Well, as we left York at nine on the morning of Vale Wildlife’s open day it was sunny and gorgeous. By the time we hit the M1 it was positively hooching down with rain. And it didn’t stop. It was the kind of rain that reminded me of childhood camping holidays when mum and dad would wake us in the middle of the night and bundle us into the car in our sleeping bags while they battled to flatten the tent and brick it down to stop it being blown or washed away. My sunny mood started to evaporate and I thought that any minute we’d get a phone call to say that it was being called off.

As we got just past Birmingham by some miracle the sky ahead of us cleared and by the time we arrived at Vale in Beckford it was warm and beautiful. On a day that could have been seen as divine intervention it then stayed warm and clear until about an hour after the open day finished when the heavens opened once again. Quite amazing!

It was the 25th anniversary of the wildlife centre opening and I really wanted it to be a success for Caroline and Martin who have dedicated themselves to it for that time. I was there to judge the dog show which was great fun but always makes me feel so bad at the same time. When I was a little girl and we had our dog, Penny, there was a fun dog show at the local park and we went along. Penny was a scruffy mongrel but was the total centre of my life. I put her in for the class ‘the dog the judge would most like to take home’- and she came LAST! I was totally mortified. I think about this every single time I judge one of these days and over the years there have been many! On Vale’s open day, for example, two of the classes were ‘most handsome dog’ and ‘prettiest bitch’. Now I looked at all the entries for these two and of course all the dogs are beautiful in their own way and to each owner they are quite obviously the most beautiful dogs on the planet! It feels like every time I pick the top three it’s like saying all the others are awful. I feel terrible! So, in case anyone is looking at this and didn’t win a prize from me, I thought they were all gorgeous!

Anyway, what could have been a disastrous day turned out to be quite glorious and although the numbers might have been better had it not poured down in the morning hopefully some money was made. I know that Mark and I burned quite a bit of cash on my friend Julie’s tombola in the hopes of winning a stuffed Pooh bear for our imminent baby. Needless to say we kept losing and then a small boy won the Pooh, much to my horror. On a personal note I would like to say a very big thank you to his mum who clearly looked appalled at yet another large, stuffed toy to be added to the collection at home and persuaded him to swap Pooh for a large tin of sweets! After a few more fivers had disappeared into Vale’s tombola takings sure enough Pooh came home with us and now has pride of place in the nursery.

Well, enough of that. In the meantime I’m helping to organise our vet school reunion this year for the first time so have to go now to scan in as many embarrassing old photos as I can find on my dusty bookshelves.

Bye for now!

For more information or if you missed the open day but would like to donate to help the thousands of wild animals which Vale nurses and releases back to nature every year then you can visit vwr.org.uk.