panik | The Penistone Show

is on today! Your one-stop shop for well-scrubbed pigs (maybe; not sure how the foot and mouth business has affected all that side of things), runaway dogs competing with small children on a sugar-high for most badly behaved in show; the scent of fried onions and candy-floss; vintage cars and face-painting; fudge stalls and baked potatoes; the Doctor Who travelling caravan display; the judging of home-baked pies, honey, jams and wines; enormous chrysanthemums and pert young carrots; WI Corruption in the cake-competition (my sister has never entered again; not since the Great Dali-cake outrage of 2004), corn-dollies, the carousel and the tunnel of goats...

Oh yes indeedy, tis that time of the year again! We were there early so my sister could enter her home-made wine; she cleans up most years, having taken the Big Silver 'You won more rosettes than anyone else here; Smug Git of the Show' cup two years running.

We met other victims of the Great Exhibit Theft of 2006 when setting out the displays this morning; a woman who lost an apple pie and a jar of lemon curd and a man who had a bottle of mead pinched; Hilary lost a bottle of damson wine. A filthy footpad made off with a ton of the exhibits after judging had closed - a large percentage of the first-prize edibles, in fact. This was Big Stuff for Penistone and made it on to the front page of the Chronicle. I'm amazed they didn't bring Special Branch in; amazed CCTV isn't installed this year. ::she smirked sarcastically::

Hoping the weather holds; 'tis very hot and humid, but clouding over ominously. I'm not going back till about 2pm when the horsey stuff comes to a close and the amateur dog shows begin. I may take pictures to ~~bore~~ dazzle you all with later.

ETA: We had a great time; ate fudge, took pix... Hilary's wine took 3 firsts, 2 seconds, a third, the trophy for best wine in show and, yup, the 'J.E. Depledge Perpetual Trophy' - again. ::Is looking forward to sampling some wine tonight::

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Oh, I haven't been to a County or State Fair in eons! Sounds like a blast!

I love agricultural shows! They're one of the things I miss since moving to a city. Yours sounds like a beauty.

Oh, I'd love pictures! Your description of this makes me green with envy.

And okay, what the *heck* is a 'tunnel of goats'? ::looks at you a little fearfully::

And WI Corruption; the Great Dali-cake outrage of 2004 -- you can't just leave that as a teaser...

"A woman who lost an apple pie and a jar of lemon curd..." -- I don't know why that tickles me so much -- I mean, the tragedy of it and all, I should be more respectful -- but somebody making off with a jar of lemon curd, well... (and I love lemon curd, that's not it, it's just, you know... oh forget it...:-)).

(Candy-floss is the same thing as cotton candy, right? And you have baked potatoes at a fair like this? Wow. I love the differences between what I grew up with at small-town and county fairs, and this. I really wish I could be there, soaking it all in...)

Have a wonderful time! I love a county fair and fair fare ; ) The saltier or sweeter and greasier the better! Oh! And our state fair has a carved butter exhibit! I wonder who will be immortalized (temporarily) in butter this year!

*twirls you*

Have a blast and eat something yummeh for me!

I have a deep, deep desire to know what a tunnel of goats is/looks like!

These shows always remind me of watching 'All Creatures Great and Small' and James Herriott as they don't seem to have changed at all - such a blast from the past!
And I'm in need of knowing about the goats too...
:oD

It is, a cheesy, cheesy blast. (o:

It's somewhere between a Village Garden fete and a really big show, like the Royal Yorkshire; big enough to keep you occupied all day, but not big enough to take seriously.

I have pix in abundance but no card reader; as soon as I can load them on the lappy, I'll spam y'all.

A tunnel of goats ::giggle: doesn't exist, at least, I hope it doesn't; it was one of the 'attractions' at the fair that came once a year to Craggy Island (if you've ever seen Father Ted?).

