Yesterday was the highlight of the Islay social calendar, the Islay, Jura and Colonsay Agricultural Association's 168th Annual Show, a kind of unofficial public holiday here on the island and traditionally the end of the summer.
The show is a coming together of farmers, crofters, local businesses, artists, vegetable growers and erm, trapeze artists in a celebration of island culture that mainly manifests itself through the medium of watching cows walk around in a circle. For those that aren't fussed about that, there are dogs and ponies that walk and sometimes run around in a circle too, so something for everyone.
Anyway, the weather was good to us again this year, and everyone had a smile on their face. Plenty of folks came to see us in our tent, and make badges and masks and feed the owl and fly the hen harrier whilst all the while the boys from the farm teams at Loch Gruinart and The Oa were doing us proud in the show ring. I lost count of how many trophies went our way, but we'll put the details up next week.
Here's some pictures from the day.
Mary, Emily, Roisin and Remi hard at work getting the tent set up before the masses arrive. Elton appears to be hard at work getting something else up, but that may be a trick of the camera.
One of our sturdy beasts from Gruinart farm takes a calf for a walk.
Team Oa got held up and had to come straight from the laboratory.