Black Welsh Show and Sale 4 September 2008

In the pens ready to be judged.



Ted Williams with his ewe entry.

Julia Patterson with her ram.

Judge Matthew Evans checking the turn of a ram's horns.

Adult Ram class



E.O Williams with his ram
Another nice older ram.
And another.
And a very nice boy with wide spread horns.

Checking the shoulders.

Checking the back and loin area. This is the shearling ram class.

Ram lamb class.

Judging Will Workman's ram lamb.

More ram lambs.

And still more ram lambs.
From right to left Chris Garn, Patricia Laws, Will Workman, E.O Williams and then I am not sure who the next handlers are as I got pictures of the sheep not the people.


The top three, first place winners in each class. From front to back. Julia Patterson with her winner adult ram. Patricia Laws with her shearling ram winner and E.O. Williams with his winning ram lamb.

The breed Champion Patricia Laws and her ram Hounsley Joker sired by Abbotstone Colin. Sold for 440 guineas.

Reserve is E.O Williams with his ram lamb Wenallt Kenchester sired by Wenallt Endevour. Sold for 390 guineas.

Pen of ewes before the auction.

Rams before the auction.

Pen of ewes being sold in the auction.

The auction ring.

Will Workman's ewes he bought at the auction. I had to find the best head out of this batch as part of my judges training.


Driving with Melinda Baker and her husband to Somerset where I was staying for the next few dys.


White horse on chalk hills.

View into Melinda's ram pasture out the window of my room.

Abergavenny 3 September 2008

This is the Park Guest House the B&B where I stayed in Abergavenny.


I took the first day there to recover and spent all of 4 September walking around Abergavenny and doing tourist stuff. First stop was of course the castle.






The ladies at the castle museum sent me on to the St. Mary's Priory Church to view the recently completed Abergavenny tapestry.



This tapestry is huge and there is no way to take a picture of the entire thing from one spot.


They used many different wools to create the picture. It depicts Abergavenny from dawn to dusk with highlights of the history for the past 1000 years. The tapestry took over 20,000 hours of work and nearly fours years of tim with morning and afternoon shifts working on the pieces.



While there one of the women who worked on the tapestry was kind enough to pose for me in front of the section she worked on. She put in one black sheep in the flock of sheep and was allowed to keep it there.



Over 400 shades of wool were use to make the color changes.



I learned what every tourist has learned. it is almost impossible to get good pictures of stained glass windows with hand held cameras but I tried anyway. This was a very nice one in the main hall of the church.



I was particularly interested in the various effigy carvings. This group of pictures is of the tomb of Sir Richard Herbert of Ewyas who died 1510.









There were several other tombs and carvings but many were hard to photograph.

I left the Priory and walked around Abergavenny. One place I stopped was this butcher's shop. This is the Rawlings Family Butchers and the proud proprietor is Mr. Paul Bishop. He is a champion sausage maker and while I had no way to cook any of his lovely sausages I did enjoy talking to him and seeing all his sausage trophies. He directed me to a nice place for a late lunch and I then headed back to Park House for a bit of a rest.



No places were open for dinner so I found a quick fish and chips place and ate in my room. Tomorrow is the big Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Show and Sale.