Mud mud glorious mud ...

Good evening dear readers ... Another stunning week for weather.  And boy has it rained!  Came down in sheets.  All over the Kent Showground in time for the County Show.  What a mudbath that turned out to be!!

The car parks turned out to be the main problem for everyone as the fields got churned up and cars couldn't get in or out without the help of tractors.  Then the car parks were closed to the public .. who stayed away from the showground .. and all the traders got quite upset as there weren't many people around.  The livestock areas weren't too bad but the Young Farmers were up to their eyeballs in a bog.  But everyone was in pretty good spirits and we managed to sell some cheese as well!

This morning I decided to go in the truck so that I had half a chance of getting in and out without the aid of a man in a tractor.  Good move I thought.  But the parking stewards had decided that all 4x4 vehicles are good in mud and were happily directing everyone who looked they had the remotest bit of grip into a nice wet field the other side of a swamp.  Made it interesting to try and walk back through the swamp to get into the showground on foot ... Here's a piccie of my wellies:

I have lived in my wellies all weekend.  I feel that an apron and wellies is always a good look when selling cheese to the public:

And I did my cooking demo in wellies as well.  Fab ...  The demo actually went rather well I thought and I was quite pleased with my efforts at 'doing interesting things with goat's cheese'.  Quite a few people sat and listened all the way through and everyone loved tasting the dishes at the end.  Lemony leek goat's cheese tart, crostini with tomato cheese and basil, meringue with mango and lime coulis and goat curd ... yum ..

Our stand was next to Karen of Kingcott Cheese who make the wonderful Kentish Blue.  Karen and Steve are dairy farmers and also took the opportunity to try and get some publicity for the 'fair price for milk' campaign that is in the headlines at the moment:

The cattle farmers will all be very hard hit by this latest drop in milk price and we all need to support the campaign.

We stayed pretty mud free behind our stand but the entrance to the marquee and the area immediately in front of us was pretty bad for most of the weekend:

Most people had the sense to wear boots or wellies but, during the quieter moments, Karen and I were having fun spotting people in unsuitable footwear.  I think I won the prize for spotting a young lady in a pair of white (yes, white) espadrilles.  Good choice ....

Just a couple of stalls along from us, the Chilli Pot were getting into the swing of things with ridiculous hats ...

Whilst Gadds Brewery and some of the cider makers were just taking it easy:

So that's that for another year!  And most of us are stupid enough to be doing it all again next weekend at the Whitstable Oyster Festival!  But at least that's all on concrete and not in the middle of a field ..