The National Ploughing Championships are now in full swing but this scribe won’t be in attendance.
Last year, when I was still working with the Irish Sun, I was sent down to Screggan to cover the event.
Now despite living in Laois all of my life, this was actually the first time I had been at the Ploughing.
My Dublin colleagues chose me to go because I was one of the ‘culchies’ in the office – but they were completely in the dark about my actual lack of farming knowledge.
So, blissfully unaware of almost all things agricultural, I headed off to Tullamore for Day 1 of the Ploughing Championships.
In fairness, I was more than ready to roll up my sleeves and get my hands nice and dirty.
So with that in mind, I headed over to the sheep-shearing enclosure to tackle my first ever furry creature.
Sheep are believed to be gentle, docile creatures — but I found out that when you come at them with a giant razor they become a different animal altogether.
After some initial reluctance, I started to get the hang of the hair-cutting craic, mainly thanks to the patience of George Graham from Graham Shearing Contractors.
But just when I had almost finished taking off my sheep’s locks, he wriggled free of my grasp and proceeded to run across the stage as I hung off the back of him — much to the amusement of the crowd who had gathered to watch the show.
Such was the embarrassment, that I simply couldn’t go back there again.
And if you scroll the below video on to 9.00, you can see the moment it all went horribly wrong for yourself:
