Both my grandparents are buried in Knighton churchyard and my mother was born there so the connection to the town in quite strong. My sister and I decided to take part in the summer show and submit some exhibits into the competition.
She put in crafts and photography and I put in photos and baking. I had already had some success at village shows in the baking categories so I was confident. In addition, I had also been practicing the tray bakes for a couple of weeks.
On the day we got there at about 9:00 and joined a crowd of other exhibitors laying out giants leeks, plates of pansies, cross-stitch pictures, sponge cakes and giant nettles with enormous roots (longest nettle competition for children).
I had entered into the miniature flower arrangement class and had stopped en route to the show on top of the mountain in Dolfor to pick heather and other little flowers and berries. Consequently at the show, I had to spend 15 minutes trying to make hedgerow plants into an award-winning floral display. It didn’t win. Actually it got nothing and looked very shabby next to the carefully arranged garden flower which stood next to mine.
Next the photographs were blu-tacked onto boards in the corridor by the stewards. Mine looked unimpressive and I did not have high hopes for them. However, I did have high hopes for my bakes, especially for my millionaire’s shortbread which I was very proud of. It looked fantastic and I had bought a special decorative long plate (from a charity shop) to display it.
My sister entered a lot of craft classes and mum had entered the ‘write the national anthem’ in nice handwriting. After laying out the exhibits we left the thronging masses into the peace of the car park.
We had to kill some time until the judging had been completed at 1:30pm and so we walked into town, up the hill and looked around some very dull shops. I bought a birthday card but only because I wanted to support the shop keeper!
We then went for a cup of coffee which came out of a machine and shared a cream cake. Then we couldn’t think of anything else to do to while away the time so we hopped back in the car and went to Presteigne. I had never been but it doesn’t a reputation for being a thriving place. When we got there we were really surprised to find the place buzzing.
We parked the car and as we walked along the two streets which form the town centre, we realised that we had chosen the one day of the year when the local artists had opened their doors to the public. There was a map to follow to visit all the artisans, the painters, potters, photographers, weavers etc.
We had a pleasant sandwich lunch sitting in the window of a cafe on the main street and calculated that if we were to set off back to Knighton we wold arrive just in time to see how our entries had done.
The sense of excitement in the room was palpable. We walked slowly up the rows passed the floral displays, the onions sitting in sand, the glossy tomatoes to be greeted by the amazing sight of one of our craft entries, a paper mache Welsh dresser, sitting in pride of place with a big red ;first’ sticker as well as a ‘President’s Choice’ sticker on it too, making it the best in the whole craft section.
There were also other glories, in photography, craft, and even mum’s beautiful writing got a first as well as an unexpected trophy we collected for her. Sadly my cakes did not feature in the baking section but anyway I was happy to take them home and give to friends and family. As we were leaving, one of the flower growers presented us with a huge amount of dahlias. They were magnificent and in return I wrapped up 6 pieces of my baking for him.
A town show is a really good and economic day out. It’s a pity it’s only once a year but it has given us a huge amount of fun preparing for it, practicing, planning what to make, edit, print. We already have a plan for how to walk away with some trophies next year now we have the measure of the show. Can’t wait!