Blog: Despite the drizzle and general weather despair, I went and flew the flag at the Llanfair Caereinion District Show recently and it reminded me just what’s so brilliant about our local shows – well it wouldn’t be a show without wellies and umbrellas, would it? writes Emma Suddaby.

Nowhere else in the world will you find a competition to create the best flower arrangement in a thimble, or the best milk pudding or find the dog with the waggiest tail.

Nowhere else could I justify a huge, creamy mug of hot chocolate accompanied by a double chocolate cup-cake, followed by a hot pork bap from the hog roast, chased down with a couple of hot doughnuts for good measure…

And it’s fantastic to see the diversity and rich kaleidoscope of local skills and crafts – to see revealed on this one day all the talented people normally hidden away in the hills, quietly making a living from their particular speciality.

Wales is already famous for handicrafts and I could have happily spent a fortune, had I access to one, on ear-rings and handbags, paintings and hats.

And the livestock . . . how wonderful to sit on a straw bale watching heavy horses, brass bedecked and plaited up, prancing with the agility of dancing ponies around the arena.

To see the brasses I’m more used to seeing hanging, lifeless and out of context along the ceiling beams of some country pub, suddenly brought to life buckled around the muscular neck of a shire horse.

But above all else, I most enjoy the bumbling, gloriously non-professional nature of our little shows which I found myself adding to by unwittingly causing temporary havoc in the dog show. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t quite manage the whole of my pork bap and found myself clutching the remains of it whilst keeping an eye out for a bin. But before I could find one, I stumbled across the dog show, in full swing and sat down at the edge of the ring to watch.

I thought the dogs a bit unruly – they kept trying to make a break for it halfway around the ring. “No discipline”, I thought smugly to myself, before realising with horror that it was the delicious aroma of roast pork wafting from my hand that was causing the canine consternation.

I beat a hasty retreat before accusations of sabotage started flying around.

The well-supported show reminds us all what is so great about living in the dirty, smelly countryside. It might be muddy and peppered with cow-pats, it may smell a little ripe at times but it’s OUR little piece of the world and the local show is our way of celebrating it.

Personally, I’m already working on an enormous carrot for the outsize vegetable class next year, but I think I’ll keep a thimble handy, just in case!