The reason I’m so excited is that we’re going away for the rest of the week. We’re off to Finland to take photos of Brown bears….not knitting related in the slightest!!
For ages we’ve wanted to do a photography based holiday and earlier this year we spoke to someone who’d done this trip and raved about it. We thought why not….after all we tried to see bears in Canada but when faced with the sole black bear that we encountered we fled. Now I know this was the smart thing to do but it would have been nice to actually have seen that bear rather than just flee in fear on the word of some other terrified tourists. Although it makes a nice story!
This time we’ll be prepared, we’ll be hidden (in hides) and we’ll have cameras at the ready. And if there’s a god in photography heaven I’ll be praying that I bring home at least one pin sharp, half decently composed, correctly exposed and semi adequate shot of some bears…..just one….it’s not much to ask!!
On to tales of pygmy goats, jellied eels and dogs the size of ponies.
What else could it be but the South of England Show! We went on Saturday and it lived up to all our expectations even thought we didn’t make it round the whole area….we never do, the place is massive. But we covered the most important bits…..wine stalls & ice cream stands etc. For research purposes you understand!
We got the food and wine shopping done in the morning (very organised!) and then wandered around for the afternoon making sure to stop often at stalls to test the merchandise and keep our strength up.
Oh the things we saw……..pygmy goat judging (tiny goats….very cute), massive bulls, tiny piglets, leopard print wellingtons, donkeys, chickens, ducks, death defying flower arrangements, cowboy hats, some stunning knitting (thanks WI), insect eating plants, punks (of all places to find them?) cakes, combine harvesters, log cutting, fox hunting (display only…no actual foxes were used), a one man band, boxes of wine (you know who you are!!), lovely liquors, various ice creams, gorgeous flowers, very well muscled farriers…
Ohhhh the list goes on…as normal it was a great day with heaps to see, loads to spend your money on and if you didn’t go…go next year…or go to the Autumn Show and Game Fair in October. You won’t regret it.
My highlights from this show were:-
…the pygmy goats. I don’t like goats normally but you’d be hard pressed to find much cuter than these.
…the wines. As usual one of our main stops was at this winery’s stall. Highly recommend you try some of their wines…lovely
…the pate. A new stall for this year I think (least I’ve not seen them before) Pate of the highest quality.
…jellied eel. Something I’ve wanted to try for a while now and I finally got up the courage to do so…watched by almost everyone in the hall I sampled the strange looking concoction……and it was good. Really good!!! Not overly keen on the jelly as it reminds me of spam. But the eel is good.
According to a small girl who was fascinated by my choice of snacks, eel is not quite as good as a strawberry ice cream, but each to their own!
…the oversized dogs. Wish I’d taken a photo of one or two of them but I was stunned and a little frightened every time we saw one. Not part of the show, just people bringing their dogs out with them but impressive because at least four of them would have come up to my shoulder….almost! Big enough to ride on definitely…possibly why they were brought along, I know my feet were hurting by the end of the day! Hehe
…people I went with. Awwww, it sounds a little sucky perhaps but there really isn’t anything better than hanging out with your friends. Even if they don’t understand your pygmy goat obsession.
And as for the weather??? Well, it did rain……as we were walking to the car to go home!!!! It just doesn’t get better than that!!
I'm too lazy today to put photos into the blog so if you want there are some on here you can browse for yourself. I promise to try harder when we get back!
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