We recently responded to a post on the VW California Club forum asking for volunteers to act as marshals at the Relay for Life event in Bury St. Edmunds. We had never heard of Relay for Life but liked the sound of it and with the offer of free camping at a National Trust venue, decided to offer our services.

We headed off on Friday - I had an appointment with one of my customers in Bury St. Edmunds so Ian and the girls came with me!


Ruby took the opportunity to oversee proceedings from the MD's chair:

Meeting done, we went on to Ickworth House not really knowing what to expect but were astonished at how beautiful the venue was.  We were shown to the area to set up camp, right on the lawn outside the West Wing of the building with a view of the rotunda!  We met up with Graham and Alison who had also responded to the call for help and after setting up camp, James (the organiser) & Mandy came and joined us for a VW California mini-meet!

Relay for Life raises money for Cancer Research UK and is effectively a 21 hour sponsored relay race.  The teams started arriving on Saturday morning and sporting a rather fetching hi vis vest our marshalling duties commenced.  Things got underway at 12.00 and there was a full schedule of fun to keep everyone's spirits up including a warm up, disco, several fantastic live bands and themed laps.  We found ourselves with some spare time during the afternoon so we were able to take a good look around the main event and sit down with a glass of Pimms to listen to the music and also visit the gorgeous gardens.

Sadly the weather turned around 9pm which affected the Candle of Hope ceremony but the brave teams battled on and got through the night, finishing the final lap at 9am!

We were extremely lucky to have spent the weekend with such lovely people - I can't remember laughing that much for some time!  The event itself was inspiring and at times humbling.  If you would like to find out more about Relay for Life and maybe find a relay taking place in your local area, please visit their website:

http://relay.cancerresearchuk.org/site/PageNavigator/Home

And if you would like to find out more about Ickworth House, here is a link:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ickworth/

And finally, here are some pictures of our weekend:

We have really been enjoying the beautiful weather and have been getting lots of nice evening walks!

We really like going to the Edenbrook Country Park in Fleet as there are lakes and nice stream to cool off in! 

Heat is just one of the many dangers of the Summer months - one of the others is grass seeds.  They can very quickly embed themselves in a dogs skin and are often found in their ears.


Pepper loves to forage in the long grass so I have to de-seed her after every walk!

Here are a few more pictures of our recent walk:

We have just come back from our first ever camping agility weekend in Tubby - the Kelluki UKA show in Cranleigh.

Mandy and Karen were lucky enough to go on Thursday night and start their competition on Friday - Ian and I went and joined them on Friday night!  I was green with envy when I arrived and they announced that they had both had first places during the day and had been awarded their first trophies!  I was very pleased for them really, but I couldn't help wanting to be in the trophy club too!!

This was Ruby's first show since her injury so I wanted to use it as an opportunity to build her confidence and be happy in a show ring so I planned to run her 'not for competition' (NFC).  This meant that I could take her tug toy into the ring and reward her with some play after small sections of the course.  She seemed a little apprehensive at first, I even struggled to get her off the start line, and she stopped half way round one course!  But each time her confidence seemed to be building.

In the meantime Pepper was faithfully doing everything I asked of her and picked up a 2nd place in Steeplechase I and then got 1st place for Steeplechase II - our first trophy!  Yay!  She also had enough points to move from Beginner into Novice for the Steeplechase runs on Sunday.

Sunday was another fantastic day.  Pepper ran her little socks off in the two Novice Steeplechase runs picking up first place in both and finished the day with first place in Beginners Jumping. 

The final run of the day for Ruby was a Steeplechase so I decided to run it for competition to see what she did without the lure of her toy.  She was slower than usual, but I was delighted to get her round the course clear.  Better than that, she was announced as the winner of the class so took home her first ever 1st place rosette and trophy! 

I really couldn't be more proud of our two little Cockapoos!  Here they are with their collection of rosettes and trophies:

And here is Pepper's first run in the Novice Steeplechase:

I can't believe that my little girl is 3 today!

She has had a busy day opening presents, playing with her new toys and finishing off with our usual Thursday night agility training!

It is going to be Pepper's birthday in a months time so one of the presents was really a joint present between them,  In fact, Pepper seems to think that every present is for her and Ruby barely gets a chance to play with her new toys!

Ruby has grown into a gorgeous dog - I love her to bits and really can't imagine what I would do without her, or what my life was like before she came into it!

Here is a little photo diary of Ruby's 3rd birthday:

And a couple of videos that show just how much they like their new toys - you need your sound on to get the full picture!