The builders are coming in next week so we're packing stuff in boxes again and getting ready for an onslaught of dust and disruption. We're going walkabout some of the time - holidays, camping out at friends and family, as well as coming back to look after the garden and oversee the work - so look out, we may land on your doorstep with suitcases and sob stories anytime soon!
In the meantime the sun has come out and the village is celebrating. It's Brassington Wakes Week and it kicked off this weekend with a jumble sale trail, a brass band, plenty of drink taken, and an open air talk from a vicar about icons, which I misheard as acorns for a minute or two. He asked some of the people standing in front of the pub to name their icons/heroes which turned up an odd bunch: Elvis figured strongly, followed by Paul McCartney and, my favourite, in a limited field, Isaac Newton. I wandered off to take photographs and lost the plot a bit with the icon thing, although later I did begin to wonder who I'd have said if I'd been nobbled by the vicar. It would have to be a woman - if only to counter the male-only list provided so far: Germaine Greer, maybe. Mad as a box of frogs but smart and brave. Carol Ann Duffy. Jackie Kay. Doris Lessing. Virginia Woolf. Jessica Hynes. Many of my brilliant friends . . . on and on and on.
The band was great - best when we were back in our garden with a glass of wine.
Another of the week's events is a scarecrow competition which has a frighteningly high standard. This year's theme is . . . wait for it . . . yes you guessed . . . the Olympics! Some of them are really art installations which wouldn't look out of place in the Tate Modern. I've posted shots of a few below.
By the time the building work is finished, we'll have been here for a year but I won't be able to keep up the blog while it's going on so I've decided to sign off for three months. Back in the Autumn for a final sign-off, but in the meantime, two things I need to bring up to date. We finally decided to call the house Jackdaw Cottage in honour of the birds which 'chack chack' around us all day. And the raised beds, which we built in spring are now in full and magnificent production. Slowly, slowly, this place changes us.
