In Praise of Fresh Air

First of all, a promise: there will be photo posts coming soon! Meantime, read on to enjoy trips into the Cambridgeshire Countryside!

Though the hayfever season is here (and there has been much sniffling and sneezing chez Caught Knitting) I still love being outdoors and the last two days have been wonderful.

My friend Tamy (scroll down past the ripple scarves to see her!) is back in the UK but currently a bit too jetlagged to spend the whole day researching in the University Library, so yesterday we ambled through the meadows to Granchester and back. All that cow parsley that dominated the landscape so recently has faded, now there are tall waving grasses as far as the eye can see.


And today I went to Wimpole Hall's Woolcraft Weekend, with Marianne and Barry. As well as seeing a demonstration of sheep-shearing methods ancient and modern we had a wonderful time admiring the farm animals, especially the naughty little Tamworth piglets who kept squeezing through the railings. Marianne got some superb pictures of them but what the camera can't capture is the sounds: I was particularly amused by an exhausted sow snoring and almost overwhelmed by the noise of a Shire Horse peeing (what enormous bladders they must have...)

It was a fabulous outing but the naughty National Trust kept tempting me with things like freshly-baked cheese scones, bacon butties made from local pigs and local ice cream. After so many calories I decided that it would be a very good idea for Graham and I to wonder round a few local fields after we ate supper this evening. I'm so glad we did as we were rewarded with glimpses of larks and lots of birdsong.

Now I'm off to do some spinning on Radish in the hope that one day I'll be as good as the ladies from North Herts spinners who were demonstrating at Wimpole.