My phone rang. ‘Where are you?’ said my pal The Poet.

‘I’m about fifty metres inside the gate,’ I said. ‘Near where the Vikings are shaking their axes in the air.’

‘Ach, that’s no help,’ he said, ‘they’re doing that all over the showpark.’

‘Well, where are you?’ I said, flinching slightly as an axe whizzed through the air near my right lug.

‘I’m down at the dog judging,’ he said. ‘We just won the rosette for Best Toy Dog.’

‘Toy dog? Where did you get it? Grooves?’

‘It’s a category for small breeds,’ he said. ‘Serious business. Our chihuahua, Brandy Tinkerbell, won in the end. But there was stiff competition from a two-year-old Bichon Frisé called Fist of Tyson.’

‘Sounds amazing,’ I said. ‘I’ll head your way.’

I struck off across the showpark. Progress was slow, it was so crowded. At one point I thought I’d run into the world’s longest conga line, but it turned out to be the queue for the steak roll van.

My next obstacle was an ample figure in a Barbour jacket, standing in the middle of the aisle, hand deep in a big bag of pink candyfloss.

‘Sandy Swadge!’ I cried. ‘Haven’t seen you in the shop for ages, beuy.’

He frowned. ‘Councillor Swadge to you,’ he said.

I started to laugh, then realised he wasn’t joking, so turned it into a gasp of congratulations. ‘How could I forget? That was a decisive result you got back in the elections.’

‘It didn’t hurt that my opponent went down with Covid a month before the election,’ he said. ‘That did limit their ability to go door to door.’

‘So how come you never come through our door anymore?’ I said.

‘Now that I’m an elected representative,’ he said, and puffed his chest out a bit, ‘a leader of the people, I must go where the people go. Which is not your emporium but supermarket alley. I stand by the ready meals and eavesdrop on the passers-by. How can I lead the people of Orkney if I don’t know what they want?’

‘And what do they want?’

‘Lasagne mostly, though shepherd’s pie is popular amongst older voters.’

Over to my left there was a loud oohing and aahing. I took my chance and rushed in the direction of the commotion, which turned out to be around the cattle pens.

I wove my way through the crowd till I was up against the railings. In the middle of the pen was an enormous brown bull the size of family-of-four campervan. Its head was down and its tail was twitching. Its front hooves scraped the ground, and its nostrils flared as it confronted a tiny chihuahua, nose to nose.

‘Brandy! For god’s sake, Brandy!’ a voice shouted.

‘Get that man a drink,’ someone in the crowd called out, and there was laughter.

A tall figure pushed in beside me. It was The Poet.

‘Brandy!’ he shouted, ‘Come HERE!’

The wee dog gave a growl but didn’t budge, staring up into the big bull’s bloodshot eyes.

‘That’s my dog,’ cried The Poet.

‘That’s my bull,’ shouted a red-faced man in a white coat. ‘And he’s up for best in yard. If your tyke gives him so much as a scratch…’

At that point two things happened: the PA crackled into life and the shadow of a mighty bird swept over the bull pen.

‘In all my years of falconry,’ squawked the voice on the PA, ‘I have never trained a more vicious killer than the Mexican Dog Harrier.’

The bull raised its mighty snout skywards, trumpeted in alarm, and retreated in haste to the corner of its pen. Brandy Tinkerbell gave a yap of triumph, and trotted over towards The Poet, tiny nose in the air, the ribbons of its red rosette fluttering in the Bignold Park breeze.

*As always, poetry was a popular category at the County Show.*

Apologies: the bull was too big to fit into one photo. In fact I had to miss out the start and finish of it to get it into two!

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 17th August 2022. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.

Diary of a Shopkeeper, 14th August