On Saturday, International Donkey Week took our wonderful supporters to Paccombe Farm which lies in the beautiful valley of Harcombe near Sidmouth. As it was my day off, I took my Senior PR Officer ‘hat’ off and thought I’d be a Donkey Weeker instead!

I’ve been involved with the Sanctuary all my life and over the last 28 years have attended most Donkey Weeks, so I brought our lovely little boy Cameron along, who is now two and a half so that he could enjoy it too.

I thought I’d catch up with Donkey Weekers thinking they’d enjoy seeing how much Cameron has grown since last year. But that didn’t quite work out... our conversations were quite brief as Cameron wanted to explore; he was far too excited to stay still so I could chat!

So off we went to look around the farm. ‘Let’s go and see the donkeys Cam’ I said, but he’d already spotted the farm’s small blue tractor! He then spotted the coaches, which bring Donkey Weekers to the farm, so the driver invited him to have a sit in the drivers chair; his grin getting bigger by the minute.

Then the ‘big red tractor’ arrived, which was giving trailer rides up to the top of the farm so we got on and he sat happily in his own chair watching the big wheels go around as we started our bumpy journey around the donkeys’ fields!

We did have a brief encounter with the donkeys, for all of two minutes but Cameron was keen to get back to the tractor and check out the ‘beautiful trailer’. The highlight of his day was sitting in the cab ‘driving the tractor’, as pictured, at the end of the journey!

Cameron and I thoroughly enjoyed the day, even though it wasn’t quite what I had in mind!!