Yet again, it's been a busy week,along with being the start of Lent.  Last year, for various very good reasons, Lent was a complete disaster but this year I thought I'd try again.  So I'm doing 40acts - a slightly different approach.   Rather than the traditional "giving something up" the idea is to take a more positive approach and it gently invites you each day via email to undertake a positive step. Today's was about moving outside our normal social sphere, and trying to engage or connect with someone from a background or culture that you wouldn't normally come across.  As things turned out, this was perfect.  

My friend Caroline, who is a Dog Warden and runs dog training classes does a great deal for local dog charities and of course knows nearly everyone involved in dog rescue and welfare in South Wales.  By a series of chances, she was offered the use of Fonmon Castle, a glorious castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, by Sir Brooke Boothby to use as a venue for a dog related event to raise money for local dog charities.  Caroline contacted me to see if I'd like to be involved and of course I said Yes.  We held the first organising meeting on Saturday, and already a huge amount has been accomplished.  My responsibilities are to act as secretary and minute taker during the meetings, to organise and run the dog show and to provide and run the show's website (with help from Andrew on that). 

From a standing start, we've got a date (Monday 4th June), a venue, a range of events, demonstrations, displays, two dog shows, sponsors, a gundog display, huskies, bouncy castles, a show raffle with great prizes, face painting and even paddling pools for dogs! The show will principally benefit three local dog charities - Friends of Cardiff Dogs Home, Hope Rescue and Four Paws Animal Rescue.  Hope and Four Paws take a lot of pound dogs from local authorities.   I've been charging around doing various elements and this morning, we were able to go over to the castle for a site meeting and to meet Sir Brooke to go over a few site details.  Unfortunately I had to drive over there via a great deal of rush hour traffic, but it was easy to find, being very close to the airport.  The castle is beautiful (see their website here) with lovely gardens and grounds.  Caroline took me down to the castle to meet the office manager and Sir Brooke joined us before we walked back to the group and did our site visit.  This went very well, and helped to clarify our thinking about the site layout, parking arrangements and so on.  I don't know many baronets so this was a perfect example of meeting someone from a social background that's outside my everyday experience.  Mainly, like the rest of the group, I was highly impressed by Sir Brooke's generosity in allowing the use of his land for the event, and even more so by his very positive, can-do approach - really helpful.  The site is used each year to host a variety of other events such as the Vale of Glamorgan show, polo matches and weddings so the estate team are well used to hosting this sort of thing, but even so we all found the morning a very positive experience.