A Quick One, While I'm Away!

We made it to the Sheep & Wool yesterday. Great fun, even for a non-knitter, just so long as you join in and "go with the flow". We saw lots of different types of sheep, naturally, including even a couple of South Downs', which are the locals from where I was brought up. After you've wandered down the aisles of pens you start to realise that the different breeds really do look different! Especially when you get to one breed with what looked like a Mohawk hairstyle and brown skin! No; not aboriginal American sheep, but a breed used mostly for meat and whose hair just sheds, rather than having to be clipped or sheared. What's more, it doesn't just "shed", but you can just pluck it out like cat hairs from off your coat! Weird to watch isn't in it, as the owner was doing it and the animal really didn't seem to mind in the slightest. The (wool? hair? fur? stuff?) has oil on it (great for dry hands) and some of it, at least, looks spinnable, although we think that you'd really need to mix it with some other type of wool to do best.

After the sheep there were barns and barns of exhibits, and more in tents, and Ravelry in the Rabbit Building (that's what it was called, but I think that the rabbits had gone elsewhere for some quiet by the time that we got there). And people! Thousands of people! All sorts of people (about 95+% women, of course, but why not?), but long people, short people, skinny people, round people, people of all shades of colour (basically brown to white, but that became brown to various shades of pink and red as the morning rain turned into afternoon sun and winter skin soaked up the rays!). All happy and friendly people, who were a really fun crowd to be one of, and that, I think, really made the day.

Next post will have pictures, but for now I'm signing off to get a shower and head home.