The Royal Welsh is all over for another year. The actual showground is behind the trees, middle right of picture (where you can see grass). I watched some more of the coverage on tv yesterday - the barren Section C mares, a Section B class in the ring at the same time, and a part-bred Welsh won by a stunning dark skewbald filly with such quality, and beautifully marked. I hate the Jack Russell look in coloured ponies - e.g. mostly white with a few blotches of colour, that you get bred purely for cash (vanners). I forgot to mention something that made me laugh in the cattle classes I watched the previous day, as the Holstein matrons had very pink udders (they don't milk them that morning either, so they have a Big Bag!) It's apparently a coloured udder balm but it looked like they'd gone mad with the foundation or the Pan Stick! and it had rubbed off on the top of their legs as they moved.
The town can breathe again, the pubs are rubbing their hands with glee at their takings - though they had to insist on card payments only after so many fake £20 notes were being proffered in payment. Both Builth Tyres and Hay & Brecon Farmers shut their doors for the week. Several places had to employ bouncers, so it is not all good for the town. I shouldn't think takings were up that much with the extra people in town, for the non-pub or non-food shops.
I pieced and sewed the borders onto the quilt yesterday. Set the last stitch, looked down (properly!) and saw I had just sewn the last one on with the wrong side out, so spent yesterday evening unpicking it. Twit.
It was cool enough this morning to do a bit of tidying up in the garden. I have a low growing shrub which the bees adore when it's in flower, and I hadn't noticed it creeping further and further to the left. Now I can't walk up past my Roserie de l'Hay rose so cutting back needed. Not helped by it rooting wherever it touches earth, so some digging needed too. SO much to do out there as the hot weather has kept me indoors and I haven't been able to do more than water round and a bit of dead-heading of roses.
I popped into the Library to return a couple of books yesterday. Found a couple more to bring back - A Different Kind of Evil by Andrew Wilson, which has Agatha Christie as its detective, on her way to investigate two murders. She is working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). I started that one last night. I also got Mr Campion's War, by Mike Ripley. I think that's one that Sue, over at My Quiet Life in Suffolk, read this year. Then my friend Gay sent me The Woman Downstairs, the latest by JD Kirk. Plenty to keep me quiet.
I have been doing research on the Nepalese Kukri in the red leather sheath that I found when clearing the top of the old fridge-freezer. They were special and given as gifts to notable figures (Sir Edmund HIlary was given one), and for retiring Army Officers. This sort is a Kothimora Kukri and more valuable than I first thought. Keith DID have a good eye for such things. I can't find one exactly like it, so have contacted Gurkha Antiques, with photos, to see if they can give me more info.
