Luckily sometimes positive follows negative too. Today was very positive.

I decided to get a hair cut and then visit the goats for the first time since the eye surgery. And it so happened that today was the annual animal show at the playground. What wonderful timing. So I spent the better part of the day having fun with animals and kids. If that doesn’t put a smile on your face then you must be Mr Grumpy of Grumpydown Vale.

I also managed to walk around the playground, and all the way home afterwards, without my cane. So that was good too. I could see enough to walk safely. And I could see more of the animals than I have previously been able to.

And I was very happy to see that Hans and Grethe were still there. Beautiful and funny and so big now. They were even wearing collars. I don’t know if that’s because they have gotten so big or if it was for the animal show. As always some of the kids had to present the goats, so they had to be on a leash. With much struggling and baahing and running around as a consequence.

It was good fun, but to be honest I felt a little bad for the goats. They were a bit stressed by the whole thing. I don’t think it would be nice for them if this happened every day. And since there are no sheep at the playground at the moment, Magnethe had to do the “poop lottery”. It’s not very dignified to be followed around by a group of kids who are cheering for you to poop in the numbered slots on the ground that correspond to their lottery tickets. But when that was all over and the kids moved on to the horses I did see Magnethe looking at them all and baahing like she wanted more attention.

It was really nice to spend so much time with the goats. And the humans too. I got to see some kids I hadn’t seen in a long time. Like Santana, who used to help me sometimes when I fed the animals in the weekends. He’s a good kid, and seemed happy to see me too. And there were some nice girls who had to show off Hans and Grethe, so they came and spent time with me and the goats and I helped them out as much as I could. They asked me about my eyesight and I explained about my diabetes. One of them said “Why did you eat sugar? If you went back in time you should make sure not to eat any sugar”. And I agreed that I would definitely not eat sugar if I went back in time. Another one of them told me that her dad had diabetes too, but that he wasn’t blind. Later on, when the show itself had started, I was filming with my camera and a boy came up and asked me if I was a “producer”. Why not? I deserve a fancy title.

The show itself just consisted of the kids showing off the animals. I think there were quite a bit fewer people there than there has been the previous years. But it was good fun nonetheless. The judge went around and looked at everything and asked questions like “you aren’t afraid of the horses?” and “are the goats naughty or nice?” and gave the kids lots of opportunities to talk about the animals. The horses were pulled and ridden around the little stage arena. The goats just stood and ate grass for the most part when it was their turn. Grethe did some tricks too. And by tricks, I mean that Sara, the girl who was handling Grethe, lifted her up so she was standing on her hind legs for 20 seconds. They also tried to get her to baah, but Grethe decided to stay silent while the judge was there. It’s never easy to get goats to do what you want them to do. I remember years ago, when I got the job of showing off Magnethe at that year’s show. I was supposed to walk her around the arena, but I ended up picking her up and carrying her around instead.

I still got a gold medal, though.

I mean… Magnethe got a gold medal. Yes.

But it was a good day. So nice to see the goats again, and have fun with everyone. Got much praise for my handling of goats. The weather could have been better, though. Cloudy and windy most of the time. A little rain and a little sun. But good thing it didn’t rain any more than it did, that might have stopped the fun.

I will put up some videos of course, once I have them edited down to a suitable size. I am producer, cameraman and editor all in one.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 21:53 and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.