This weekend, we’re making the short journey down from the Belvoir Fruit Farm to the grounds of Burghley House for this year’s Burghley Horse Trials.

Arguably the premier equestrian social event of the year, the Burghley Horse Trials hosts some of the greatest international riders in a thrilling 4 star three day event. And with over 600 trade stands (the MetroCentre – Europe’s largest shopping centre – only has 342 shops), there’s plenty to do if horses aren’t really your thing.

At this year’s Burghley, you’ll be able to invest in some new headgear from James Lock & Co., wolf down a few delicious oysters from Loch Fyne or, if they aren’t old enough to ride the real equines, treat your little ones to a rocking horse from Stevenson Brothers.

And, of course, Barbara and the team will be bringing you the best of Belvoir’s bottled beverages on our stand in the Foodwalk. You’ll be able to buy cases of your old favourites and sip some of our award-winning newcomers.

Do come and say hello if you’re in attendance. It’s good to talk.

Speaking of which, if you can’t make it to Burghley, why not celebrate 50 years since the UK introduced trunk dialling from pay phones?

You can read the full article on the BBC’s On This Day website, but this little snippet is a nice insight into life in Britain half a century ago:

We can only wonder what Mr Marples might make of the telephone system today.

If we don’t see you at Burghley, have a fabulous weekend.

After the incredible success of the poetry competition (thanks for all your brilliant verses – we’ve now got the difficult task of choosing 10 winners from 196 entries), we thought we’d give you a new competition to get your teeth into. And we’ve got more great prizes to give away.

Win a pair of tickets to the 2009 Badminton Horse Trials!

Yes, that’s right. Belvoir Fruit Farms has two pairs of tickets to give away for this world-famous equestrian event. The tickets are ’season tickets’, meaning you can go to all four days or pick and choose as you wish. This year’s Badminton is from 7th to 10th May. Sadly, we can’t offer accommodation or travel, so you’ll have to get yourself down to Badminton (it’s around fifteen miles from Bath and Bristol). We will give you a car pass, though.

Two runners up will each get a three bottles of the finest Belvoir Fruit Farms cordial. So even if you don’t make it to Badminton, there’ll still be cause for celebration.

How to enter

We’ve decided to run a caption competition. They’re always fun – and even if you don’t enter, you can still have a good chortle reading everyone else’s entries.

So take a look a the photo below, and hatch your best one-liner.

The only way to enter is to add your caption as a comment at the bottom of this post. Just tap in your entry along with your name, email (it won’t be published and we’ll only use it for the purpose of contacting you if you win) and the URL of your blog or website if you have one. Hurry! This competition ends in one week: midnight on Friday 10th April 2009.

We’ll be running more competitions like this throughout the year, so if you haven’t already, join our club to receive regular Belvoir On For Britain emails.

Just so you know, by entering this terrific Belvoir Fruit Farms competition, you are agreeing to these terms and conditions.