Cake show and Pet show and Bartrams... oh my!

As Wheelz mentioned in her last post, we had a very busy weekend recently. Namely, the Cake International Show and the National Pet Show, both hosted at the NEC.

Cake International was my thing. In another life, I trained for three years in professional bakery, cake decoration and sugar flowers. So, once a year, I enter a competition at Cake International, in which I go head to head with hundreds of other incredible artists, to try and show off what we can do.
Last year, I entered the wedding cake competition, and came home with a certificate of merit.
This year, I thought I'd try my hand at a relatively new competition; fantasy flowers. I've had a love of sugar flowers since my very first lesson, and this felt like the right class for me. After all, my college lecturer was always telling me that my pieces were more fantasy than botanically correct.
So in August/September, I started work on my entry. On Friday morning, Wheelz very kindly got up at six am to drive me to the NEC so that I could place my entry and begin the anxious wait for results.
For those of you interested, this was my entry.

This year, I wasn't lucky enough to win any certificates or prizes. In fact, my piece was apparently not to specification, and I found myself disqualified. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find out where I went wrong with my entry either.
As disappointing as this was, I'm still glad I entered. Creating work like this remains a passion of mine, and you'd best believe I'll be back at the NEC next year with something new.

We also had tickets booked for the National Pet show; something Wheelz in particular was really looking forward to.
I went online, a week or so before the event, and used the NEC- recommended Bartrams to hire a mobility scooter, so that Wheelz could get around easily.

The Pet Show itself was amazing, although I will note that they were somewhat deficient in cat related things. Lil Monster got to hold snakes, birds, and I myself made friends with a charming looking alpaca- not an experience I was expecting, but lovely nonetheless. We were able to see all sorts of stalls, from pet food stalls to rescue centres looking for sponsorship. The event wasn't exactly what I thought it would be; I wasn't expecting all of the exotic animals, for one. But it was a really fun day, which was something I think we really needed after the stress of last month.

Unfortunately, the fun was somewhat marred by our poor experience with the scooter-hire people, Bartrams. But I'll be posting about that after Wednesday, when I've spoken to the manager and they've been given a chance to make amends...