Show Time 2013

First of all, thank you to all who took the time to vote for their favourite photos in my previous post. The judges decision will be revealed later in this post...


As some may remember, last year I won the points cup for the industrial section of our local agricultural show. This year I was in two minds as to whether or not I should defend my title. Could I be bothered? Well, as the day drew nearer and others started discussing their entries I found myself once again embroiled!

Another rhubarb harvest, I'd also been doing some gardening, my nails don't usually look this dirty.

N was impressed by the size of the leaves. The rhubarb became...

...rhubarb and vanilla jam. I'd seen this on a blog last year (I'm afraid I can't remember which one) and had resolved to try it this year as an alternative to the rhubarb and ginger we'd been quaffing since last summer. I'm not the only one, here's a link to the recipe on Gillian's lovely blog. It's basically the recipe I used too, though I used just granulated sugar, left the rhubarb+vanilla+sugar mix to infuse overnight and added the juice of a lemon before starting the boiling. It's absolutely delicious I have to say! One jar was put in for the show...

Here we are on our way to the show to find out how our entries had done. Yet again, the weather was terrible -it was a wash-out last year too. Such a shame for the show organisers. The decision had been made to finish the show early because of the weather and by the time we arrived all the animals etc had gone and we'd missed the industrial tent prize-giving. I was rather annoyed by this (to put it very mildly!), my favourite part is to go round the tent, checking out the other entries in each category and seeing how I'd done, and taking a few photos while I'm at it. However, people were already packing away when we arrived.

I did manage one pic - A & N's vegetable animal entries. A's was the cat which got 2nd place, and N's was the hedgehog.

I hurriedly gathered up my entries and prizes before we left again in the rain...

Ughh, maybe next year the weather will be kind.

Anyway, now to this morning. Better weather and a much better mood for me. I was actually very lucky and had done quite well in some categories. I got 6 first prizes - soup, scones, tablet, jam, jelly and one of the  photo categories. Prized are donated for first place, you get £2 for 2nd place and £1 for 3rd. I was especially pleased with the floral jug. I already have a smaller version of it, being too mean to buy myself a larger one at the time. It was for my soup - cream of parsnip and tarragon, we have it at Christmas time normally, it was actually a little weird making, smelling and tasting it in summer. My winning jam was the rhubarb and vanilla made just a couple of days earlier.  

Some of my winning tickets, some were lost in the haste of clearing up.

Right! Here are the photos I decided to enter in the end. I changed my mind about two of the landscape ones once I saw them in print and used a different two instead. The results... the mouse won 1st prize and the cow won 2nd. 

I also entered two craft items, unfortunately they're both in the same catergory - "any other crafts" (must learn to knit/sew/embroider so I can enter the other craft categories too!). My needle-felted blackbird lavender pillow won 3rd. As far as I know my lovely, huge granny blanket which took a year to make won nothing. My name was out of the envelope and placed on top which suggests it may have got a commended or something, but there was no ticket when I collected it.

A new category for me - best wrapped parcel. I got 2nd place for this. 

And as today was the nursery garden party with home-baking stall, I was able to wrap up all the baking which hadn't been on display and donate it to a good cause. Should save my waistline a little, though I did keep the chocolate cake and fruit loaf, not to mention a few empire biscuits and some peppermint slices.

For my own benefit, here's a summary of this years entries and results...

Scones - 1st
Meringues - unplaced
Choc cake - unplaced
Tray bake (peppermint slice) - unplaced
Tablet - 1st
Muffins (banana) - 3rd
Empire biscuits - unplaced
Fruit loaf - unplaced
Jam - rhubarb & vanilla 1st, rhubarb & ginger highly commended
Jelly - mixed summer fruit 1st, bramble 3rd
Soup (parsnip & tarragon) - 1st
Wrapped parcel - 2nd
Other craft - bird 3rd, blanket ?
Photos (lanscape/flora) - unplaced
Photos (peaple/animals) - 1st & 2nd.

As far as I'm concerned, my scones & choc cake were the same as last year, but got opposite results! Last year choc cake got 1st & scones were unplaced.

I'm not going to do empire bicuits again. They take far too long to make and I never do well though I don't know why. I also find them a little too sweet now.


And, I didn't win the points trophy. I hadn't expected to, but it seems I was runner-up. A friend won - who'd been very coy about the fact she was after my cup! If I'd known I'd have stayed up later and entered a few more categories! I can't even hope for a re-match next year as she's hoping to move back down south soon - she's fed up with our weather, I wonder why!