SO MANY DOGS!!!

I love Newfies - I just wish they didn't drool quite so much! 🤣

A cold wind blew us to Hever Castle yesterday for the return of Castle Canines (formerly Paws At The Castle).

This was the first time the venue had hosted its dog show in over five years (apparently there's a new management team in charge of the site) and it was clearly much in demand as, it appeared, probably more than 50 percent of attendees had brought their own dogs along with them.

In fact, Rachel and I were quite taken aback (in a good way) by the sheer number of dogs wandering the grounds. Neither of us had ever seen so many pooches in one place... and yet Alice still managed to garner plenty of attention.

Our first stop was the 'meet and greet' with the giant Newfoundlands, who we would later see demonstrating their life-saving skills in the freezing cold lake.

Newfy water rescue demonstration

Then it was a general meander through the castle grounds, oohing and aahing at cuteness on display.

During our stay we spotted a former (human) participant in Channel Four's amazing series, The Dog House, as well as - no, honestly - an elderly duck that had appeared in the Disney live-action version of Beauty and The Beast. It was that kind of wonderful, very British, very random event.

The huskies were very chilled

The weather wasn't a friend to the poor people serving puppy ice creams and desserts

However, mid-afternoon, the heavens opened signalling a mass exodus from Castle Canines. We'd managed three hours though, with a lot of walking around and standing, and I'm pretty sure we'd seen everything we wanted to.

Hopefully next year the weather will be better for the dog show and it, once again, becomes a regular fixture of the castle's calendar of events.

It was also great to have simply gotten back to Hever Castle, having missed all of last year's events because of my stupid back problems.

A family portrait