WI corruption... heh heh. My sister bakes *the* most amazing cakes; they truly have to be seen to be believed. Every year she'd enter - one year it was an amazing 'Jolson' cake - all black and white, with music and a Jazz Singer poster painted on it.,.. another year, she had a sugar Bugs Bunny, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, leaping out of the cake - never *ever* was her cake placed, instead the most dire, truly scary cakes would win. People walking past the exhibits used t stop and wonder on 'how did that cake not win first prize?' Hilary was told by another non-winner that the Women's Institute had it all 'stitched up'; that you had to be a member to get placed; outsider's need not apply. 3 years ago, she did the most fantastic cake; Dali's clocks, all melting off the cake and off the plate - it truly was a work of art. No prize; a hedgehog cake with chocolate buttons for spines won that year. That was the last time she entered. We've always found it hugely amusing; it became the highlight of our day to see what disaster in cake-form had taken the prize each year. I started writing a sitcom about it once; never finished it, alas.

Lemon curd? Nothing wrong with giggling at a jar of lemon curd; I find Damson cheese unbearably hilarious.

And candy floss = cotton candy, yup (though cotton candy sounds so much nicer). Baked potatoes are unusual? They're a bit of a mainstay at fairs here; baked potatoes, chips (fries), donuts and the beer tent.

Green with envy, huh? Hmmmm. Well, we always enjoy a good laugh, it's true; and the dogs; there are always lots of dogs. The dog show ring is always an object lesson in chaos theory. It usually ends up a something like a canine re-enactment of Lord of the Flies. Always my favourite part of the show. (o:

OMG! I have to see that. I *need* to see that!

::is eating maple-pecan fudge as I type::

Then you need to watch Father Ted, hon. I fear Craggy Island is the only place you'll ever see one, (o:

We were at the State fair last weekend. Ours is more famous for giant cabbages and rutabagas than scandal. Pix as soon as I snag the camera back from kids. They've been taking pictures of their henna tats for Myspace"gag"
Must hear about the Great Dali-cake outrage! Spill!

Alas the goats were from Father Ted; the fair that came to Craggy Island, with the Spider Baby. I would love to see the tunnel of goats too, alas Yorkshire is far too sensible to tolerate such a thing. Heck, we don't even have carved butter. ::is sad::

We have giant cabbages, too, and enormous marrows. Alas, there aren't that many exhibits; it's only a village show, nothing like a state fair, but always huge fun.

I gave the Dali-cake outrage tale in detail to T-Verano, above. (o:

Must go read Thank you!

Darn! I was hoping for photos of teetering towers of billy goats :~)

Sigh. I know. ::is sad::

Sounds a bit like aour county fairs, but we're in a dry county so no booze. If they did have a category for homemade beer , wine and moonshine, I know some folks hat would take the blue ribbons home. We have demolition derbies, too, where old cars crash noisly into each other.
Laurie

Dry...? No booze...? Cannot compute!

How can you live like that? (o: No demolition derbies here; Yorkshiremen are way too mean to deliberately crash a car.

I didn't say we didn't have booze. We have bootleggers, or people drive to a wet county and fetch it home, or make it themselves. For being a dry county we have a lot of drunks who live here.
and alas, it's all acadamic to me anymore. I have an ear disease that imitates the worst hangover you can imagine (or recall) and drinking alcohol can set an attack off. so I haven't had booze for about 6 years.::mourns for lost marguerita's and daqueries).
Laurie

Congratulations to your sister! And boo to last year's footpad - I hope he got indigestion.

Enjoy your wine though. :oD

It seems to me that dry places always do have the worst drunks (o: ::remembers the Sweden - Denmark ferries with a shudder of horror::

O am sorry about the ear disease; that sounds awful - is it labyrinthitis? I had that once; once was enough.

I've been drinking the only bottle that didn't get a prize - damson, elderberry and blackberry, and it's *wonderful*! Really, really good.

I'll pass on the congratulations. At the moment, she's mostly embarrassed at winning the cup again, and having to clean it for another 12 months.

It's called Meniere's disease. but I've only had one attack in the last year. (nine hours of having to lay flat on the couch and not move or the room would spin and vertigo is me). The years before that though, were not that much fun. I can take a medicine, mecclizine, if I feel an attack coming, and sometimes that averts it. Other time, not so much.
Laurie

The Penistone Show

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You have carved butter???

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