Midsummer Madness - 21/22nd June - (Report by Ann Alderman)

Friday afternoon / evening, the 'happy' campers started to turn up. We had fish 'n' chips brought in to us, and chatted the evening away.

Saturday was fairly hot! We started off with Pairs Flyball-Agility, which was pulled out of the hat. Although with a little telepathic 'fixing' Hilary managed to get Ben and Daisy paired up. Claire & I were a little more blatant, by just saying Breeze & Boots were going together, as they were on 'stand by' all w/e! I thought the course was a simple figure of 8, but the dogs obviously thought differently! We just had 3 runs each, as it was already getting too warm to do too much running! The results were:

Tosh & Fliss would like to thank Dave for being a good sport by helping them out into 9th place!!

To save time, and reduce the amount of runs for the dogs, we timed the singles and fastest box over 3 runs. This could then be used as a guide for a 'seedings' list if necessary, but eventually gave us results for the fastest collies, ABC, Starters, Veterans and Fastest Box or Retrieve. And the results were:

And finally onto Mixed Pairs flyball. Again, this was picked out of the hat (no telepathic powers used here though!) The racing was close all the way through, with the final being very close.

We finished fairly early, so had a break before starting the BBQ's. Dave & I shared the apprentice cook title. By now the weather was clouding over, and we actually had some rain, so umbrella holders came to the rescue, to keep the BBQ's alight! By then I was the reluctant to give up my position by the warmth of the BBQ (and the easy access to the food!). I think we can all thank each other for the spread we all provided, and to Pat for our lovely puddings!

The Bridie Cup - Hilary's Piece!

This year the Bridie Cup was awarded to Claire. It was a very difficult decision as several members were worthy of the award. Particular thanks to Claire this year for all her valuable help and general advice on clicker training, and more particularly "on the box". Claire has also done much re-shuffling of her work commitments to attend competitions. Well Done and Thank you Claire.

The Bridie Cup and prize giving was a lazy affair, after much hilarity, courtesy (un-be-knowingly) of Sue, Nick & John, who were downloading 'things' in the 'back of the car'……………..enough said when you get together with the flyballers!!

Evening entertainment, for those that stayed, was kindly provided by Berit and Becky! We started off with some line dancing. We were totally useless at the first dance (too many turns maybe?), but we're virtually experts at the wiggling of hips, doing the salsa, and going 'to the bar' (just poor old Dave who gets confused as to which way 'the bar' is!) I do think a video of Andy, Dave, Robert and John (dancing beautifully in time with Fliss!) would encourage the rest of you to stay for the highlight of the w/e! (Or maybe not……..)

When Berit had had enough of us, Becky took over and after a little sing song with Chris and Kay, we went on to play The Farmers in his Den, The Hokey Cokey, & Oranges & Lemons. And at that point, every one was on the point of collapse, and Becky was taken off to bed, followed slowly by the majority.

Four & a half hours later, Tosh thought it was time to get up again! And by 7am, I had the inner bedroom and Tosh on my head, where he had managed to pull the middle awning pole down! It was obviously time to think about getting up again!

Sunday, we started off with Handicap teams. Although it took a race or two to realise what times the teams would run at, everyone done really well, at estimating times. The 'real starters' team were left to their own devises, and put in some excellent times, and occasionally went faster than they thought they could manage! And it's amazing how the dogs suddenly learn to pass, in the excitement of racing!

And finally, another mixed pairs, out of the hat, with one pair being collies (not enough ABC's!!) Again, we had a very close final, although this time, I would have put my money on the winners!!