Tuesday 30 September 2008

A weekend with friends

This weekend we had Paul and Rachel up from Exeter to stay, and as a nice coincidence, Sunday was Rachel's birthday, so we had a small party.

Saturday being bright and sunny, we took Molly the Spaniel for a walk along the fields behind the village.

Marea, Rachel and Paul

This is one of our favourite walks; there are rabbits (not that Molly ever chases a rabbit); the village fox occasionally wanders up and down, and in the right season, there are blackberries and sloes to pick, though there are no sloes this year. All the stoned fruit seem to have failed after the glut of last year - no sloes, no damsons, no plums. One of the things I'm not so keen on, thoght I do understand they are necessary are the giant power poles and their cables stretching through the fields and off towards Croft hill.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw these lying in a corner of the Grange Farm field...

I looked up and, for the first time ever, I got a clear view over towards Croft and Huncote with NO poles and NO cables.

I don't know whether they are just going to renew them, but it looks rather permanent to me.

Sunday wasn't such good weather, so we went off to Staunton Harold where they have a craft Centre - The Ferrers Centre. There is some great jewellery, a 'Victorian Mechanical Toy Workshop' where toys are hand made to your personal order (his main item is fairies which sit on a bookshelf, moving their heads, waggling their wings and dangling their legs. We have one which I took in for a quick overhaul) and... there's some teriffic raku pottery. Now I have a thing about raku and we ended up buying a small boat by Richard Goodwin Jones http://www.goodwin-jonesceramics.com/public/gallery3D_public.htm. Richard GW is a friend of Paul and Rachel's - always a mistake to take a friend of the artist with you. You never get away without shelling out! Here it is on the mantelpiece with a couple of raku pieces by Ian Tomie, who may be Leicester’s head of urban design, but has also produced some pretty good pots.


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