The Dog Trials

Crack of dawn Saturday. A line of smoothcoated border collies along the fence. Advanced panic driving me on as I take the ute down to the Rec Ground shed to set up for the morning of the dog trials. So panicked, I am there half an hour early as I can not settle to read my book.

Urn on? check. Table cloths in place? check. Crockery set up? Check. tea and coffee, milk, sugar? Check. Cups? Check. then the ladies descended and started to play games.

How many sandwiches jo? Well you ladies have been doing this a lot longer than me, what do you think? Well you are in charge, how many are we expecting? Well, 20 they said, so I thought two loaves of bread, since we have savoury scones and x's rock cakes to go with them... NO, we usually have at least 4 loaves of bread and ... and so the it went on all day. Surprisingly, we ended the day without tears, and all the punters were happy, as you can see:

Our former organiser had been ferried out from her nursing home to take money for us and so was ensconced on pride of place to do just that. Apparently she had such a good day she was blithely unconcerned that her blood sugars were rather too high!!

That night they fended for themselves, but as I had their icecream in my freezer they called up to get that. Then they panicked as they had insufficient bowls for their dessert so I sent some of mine down, and then they called back up to tell me we were only expecting five for lunch on day two. This was a rather nasty shock as we had catered for 20, but I gritted my teeth and was pleasant and said in a fairly pointed jest that we probably needed to work out a way of getting firmer figures next year.

Next morning the dog population was significantly reduced as so many had been eliminated in the trials the previous day.

so I got in very early and made up the sandwiches (to avoid squabbles about how many we needed - no more sandwiches if there is no more bread, I thinks to myself), and even had the morning tea biscuits and slices arranged before the ladies arrived. They were a little miffed so I soothed their souls with cups of tea and leftovers and then the flood arrived. Not five. But 12 people paying up front for lunch. And the panic set in. I had to exercise considerable tact to avoid them rushing, lemming-like into Oatlands for more food.

I presented them with the second egg and bacon pie. And the bucket of icecream to supplement the fruitsalad and cream. And the frozen berries to make a second choice. And the (well, you can imagine - thank heaven for stockpiling is all I can say).

The end result was happy punters, fairly happy commmitee, and very happy president and Treasurer as we are now $640.00 richer! And the local IGA which supplied some of the food for free has had a free plug on local radio to thank them for their generosity (I cornered the local reporter when he came out to talk to the organiser of the dog trials).

So hopefully, the committee will also be thrilled, and our creditors as well, as we should be able to clear all our debts apart from a moral debt to the former organiser who had been paying a fairly hefty amount out of her own pocket in some of the previous years efforts ...