Lingfield Country Show 2008

So a bit of an update on the weekend, which we spent extremely pleasantly camping and exhibiting at the Lingfield country show (which is actually situated up the road on the A22 just outside Blindley Heath, not in Lingfield itself)...Flyingpops packed up Colin the Camper during the preceeding week with her collection and all the various bits and bobs we were going to need to go with it so on Friday night the plan was that we both get on an early train out of London and set straight off, however (as with all the best laid plans), things didn't go 100% smoothly...I managed to get out of the office okay, but when I got down to the Jubilee line it was absolutely *rammed* with people, I ended up having to go the wrong way one stop (from Canary Wharf to North Greenwich) as two trains came and went completely packed full of people and no-one was getting on...this, while being much quicker than waiting in the queue, did still delay me by about ten minutes, meaning I missed the train out of London Bridge that I had been planning on catching...Flyingpops was rather miffed as that one slip would mean about an hour's delay changing at East Croydon (and by this stage she was already sat impatiently at Redhill in Colin the Camper with the engine running, and now in a big huff)...Anyway, we changed the plan slightly, and met up at Oxted (which was actually only about 10 minutes up the road from our destination, and only about 20 minutes away for both of us by respective modes of transport)...finally pulling onto site (and started getting set up) just past seven, so not actually all that bad - From London to dusk in a Surrey field in an hour and a half... ;)

Once everything was ship-shape, Flyingpops made a spot of supper (cheese and onion toastie in our amazing new double skillet - which basically mimics an oven, but can sit on top of the camp cooker - apparently Flyingpops mum managed to do a full roast beef and roast potato dinner on the day before we arrived - which is simply staggering, but that's another story)...Anyway, that night we decided (after a few drinks with R&A at their tent) to take a bit of a walk around some of the stalls (not many were open though) -

- and the fun fair (which was completely open) -





- and then collapsed into exhausted sleep...next morning Flyingpops put the finishing touches to her display -


- in sporadic rain, and then we went to watch Alan take his Scammell around the arena (in our waterproof clothing)...

My folks arrived mid-morning bringing some better weather with them and we spent a very pleasant time nosing around all the stalls -






- (very nearly being temped enough to buy a gosling to fatten up for Christmas, but I think the cats that live next door would have made short work of it) -

- and then feasted on traditional German sausages for lunch -

- that evening we spent up at the beer tent with the other exhibitors and traders (and a lot of LED-covered GMC Vans which I singularly failed to take a decent picture of, lacking a tripod)...I was actually a bit of a lightweight, calling it a night comparatively early...

Next morning I had the pleasure of joining Uncle Alan in his Scammell for it's trip around the arena -

- thankfully I was (as a result) under cover for the only real rain of the whole weekend -



- we packed up with everything dry (thank goodness) and made it home early enough for evening baths to wash away the country before coming back into town for the week... ;)

Next show is in about 3 weeks time... ;)