Matriculation Ball

This weekend we had our Matriculation Ball which I guess it's the equivalent to a Freshers Ball in the UK.

There was a ceremony where all the Freshers stood on stage and put their head through the butt of a fabric cow and did a shot, then we were knighted with a Femur (thighbone) before putting an ink print of our fingerprints on a certificate.

The wierdness of it all kind of sums up this place but it was all organised for us by Slovaks in the older years and they did a really good job!

There was a sit down buffet style meal with free alcohol all night.

They leave bottles of wine, spirits and mixers on the tables for you to help yourselves and as soon as they see one of the bottles was nearly empty, it would be replaced with more wierd and wonderful Slovak Vodka or Tatransky Caj.

PCGB National Poultry Show 2014

Had a great weekend at Telford International Conference centre for the Poultry Club of Great Britain's National Poultry Show.

I flew into Luton on Saturday where I met a friend and travelled up to the show.

Supreme Show Champion was a Rosecomb (Mr Taylor) and Reserve Show Champion a Yellow Dutch (Mr S Yorks):

We went to the Saturday Evening Social which was to be honest a bit disappointing.

We've been for the last 3 years and they usually have a really good auction followed by a live band or disco.

In previous years the auction prizes have been art commissions, expensive metal chicken statues, rare antique books, poultry cigarette cards, egg skelters, coop covers, peck a blocks etc; this year they had 5 pairs of shoes, a new book and a couple of feeders.

In the past we've been out on tables and mingled with 'strangers' but this year people stayed in their groups and didn't chat.

We did have a speech from the Championship Judge Andrew Sheppy which was interesting, if a little long!

He did leave us with this, which I might start living my life by... "If you have a nice one, get it out and show it, I might like it."

It was really nice to catch up with friends that I've known for years and to finally meet new people I've been speaking to over the year on Facebook and Twitter.

Of course I had to get a photo with my old friends Chip from EasiChick and the legend that is Mr Simon Pickles!

I love this prototype clear MS Broedmachines Incubator 

...but as amazing as the Heka Incubators are, I still don't think they will hatch this rare breed Kinder egg:

They had little hatching trays with different types of dividers so separate eggs by colour, parents or breed etc which was clever; I've seen people make their own but not seen them manufactured to fit the incubator trays before.

Chris Jones the artist was there again so spent 10 minutes admiring some of his oil portraits. The detail is stunning and every time you look at them you spot another little details.

Will be a few years saving before I can afford one of his originals, but I bought another of his calendars ready for next year.

Think the Barnevelders had the best rosettes...

Some breed clubs has tried to go modern with just the paper circle and a ribbon coming down, no 'Rose' bit around the outside but they just looked cheap to me.

Also these birds are the grand-chicks of the Serama boy my Flatmate brought down from Scotland to Aberystwyth for a friend of mine!

Sat on the tube in London on Monday and the last next to me was reading The Guardian and I spotted this!

There has been a lot of bickering and political unrest in the club over the last few months with new members getting onto council and some members being stuck in their ways rather than moving with the times, but everyone came together and put on a fantastic show.

The Poultry Club, it's committee and all the volunteers clearly worked so hard to get to where the show is today, a massive improvement on the cattle sheds at Stoneleigh a few years ago; let's hope 2015 is even bigger and better.

International Falconry Meet

Today we went to an International Falconry Meet near Košice and had an amazing time.

We met at Uni at 7am and got a coach with the rest of Falconry club from vet school to a hotel in Dargov about 40 minutes away from Kosice.
There the Falconers lined up with their birds and had an opening ceremony. We didn't understand what was said but the birds looked amazing; Golden Eagles, Harris Hawks, Peregrine Falcons and even a little Kestrel!

From there they separate into groups and go off hunting. We didn't have cars and the bus couldn't take us so we tried our best to speak to people and jump in cars and get a lift with them.

I went off with the Eagles with Sian, Lucy and Niamh while others spent the day with Hawks or Falcons.
We had nine Golden Eagles with us from all over Europe - Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary - so it was really interesting seeing the falconers speak to one another, mostly in German and English as their common languages, though they all knew a few words of each language.

We spread out along the boundary of one field in a straight line 10 metres apart from each other with two people between every Eagle, the idea being that we flush the field as we walk across it in a line and the eagle closest to the prey or quarry is flown.

Being November everyone layered up expecting winter weather but we had glorious sunshine all day and walking all day everyone was roasting! We stopped at midday to give the birds and everyone else a rest. The birds all sat there good as gold, some of them not even hooded without stressing or trying to bait off the glove so they really were a credit to their trainers.

After lunch we carried on as as the weather cooled down a bit the birds were flying better and had a lot more successful catches.

We saw pheasants, hare and deer but only caught hares - Eagles don't go after pheasants and the deer were a bit too far away for the falconer to run after them and get there should there be a problem.

After the hunt we returned to the hotel for drinks and to talk to people then everyone sat down for a four course meal of soup, chicken with roasties, goulash (which everyone went mad for) and then cake!

I'm so glad we went and it was an incredible experience.

International Falconry Meet

Today we went to an International Falconry Meet near Košice and had an amazing time.

We met at 7 and got a coach with the rest of Falconry club to a hotel in Dargov about 40 minutes away from Kosice.
There the Falconers lined up with their birds and had an opening ceremony. We didn't understand what was said but the birds looked amazing; Golden Eagles, Harris Hawks, Peregrine Falcons and even a little Kestrel!

