A couple of weeks ago it was the time for the annual shows. |The amount of rain this year meant that the fields were very sodden still and several of these shows had been cancelled including the Vintage car show which was a real shame as I had never seen this before and was looking forward to seeing the considerable number of vintage cars collected by the islanders.

Despite this, the Dounby show and the main County Show were still held, both of which we attended. I helped out setting up and taking down the John Rae Society stall at the Dounby show. This show is smaller than the County show in Kirkwall a couple of days later, but is considered a more friendly and relaxed affair. We certainly had a great afternoon wandering around chatting to the many people we have begun to know. Most of the stalls were either run by the charities or local organisations or had an agricultural theme to them. In the Main ring there were various exhibitions and around the fields there were the usual areas for judging the livestock.

On the Saturday after the Dounby show we took the park and ride to the County Show in Kirkwall. This is the main show for the island and is quite a big affair. We treated ourselves to a couple of Buffalo burgers ( Indian Water Buffalo living on Orkney ) and wandered around. I had a long chat on one stall about their fibre glass boats that looked just right for the loch! As we were about to leave one of the mini buses taking people to and from the show got well and truly stuck up to its axles trying to leave the showground. Even the tractor had trouble getting it out! Elsewhere the fairground and the beer tent were doing great business, in fact one of our builders sent his apologies on Monday as he was still suffering from the effect of the County Show!