Sun, Sand and Mud!!

We've just had a very eventful weekend away in Lancashire attending Wigan show!

Ade and I booked a Hotel in Bury close to Ann's parents so we could meet up easily for Dinner each night.  The weekend started well as the Bolholt Country Park Hotel was lovely.  They promised that they were Dog friendly and proved that they were even letting the Dogs run off the lead in their beautifully manicured gardens and didn't bat an eyelid when Kiros and Reno found the rear entrance to the Kitchens.

We had a lovely meal at the Hotel on Friday night and I even had time to have breakfast before I made my way to the competition the next morning. 

I was aware that it had been raining during the night but wasn't quite prepared for what the venue was like. Even at 9am the rings were full of the slipperiest mud I've ever had to run on. 

My Asics Enduro's were totally inadequate for the conditions and I did a spot of "knee surfing" whilst attempting to run Reno (Ok I know I said I wasn't going to run him again but what can I say, I must be an addict!).  It was obviously a handling move that he wasn't used to so I totally confused him.  I also struggled to keep upright whilst running Kiros resulting in me getting him eliminated.

At least the weather treated us to this spectacular horizontal rainbow.  I haven't seen anything like it before.

For my last two runs I resorted to borrowing Ann's shoes that were 3 sizes bigger then my feet but at least I managed to stay upright.  Reno was a bit distracted so I ended up taking him out of the ring but Kiros his course beautifully only picking up 5f on the second from last pole.

At the beginning of this year I was sure that I would have to be thinking of retiring Kiros before now but he is still running so well, even getting two clears in the ABC Semi Finals the weekend before although not fast enough to qualify.  Over the winter I will be limiting his runs to Agility Nuts and other easier runs that I know we will enjoy together.

We decided that evening (over a nice Italian meal that took over 2hrs to get through two courses!) that we wouldn't go back to the competition on Sunday as we didn't want to risk the Dogs.  This turned out to be a wise move as the Show Committee took the correct decision to cancel the show.  Instead Ann and I took the Dogs for a walk along the Beach at Southport whilst Ade and Mark sampled the towns Pubs:)

Well Mud was obviously the theme for this weekend!  In order to actually get to the sand we had to wade through it ankle deep.  Still the Dogs had fun and slept well for the journey home.