The show was busy, with lots of stalls selling bits and bobs, junk (in my opinion) and "must haves" for the landie and related 4 x 4s. Was pleasantly surprised to find some fun activities for the kiddies and big kiddies at not hugely inflated "have a go" prices, like archery and crossbow, paintball and the brilliant Hydrosphere. Ben was seriously tempted by most of them (and Katie by the Hydrosphere) but he sadly stopped himself at the last minute. The day before we'd gone to a festival in Peterborough and he was determined to throw balls at unfairly weighted small milk cartons to try and win a large cow/hen/fox. He didn't manage it and neither did Paul, but the fact Ben had a go without a hint of shyness was a big bonus. With the activities at the Landie show, I knew not to push him, he would have got het up and tearful. He'll get there. I see the Hydrosphere is coming to a park near us for the school hols - perhaps Katie will have a go then.
The highlight of the Landie show was taking part in the Billing off-road course. We haven't done any off-roading in Elsie Mo for a very long time. Our last experiences were a little scary. Having got ourselves stuck in some serious mud in the woods we had to wait to be winched to dry land! Driving dead slow along a pot holed bank, squelching in thick mud up to my thighs and gingerly guiding Paul every inch of the way continues to haunt me. Visions of the Landie tipping over onto its side with my children in the back, luckily didn't come to fruition.
I was tempted to just watch this time, but Paul insisted I "face my demons". This time it was well organised with stewards at most awkward spots along the way. It took about 40 mins. to complete and seeing as how we'd had mega downpours on the Friday and the Sunday, it was well and truly slip-slidy by the time we reached it on Sunday afternoon. Good fun though and Katie was begging to find more off-road courses to try this summer.
The course started off pretty tame, and then we had the choice of easy or hard route. Paul, being Paul, took the hard route with steep mounds and sliding banks. At one point we thought we'd had it! Being a long-wheel base vehicle with no power steering we came a croppa having managed to reach the top of a steep muddy hill to find we didn't have the turning circle to get round to the next section. With a rather impatient and idiotic young chap on our tail in a Ford, Paul did fabulously not to slide back down into him. The stewards were able to move the guide posts so he could complete the section. After this we had mud runs and water runs and terrential rain too which all added to the fun of it. A couple of sections had such deep welded tracks that Elsie Mo took on quite a sideways position and we came away with lots of mud splashes and a slight dent on the side trim - a war wound of fun!
We stopped off for a delicious bowl of chilli at our friend's home in Northampton before reaching our home around 10:30 - a long, very tiring, but great fun day!
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