Set-up Day 1

Preliminary vetting in front of Badminton House

With Badminton being on different days this year (starting on Friday 30th and finishing on Monday 3rd May) its taken us a few months to get our heads round the logistics however we arrived, in convoy, on the Tuesday evening , parked the truck up behind our stand and drove into Tetbury to find 1 Blackhorse Hill, which was to be our 'home' for the week.  Access to the cottage proved very tricky with the van, an impossibly narrow lane down a steep hill which we managed by folding back the wing mirrors!  The cottage proved to be very comfortable, our hostess, Ros Porter, very welcoming, and once we'd had something to eat we went out to have a wander round Tetbury ending up having a late night drink the Snooty Fox pub.

View from the terrace of No 1 Blackhorse Hill

Wednesday morning found us (us being myself, Heather Giles, Clare Laurence, and Martin Brooks) back at Badminton waitng for the arrival of a colleague, Stacy, who was driving up to help us set up.  Set-up went well, the weather was dry, things were reasonably quiet, and with the truck behind the stand the endless journeys back and forth with stand material and stock with are a feature of other shows were thankfully absent.  By the end of the day we were well on way to having the stand built with just the stock to bring on.  Badminton is Clare's first show as she has only been with us for a month and she was relieved to discover that we didn't have to remove the stock every evening, which is what she'd imagined having to do!.

i'm sure this goes somewhere.....!

who needs an electrician!

Setup Day 2

Thursday was fairly relaxed as we just had to unload product and 'pretty up' the stand, although being Thursday it felt a bit odd not to be open and selling!  We were finished by mid-afternoon so we decided to walk the course, although it was a bit confusing as there was the Grassroots Championship course to walk as well.  Any confusion as to which course was which ended when we looked at the size of the obstacles!

it was this big!

We walked round the rest of the 'proper' Badminton course which was enormous and with the prospect of rain for cross country day we reckoned it was going to be a serious challenge!

just call me Brian!

We finished our walk of the cross country and then stood watching some of the riders working in their horses, always a fascinating exercise, then we headed off to the car and home to Tetbury to have some supper and prepare ourselves for the first day of Badminton.