Gusty, polar maritime NW'lies covered the UK on Saturday, followed by WNW'lies on Sunday.. Conditions at 12z (1PM BST): Thickness, 536dam (Sat), 535dam (Sun), temperature 10/3 (Sat), 9/3 (Sun). (source: MetO, the 12z GFS and NOAA).

Yesterday I was helping to put up the cage at the Cowpie showground in Surrey. I was originally going to post all sorts of pictures and the like, before realising that mentioning we'd put up a cage and it would be left there overnight probably wasn't the most sensible thing in the world!

In short, it took just over three hours to put up the cage, something which I hadn't seen done before. It's a slow process of laying out all the pieces then bolting them together, before eventually tightening everything once it's all in place. The merchandise tent also needed putting up, as did the stand-off barrier (used to keep the public away from the cage).

Weatherwise, it started off quiescent enough:

However, by noon there were some really menacing clouds about!

Thankfully it stayed dry even after everything had been set up - here's the view after we'd finished our work:

It chucked it down as I drove off and on the way home there was a fantastic hailstorm - the only problem being the chunks taken out of my paintwork!

Fast forward to today and it was pretty much a repeat performance - clear blue skies to start with, temperatures around 4C and a heavy dew on the grass. Cloud soon bubbled up as I arrived at around half-eight at the showground and by the time things kicked off at 10 AM it was looking quite ominous.

As you can see the scene was quite different from yesterday - the UKWCT stand was mobbed!

To start with I was on shop duty, then after an hour and a half it was time to head into the cage. We weren't doing "meet and greets" at that stage, which meant we were free to make a fuss of the wolves - or in my case, take lots of pictures.

Dakota.

After that I put the camera away as we let people into the cage to meet the wolves. I put a collar on Dakota (a first for me) and hooked up a lead, then stood by as people came in one by one to meet her. A quarter of an hour later I swapped places with Paul, who until then had been instructing people on the meet and greets. That meant my role was keeping an eye out for anything the wolf might want to grab, as well as guiding people as to the correct way to meet Dakota.

Duma.

Duma a few seconds later, having heard some vehicle noise.

All good things have to come to an end and I was then free to browse the show. However, as it was incredibly busy I ended up finding an ice-cream van and bringing the cones back for the wolves. Needless to say both Duma and Dakota were very keen to get them, even though someone else had given them ice-cream while I was away buying mine! That made the wolves frisky and we've decided not to do that again while they're having "meet and greets" - best to wait until the end of the day instead.

Dakota again.

A second stint behind the counter in the shop followed, as the wolves were taken into the main arena. Not long after that people started drifting away and by 5PM it was time to take down the cage, tent and pack away the merchandise. It only took an hour and before I knew it I was back on a very soggy Sheppey - we'd had torrential rain just before I arrived.

So, it's been a different yet very enjoyable weekend, both weather and wolf wise!

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