An early morning departure and just over an hour’s flight later and with the show ground just a few minutes walk from Edinburgh Airport Arrivals we were eating a bacon sandwich and drinking a welcome coffee inside the ground just before 9am, in beautiful warm Scottish sunshine
A couple of years ago the BBC broadcast a series about the lives of a number of Highland farmers, from an ageing couple who had been crofters all their lives to a young couple just starting hill sheep farming to an enthusiastic pro who was building a prime herd of buffalo. We followed a small part of their lives through the seasons, gaining a flavour of these people’s tough outdoor lives and the implications for their families and some of the accompanying trades, the vets, shepherds and their dogs, the younger members of the ageing crofter families, the shopkeepers, butchers and market stall holders, et al. It was one of those gentle, multi-chapter series where we got to know the characters, the drivers of each family and their animals as they worked through autumn preparing for the coming winter, the harsh winter itself when the animals are brought into sheds so at least it’s not blowing a hoolie as it is out on the fells. Spring brings a long-overdue thaw and the first newborns then into summer when the animals are all outside and the scenery is wonderfully photogenic again. A summer highlight for many of the families was going down to the Highland Show in Edinburgh to enjoy a day or two off the farm and to show the best of their animals. Almost a whole episode was devoted to the show in a later programme and the judging outcomes for many of ‘our’ families. Medals won by their animals would help bring better prices for the stock when they were taken to market or stud auction.
So we booked a trip to Edinburgh to visit the show. Our return flight to Bristol the following day didn’t leave until nearly 8pm so we also had a welcome opportunity to explore central Edinburgh again too, a very lovely short break combined with the RHS. The weather was, as ever when we visit Scotland, warm and sunny with a gentle breeze, perfect for a day at the showground.
We’d chosen to visit on the first day, Thursday, because the cattle and sheep judging was on that day, the whole point of our visit. We left our overnight bag at the show’s Left Luggage then made our way across the showground to the judging areas. With so many classes and breeds judging was going to take much of the day. Each beast was led by a stockman/ stockgirl dressed in a sparkling white coat and armed with a short pointed pole they used to move the feet of their charges to present them at their best to the judge. After a very thorough review of each animal the judge would ask them to line up in a given order, give them another critical eye before finally approaching the winning animal and patting it on the rump, handing out the rosettes and smiling with the winners for the cameras. Then the next beasts would be led in for their turn. It was great to be so close to these wonderful great animals and they didn’t seem too startled to be the centre of attention.
The equestrian showground isn’t normally my cup of tea but a session of ladies riding their beautifully presented hunter horses sidesaddle and in full dress, i.e. long dresses, hats and face nets, was amazing.
There were country sport demonstrations like fly fishing, falconry, sheep dog demonstrations with ducks, working dog obstacle courses and dozens of country sport pop-up shops selling tweed, country coats, hats, sweat shirts and Aran jumpers.
There was a good crowd but not so many people that you couldn’t find a place at the rail to watch the goings-on. The many events were well organised with knowledgeable commentary over the tannoy and one of the show ring presenters was the only farmer we recognised from the tv series. There was coffee (some good, some awful), normal outdoor catering things to eat, various events throughout the day on the show ground, professional VIP areas for sponsor guests and breeder associations, it was a lovely day. Paula had picked up a few visit souvenirs en route and we caught a shuttle bus into the city and walked to our hotel opposite the Scott Memorial.
We had dinner at a restaurant near the castle walls, something we’d been looking forward to for months but we were disappointed, which was a great pity as we don’t think we’re that hard to please. Given we had booked our table nearly a year before we were clearly not favourite enough customers to be given a favourites table, the wine was memorable only because it was too expensive and our pre-dinner cocktails, curtain-raisers to the main event, were unremarkable which altogether put us into a rather harder-to-please mood than we should have been by the time the food came. The food which was actually very nice but they’d lost us by then. By way of example, I’ve forgotten what either of us ate, which is never a good sign.
