Llangollen 2011

Well I've finally dipped my toe in and exhibited at my first ever National and what a fabulous weekend me and Leesa had. Setting off at half past midnight early Saturday morning I got to our hotel in Chirk just before three and installed Leesa at the hotel before setting off for the Royal Pavillion in Llangollen to stage my 7 exhibits. Believe me there's no more magical place than a hushed National venue at 4 in the morning. Virtually every exhibit is covered with sheets of paper or dampened towels until just before judging.

As for me I did brilliantly, all of my entries coming in equal 6th! This National was all about fulfilling a dream and actually getting some stuff on the benches to compare my stuff against the best to see how far I have to progress. And in truth it aint that far, my stump carrots in particular being unlucky not to get a ticket......not my words but those of Ian Stocks (this year's champion) and Medwyn Williams. As you can see it was a widely contested class. My set is nearest camera.

Another class I was keen to get an entry in was the 3 sets of two 20 pointer veg class, as I felt this was a good class to be able to compare my long roots without wasting too many. I scored 15 out of 20 for carrots and 13 for parsnips, coming 11th out of 20 entries which I was pretty chuffed about. With a total of 40 out of 60 I was only 8 points behind the winner.

There were some new names among the tickets, perhaps signifying a changing of the guard as the likes of Jim Thompson, Trevor Last and John Branham all failed to get a red card to their names. Star of the show for me however, was fellow blogger Owain Roberts who managed to beat Sherie Plumb in the coloured potato class with these Kestrel. An amazing achievement in his first National, and he also won the Banksian medal for most prize money.

I managed to bench spuds in three of the four classes and was pretty happy that they didn't look out of their depth. Skin finish was pretty good, I just need to get better size and uniformity now.

The rest of the weekend became a huge social event and I appear to have been adopted as a mascot for pisstaking by my Scottish, Welsh and Cumbrian chums. After dinner last night Medwyn banged the table and called for order as he had a 'special award' to make to an NVS member. Soon turned out that I was the member in question, as I was presented with this wooden spoon for spectacular failure, my big gob over the last few years putting me in the firing line for several minutes of seat squirming embarrassment. I f****** loved it and I shall treasure it forever. But they better watch their sodding backs from now on! Bastards!

Next stops for me are a couple of local shows for the next two weekends and speaking with Ian Simpson last night he is as passionate as I am about keeping your local village shows alive as they are the life blood of the bigger shows and where we all learn our trade. So congratulations today to Helen Vincent from daaan saaaf who won best in show with some excellent celery at her first attempt. Well done Helen.....National at Malvern next year? I'm sure you'd be invited into the 'Wee Jimmy's tour crowd' (you had to be there to understand what that means!).











And last but certainly not least, happy 24th anniversary today to my wife Leesa who wasn't in the slightest looking forward to this weekend as she feared I would be lost in veg talk with my fellow exhibitors, but thanks to the WAGS is now seriously looking forward to future Nationals, and especially Dundee 2015!

Here's to us!