From there they separate into groups and go off hunting. We didn't have cars and the bus couldn't take us so we tried our best to speak to people and jump in cars and get a lift with them.

I went off with the Eagles with Sian, Lucy and Niamh while others spent the day with Hawks or Falcons.
We had nine Golden Eagles with us from all over Europe - Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary - so it was really interesting seeing the falconers speak to one another, mostly in German and English as their common languages, though they all knew a few words of each language.

We spread out along the boundary of one field in a straight line 10 metres apart from each other with two people between every Eagle, the idea being that we flush the field as we walk across it in a line and the eagle closest to the prey or quarry is flown.

Being November everyone layered up expecting winter weather but we had glorious sunshine all day and walking all day everyone was roasting! We stopped at midday to give the birds and everyone else a rest. The birds all sat there good as gold, some of them not even hooded without stressing or trying to bait off the glove so they really were a credit to their trainers.

After lunch we carried on as as the weather cooled down a bit the birds were flying better and had a lot more successful catches.

We saw pheasants, hare and deer but only caught hares - Eagles don't go after pheasants and the deer were a bit too far away for the falconer to run after them and get there should there be a problem.

After the hunt we returned to the hotel for drinks and to talk to people then everyone sat down for a four course meal of soup, chicken with roasties, goulash (which everyone went mad for) and then cake!

I'm so glad we went and it was an incredible experience.

Weekend with Family

We've had a really nice weekend with family and am already sad that it's over; my mom and brother came over to Slovakia on Friday with Sian's parents and we dropped them back at the airport this morning.

Family Falconry Selfie

We met them at the airport on Friday and went straight from the airport to town for food which was a slight disaster...

Wierd nutty paste pancakes, pasta with jam and chopped up pasta with poppy seeds, spinach balls... You get the idea.

In the afternoon showed them around town and Uni then took them to fly the falcons:

Everyone was pretty tired so after dinner we separated and got an early night.

Saturday morning we met on Hlavna for late breakfast at Theatre cafe then spent the day at Košice zoo.

We missed out loads of things when we went last time so was nice to go again - the zebra, some of the birds and monkeys weren't on exhibit, I guess because it was so cold, but we saw the bears this time.
It's a really nice zoo, the only criticism I have is the big cats - they don't have enough room or enrichment so not great to see. They're in good condition but the tiger was pacing in a figure of eight obviously waiting for food and he didn't have ponds, balls, swings, logs etc like the enrichment they'd have in UK zoos.

Yesterday we did our own things with our families so we went shopping to AuPark and met up late afternoon. We went to look at food in M&S and there was a sale on so I got two pairs of jeans which should have been €40 each, one pair was €7.99 and the other €3.99!

We met up later for coffee in a really nice place, Cafe Frei, and decided to take them to Steel Arena to watch the Ice Hockey!

Košice were playing MHC Martin and tickets were only €5 (cheapest were €3!) which is awesome value for a night out.

Košice won, obviously, 3-2 but there were something like 35 and 22 goal attempts so was exciting to watch.

At one point a guy took a puck to the face and was knocked out...

We dropped them off at the airport early this morning and I'll be home in less than 2 weeks! :)

Weekend with Family

We've had a really nice weekend with family and am already sad that it's over; my mom and brother came over on Friday with Sian's parents and we dropped them back at the airport this morning.

On Friday we went straight from the airport to town for food which was a slight disaster...
Wierd nutty paste pancakes, pasta with jam and chopped up pasta with poppy seeds, spinach balls... You get the idea.

In the afternoon showed them around town and Uni then took them to fly the falcons:

Everyone was pretty tired so after dinner we separated and got an early night.

Saturday morning we met on Hlavna for late breakfast at Theatre cafe then spent the day at Košice zoo.

We missed out loads of things when we went last time so was nice to go again - the zebra, some of the birds and monkeys weren't on exhibit, I guess because it was so cold, but we saw the bears this time.
It's a really nice zoo, the only criticism I have is the big cats - they don't have enough room or enrichment so not great to see. They're in good condition but the tiger was pacing in a figure of eight obviously waiting for food and he didn't have ponds, balls, swings, logs etc like the enrichment they'd have in UK zoos.

Yesterday we did our own things with our families so we went shopping to AuPark and met up late afternoon. We went to look at food in M&S and there was a sale on so I got two pairs of jeans which should have been €40 each, one pair was €7.99 and the other €3.99!

We met up later for coffee in a really nice place, Cafe Frei, and decided to take them to Steel Arena to watch the Ice Hockey!

Košice were playing MHC Martin and tickets were only €5 (cheapest were €3!) which is awesome value for a night out.

Košice won, obviously, 3-2 but there were something like 35 and 22 goal attempts so was exciting to watch.

At one point a guy took a puck to the face and was knocked out...

We dropped them off at the airport early this morning and I'll be home in less than 2 weeks! :)

Visitors!

Mom and my brother Nat have come to visit me in Slovakia for 4 days!

We had Friday off Uni (Rectors Day) so taking advantage of the long weekend and spending it with family.

Sian's parents are also visiting so we met them at the airport, came back to town and gave them the guided tour. We showed them round Uni, even though most of it was closed, then came back to Dorms.

Family Falconry Selfie