Yesterday I went to the Chatsworth Country Fair. It’s a three day event on the Chatsworth estate. (So it’s on today and tomorrow if you feel inclined!) It’s a massive fair with shops, rides, dog racing, horse and carriage racing and aeroplane acrobatics. In short, it’s awesome.

Carriage Racing Horse on a time out

I was surprised at the amount of shopping you can do there – you can probably kit out an entire house. Clothes, food, furniture, garden equipment and, if you are into it, taxidermy.

The highlight was the terrier racing. Basically, everyone who has a dog has the opportunity to let their dog chase a fake rabbit across an arena. It was hysterically funny. And the dogs were too wonderful (although quite a few missed the whole ‘chase rabbit across arena in a straight-ish line’ bit and simply ran around for a while).

Jack Russell’s and a Westie

Retrievers

All the dogs

There was also loads of food for sale – various producers from Derbyshire and the neighbouring counties were there. We bought things for a picnic because we headed to Hardwick Hall afterwards to watch War Horse at an outdoor screening. In typical English style it rained/drizzled for most of the evening so our picnic was rather damp! It was still endlessly amusing. When else am I going to do this sort of thing after all?

Chatsworth House

Outdoor movie screening at Hardwick Hall