The Game Fair

For the past few years we have been regular visitors to the annual Game Fair.

Last year it was held on the Blenheim Estate, and we had a pleasant enough day there, despite the fact that their traffic management, signage and general organisation was piss poor!

One highlight of last year's visit was the encounter with a small scale wine merchant. They dragged us in to their stall and asked about our tastes in wine. I sampled the best red* I have ever drunk, and promptly ordered a case of twelve. From that point on the relationship was established and I have a lot more good wine in the house and a lot less money in my bank account.

The merchant in question would be present at this year's Game Fair, which was being held on the Ragley Estate; a few miles down the road from home. We, therefore, decided that a tasting session would be one of the main reasons for attending the show.

After attending several, we have decided to give future Game Fairs a miss. It is very much a case of a "been there, done that, got the shooting jacket" event ... They are all very similar. Another reason for this year's attendance was as a training session for Wilson; to see how he performed on the lead with lots of people, strange noises and countless other dogs.

So, let's get back to the narrative. 

We arrived at Ragley around ten o'clock this morning and were soon wandering amongst the stalls and exhibits. Wilson was performing reasonably well, although we still need to curb his tendency to pull on his lead. 

We eventually spotted the wine merchants stand, wandered in and introduced ourselves.  Their sales approach is very much based on relationship management and we were welcomed in like old friends. A long sampling session followed, and we ended up ordering a couple of mixed cases.

By now the day was becoming very warm, and the dogs refused to drink from any of the water bowls present in front of the stands. We decided that we would lunch and then head home. The obligatory pies and ice creams were consumed, before we endured the four mile run back home.

On interesting point about today's event was that it we learnt that the Organisers had deployed signal blockers. This meant that they could charge the exhibitors an exorbitant fee for the Wifi service! One benefit of this was that we were unable to link up with Bubbles and Bobyn ... Bobyn is most definitely not a people person!**

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* a 2020 Governo

* She can be bloody hard work, and we really didn't want to spend the day in the company of a woman who is generally monosyllabic, yet bloody arrogant at the same time.