Scottish Texel Sheep Breeders Club

WEEKEND trip to Shropshire 20th to the 22nd of May 2011

Fourteen dedicated Texel men (inc Adrian the bus driver) left Lanark agricultural centre on the 20th of May heading down to the very strong Texel area of Shropshire and Borders Blub to visit and meet some of the people and their well regarded flocks.

Most of these Texel men knew each other with many regulars on the trip joined by a few new faces and it was plain to see within 5 minutes of the journey that the atmosphere was going to be good and we were going to have a great time.

Chairman Kenny wondered if we were allowed to have a wee drink on the bus and swithered as to ask the bus driver or not but when he looked round and seen most of the gang enjoying a can of beer he decided no need to ask!!

We had a pit stop for lunch at junction 38 truckstop before heading off and arriving at our first visit around 3ish.

Our first port of call was to meet with Steve Phillips and his wife Jaine who provided us with a very welcome cuppa with donuts and cakes, pork pies and sausage rolls as well as more beer etc!

They then showed us their terrific Phenjai flock of Texels running in the nearby field all looking great as well as the large dairy farm and recycling plant Steve manages with great passion which was all really interesting and well worth seeing!

Frank Griffies Tushingham Texels also had 4 outstanding gimmers for us to see there as well so thanks to them all for a really interesting enjoyable short notice visit!

We then went onto visit Will McCaffreys Scholars Texels, an outstanding batch of Texels set in a beautiful farm right on the welsh border. I think we could have stood at the shed gate and looked at their Texel lambs all day but we had to move on as the hotel was expecting us at 7pm for tea!

Special thanks to the Friday afternoon visits as they were quite short notice and thanks also to Robert Laird for arranging them!

We arrived at the Lordhill hotel around 8pm after a very sociable day and got a quick scrub and sat down to a terrific meal. For some reason the group decided to leave the pleasant surroundings of the Lordhill to go to what must have been the roughest pub in Shrewsbury where requests for bitter lemon and eh ... ice were met with growls and confused looks from the bar staff!!! However a game of pool and a few warm gin and lemonades (no tonic) and we forgot where we were!!

Some went back to hotel and some carried on to a nightclub with the excuse of ”we canny find big Kinnaird”so better go look for him!!

While big Kinnaird lay in his bed Andrew (Irish Andy)Sherrard, Wullie Boyd, Arkley and Johnstone unwittingly continued the search down the town till around 4 in the morning where Arkley and Johnstone won a special prize for being the most out of place people in a night club!!

On Saturday morning after breakfast we got ourselves breakfasted, dusted down and onto the bus for our first visit of the day to the Penparc Texels by kind permission of the Smith family.

Described by some of the more mature members of the trip (the old yins) as one of the best farm visits they have had on a Texel trip!

A terrific large consistently good flock of Texel sheep with huge quality and many eye catchers shown by the Smith family with great knowledge and passion(especially Anna. As Steve said, if you have any questions about any of the Texels, “if I don’t know Anna will and if Anna doesn’t know I will make up an answer!”

The Texels really were looking great in the shed all sorted in lots and with pedigrees to match the quality and stock tup Tamnamoney Ned looking over much of his progeny!!
Some Dutch Texels to see as well as British Blue cattle. We also were treated to the falconry side of the farm which was great to see and very very interesting indeed. We also had a wee stockjudging which we all took part in, even Adrian the bus driver (we never found out how many got beat by Adrian . All of this topped off with a terrific lunch (and more beer) finished a fantastic visit!

Also many thanks to the Bennet family for bringing some Texels over to Steve's for us to see as well, it was great to see them!

From there we went onto visit Caereinion Texels by kind permission of the Pryce family. Another great visit to see some of what must be some of the largest shearlings and Texels around! Again though quality in abundance and real dedication to the breed from Cefin! Much Cambwell breeding on show which made Rob Lairds chest stick out even further than usual!!

Mrs Pryce also had something to eat for us and more drink!! We had a wee seat in Cefyn’s lovely converted barn house where we were able to catch up on how the Scottish cup final was doing! Watching the rain pour down in Glasgow (and the scoreline) made us appreciate all the more our beautiful surroundings!!

Just down the road a mile or two we had another terrific visit this time to Gyrhos Texels by kind permission of the Ruggeri family where we once again were made very welcome and once again viewed some outstanding Texels!

James and Garreth's hard work was very much appreciated as all their Texels were in the shed sorted into lots for us to view. Although they felt they had a poorer lambing it really didn’t show and their sheep were once again well worth seeing with many eye catchers on show with James going through their pedigrees with great knowledge and dedication.

Thanks to their family as well for providing us with coffee tea and more food!

James and Garreth also had friend Roger Hughs bring over some Texels as well as the McCaffreys again so our thanks to them as well!

Saturday night and back to the Lordhill hotel for tea which was mostly wasted on us because we were completely spoiled and stuffed all day!! We had a terrific evening again especially as many of the people we visited over the last 2 days travelled over and joined us for a meal or drink or two...or three or four???

The gang learned their lesson from the previous evening and stayed in the Lordhill, although still retired pretty late much to the frustration of the hotel porter/barman!!

Hangover Sunday morning and by now we were feeling the effects of overindulgence as we headed off to visit Waen Texels by kind permission of the Joseph family.

We arrived at the beautiful Waen farm to meet Brian and his family who couldn’t have been more welcoming and topped our weekend off with a lovely farm walk. We seen all their Texels as well as welsh black cows, pigs and hens, the produce from which they sell mostly locally.

The Texels were brought into the pens for us to view and like all the Texels we seen over the weekend there were many we would love to have in our own flocks and many we will be looking out for at sales! There was much interest especially as 2 Waen tups had been used by the group recently and had bred very well!

We didn’t think we had much hunger for food that morning but after the much needed walk we were treated to a quite terrific hog roast with all the trimmings which was just lovely and set us up nicely for the journey home!

Thanks once again to the Joseph family and of course to all we visited over this terrific weekend. We received terrific hospitality and a warm welcome at all our visits and thoroughly enjoyed our trip from the first day to the last. As mentioned above we seen many outstanding sheep in all flocks which I know we would quite happily have in our own and who knows what business might take place at the sales this year thanks to this weekend, in fact I believe some has taken place already!!!(Ask Lairdy).

I am sure many would agree with me when I say we will definitely be having a good look in the pens of all the above at sale time and many notes were taken during our visit!!

The trip home was a long tired affair with many trying to have a wee sleep although badly hampered by the 2 young guns finishing off left over carry out with Irish Andy (sporting a very bad facial vodka rash???) insisting on many more pee stops than the rest of us really wanted!!

Thanks to bus driver Adrian of Shawsburn bus company and to the Lordhill hotel which looked after us fantastically well and of course many thanks to all who attended the trip and made it the terrific weekend it was!!

Calum and Tom Wight, Wullie McGregor, Jim Frame, John Tough, Tam Alison, Davie Arkley, Jim Kinnaird, Jim Hastings, Rab Laird, Kenny Johnstone, Andrew Sherrard and Wullie Boyd thanks once again.

We hope to see you all on next year’s trip as well as many more folks so the club would like some suggestions as to where you would like to go and what you fancy doing. Please feel free to let your thoughts known to chairman Kenny or any of the committee and we will see what we can do!!

Chances to see Quality farms and their Texels, meet terrific people, have a great social weekend and of course to look out of place in a nightclub (Arkley) don’t come along often enough so make sure you are on the next one!!