hushovd by 10 points but you can’t really argue about Hushovd winning it. Particularly after he climbed so well on Wednesday to get himself over the early mountains to win the two intermediate sprints. I think he was trying to make a point after the controversy of Cavendish’s disqualification last week. Point well made I think. Next year Cav.



Bradley Wiggins comes fourth overall equalling the best finish by a Briton in the race.

We’re out again tonight, another meal, this time at the Hand & Heart. It’s a bit much and expensive to have two meals in a week but it’s took us that long to set up a night out with these friends that the opportunity cannot be missed. The meal is good but it’s just basically posh pub food, there’s no shame in that, except that tonight I don’t have room for the cheese board.