Tradition

The old country shows still go on, though they are all smaller than they use to be. By 'country show' I mean the annual village show. It's all quite competitive, and involves a lot of judging. Locals bring their sheep, their cows, their dogs, their home grown flowers and vegetables, their home baking and flower arranging, their arts and crafts, all to be displayed, admired, and judged. There are demonstrations of wood carving, herding, archery, and all sorts of competitions. A tea tent and a beer tent at a suitable distance from each other. Sometimes there's fell racing. (Running up and down mountains.) And there's the weather.

Some of them are massive events, but the one we went to this weekend was a wee village show where Helen swept the board with the flower arranging once again. The field was on a high exposed moorland with the wind blowing a hooly, so that letting go of Tony's arm meant flying over the hills like Mary Poppins in wellies. But I kept the hair out of my eyes long enough to see what I really wanted to see, which was the dog classes.

It's not Crufts, you know. What I really wanted to see was the Dog With the Waggiest Tail. It was a hard call between the first and second places, and personally I thought the big happy black and tan mongrel should have won it. You could have tied a flag to that tail. I missed the judging for The Dog The Judge Would Most Like To take Home, but I'd already chosen my favourite - a gentle, smooth haired golden brown bitch with a tail that curled all the way round in a circle and met itself coming back. Then there were the terrier races.

What happens is that the terriers are all in boxes called 'traps' with fronts that lift up. There is a sort of fur thing on the end of a string for them to chase, and a man at the other end reeling it in. In case you're wondering, no, the dogs aren't hurt, traumatised or bullied into taking part. Have you ever tried to get the better of a terrier? They love it. We watched them going into the traps and I began to wonder.

That one, and that one, and that one, I thought - those are terriers all right. But that thing with the floppy ears? More spaniel than anything else. And the smooth coated thing with the rounded sort of face, that's never a terrier. Helen must have read my mind.

"The definition of a terrier," she said, "is anything with four legs and a tail that can fit into the box."

So that was all right. In fact, as soon as the traps were opened you could tell which ones were the terriers. They were the ones that flew down that track leaving scorch marks behind them and mowed down the judge. Of the others, one was doing all right until he saw his mum in the crowd, changed his mind and went to say hello. The other one ran round the trap and proceeded in the wrong direction.

And a good time was had by all.