Lawrence of Arabia

It was my dad's all time favourite film and I just love that music ...  Main difference was the weather.  Arabia - hot and sunny.  Rolvenden - howling wind and pelting rain.

Julie and I donned our wellies and waterproofs and set off for our Camel Race Day last Sunday afternoon.  My emergency glamour rain poncho was brought into operation (a gift from our last student Jo) and it did actually keep the rain off!

Having tied the gazebo firmly to the van to stop it taking off, we then set up our stall in the hope that someone may venture out in the thunderstorm and want to buy some cheese. 

 

And they did ...  Amazingly enough, there was a pretty good turn-out despite the horrendous weather.  Judge the weather by the number of umbrellas!  Even the dogs had coats on ..

The Mongolian wrestlers drew quite a crowd.  Brave men in that weather!!

But the highlight of the afternoon was obviously the camels.  Five of them travelled from Warwickshire to be with us.  Absolutely gorgeous!  Great big eyes and lovely faces.  I love camels!

They were all dressed up in their colourful halters and saddles and then the riders arrived - they too were all dressed up in flowing robes and scarves.  A lovely colourful sight on a rain-soaked and dreary afternoon! 

The racing was hilarious and I don't know how the riders managed to hang on!  One of the young camels was particularly stroppy and excitable but she won her races easily.  I did take a quick video on my phone - not fab quality but you get some idea of the speed of these things!

And then, for me, the highlight of the day.  Camel rides!!  Hurrah ....  Most people made a beeline for the car park to get out of the weather so that meant that there wasn't much of a queue for the camels.  Julie grabbed my camera and took some pics of me on my lovely boy Kazak:

It was a great afternoon despite the weather!  Raised some money for the Wild Camel Foundation, rode a camel and even sold a bit of cheese.  Can't be bad.