IndiaAIFounders — Country diary: It’s 10am at the Melplash Show and the cider contest is well under way

Bridport, Dorset: Away from the sheep, pigs and Martin Clunes’s horse, I find a bounty of local ciders – and concern about this year’s apple harvest

It’s Melplash Show day and all of Bridport is here. Crowds jostle for a look at the pigs, cattle and sheep. The actor Martin Clunes, who lives locally, leads one of his heavy horses into the ring, a big strawberry roan gelding with a mane plaited with ribbons. Everyone ignores the celebrity: they are far more interested in the finer points of his horse.

In the handicrafts and local produce tent, lines of glass cider bottles glow palest amber and urinous gold. The two judges, the cider-maker Ross Mangles of North Down Orchard, and the cider writer James Crowden, began tasting at 8.30am. Fortified with a block of blue-veined cheddar cheese, a packet of cream crackers and a glass of water, they have sampled all 36 entries by 10am. When I join them for the results, the winning bottles are at least a quarter empty, and Ross and James are feeling upbeat.

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Country diary: It’s 10am at the Melplash Show and the cider contest is well under way | Sara Hudston