Ever since I was a lad I've enjoyed the local ploughing matches; from the ones held in Thanet that I attended from my prep school and had to write a project on, through those in NW Kent, where the major attraction was a beer tent that was open all afternoon, to the ones held around us here in Wiltshire where the spectacle of people we know driving veteran tractors, or the massive chunks of machinery that seem to turn half a field in one pass, is a pleasant way to while away an autumn morning.
Fortunately Mrs Riverdale shares my enthusiasm and finds the machinery and the rural backdrops, not to mention the wide skies over the rolling Wiltshire downland, highly photogenic, hence this video where examples of her fine eye can be found.
So on a brisk autumn day when the sun chased the showers across the Wiltshire Downs and on to Salisbury Plain, we drove up to Charnage Down to see the competition.