Yes, ma'am. You and your hydrangea may go through...

This is a nice phrase, because it means that I can make my bus which is on the other side of the closed street... And if you got a good bargain (say, £4) on your hydrangea, the police/guard-ish type person will approve and tell you so.

This is fab. And probably only happens in Norfolk. I like Norfolk and find more reasons to like it here all the time :)

Certain aspects of 'professional business' culture have little part in this positive feeling, but paying my bills does, I suppose.

This Hydrangea Walk followed closely upon quite an eventful day (and prepared for yet another).

Firstly, yesterday (after a swivet relating to the forgetfulness of herself and the lack of organisation in La Casa), Sally collected me from the top of Elm Hill and we headed off to the Worstead Festival.

Worstead is northeast of Norwich and its festival is the largest village festival in Norfolk. In the Middle Ages, worsted fabric was woven here, preceding the wealth of Norwich weaving culture.

Sadly, unlike last year, Norfolk Yarns did not have a booth. This was actually fortuitous, though, since as a result, no extraneous wool was purchased and added to stash. (This is a feat of glorious achievement). I did, however, get some Crafty McCrafty ideas -- ideas are free and take very little storage.

And the sheep were bald by the time we saw them, so I didn't beg to bring one home (although I think my plan for putting one on a leash/lead and bringing it to The Common to graze sounds like a marvelous plan).

In the second field, were the heavy working horses, old cars (such as the Model T Roadster, to L) and tractors and machinery displays (and the hog roast -- yummy expectations were sadly disappointed).

The machine display looked to be about the most boring thing imaginable, but it was actually really interesting -- although if you had to sit there all day in the constantly humming and popping racket, you might have gone deaf. Each contestant had their machine(s) up and running and doing whatever they were supposed to do, and a little provenance tidbit was on some of the signs, too; the men (mostly), and their dogs, sat in lawn chairs behind their treasures and/or fiddled about with parts and oil and things. It was like a geek section for manly men :) Some of the tractors (even as modern as the 60s and 70s) had hand crank starters!

Another section of the field was for ploughing trials (I never figured out if there was a competition, or if they were just demonstrations). Commentating was a well-dressed and well-fed gentleman sat under a small white tent with a cane and a straw hat, looking every bit the part of a county fair cast member from Babe or Charlotte's Web.

Next to the ploughing section, was the horse judging arena. It was all quite fancy proceedings and the horses were noble and ginormous. The judge's assistant was another character actor, I swear, in a navy suit with lambchop sideburns and a bowler hat! The judging was very involved, and ribbons were won, but Sally and I had no idea who actually won. This horse was my favourite, but he only got a pink ribbon...

The chicken ark was quite tempting, but I refrained (£160 for ark and 2 hens; child not included). Sally was probably pleased with my lack of animal/foul purchases since her car might have absorbed some sort of unfortunate odour... so I brought five plants home instead. I notice an unfortunate, and increasingly frequent, tendency to aquire greater quantity of things than I can carry...

After a state of rosy-cheeked browsing was reached (from the brilliantly glorious day that it was -- see sky above for evidence), Sally dropped me back in Norwich (with my collection of plants) for to meet up with the rest of the winning quiz team... for an evening of riotous debauchery.

Hardly.

Despite the fact of my tardiness (and an attempted barring of the Plant Lady and her trolley) and everyone else's head start on the 6 pints per person (which was our prize -- and of which I managed only half of my allottment), it all remained quite civilised.

Emma had brought along the most intricate puzzle of King Solomon's Mines (second row, third in at this link). 1000 pieces does not fit even on the largest table in the King's Head, so we put the border together and then split it in half vertically and moved the halves opposingly sideways. Eamonn and Adrian decided that working two halves of a puzzle was the silliest thing ever, so they got the chess out.

Perhaps a little more eye-pattern coordination than realistic having not started puzzle at the beginning of the outing and in fading light, but SUCH a good time!

The Hydrangea Walk followed and E was gentlemanly and pulled my trolley with the lavender and multi-coloured yarrow inside. He is so tolerant!

NOTE: The puzzle remains unfinished since John (the landlord) wasn't too keen on our leaving puzzle out on table for us to come and finish at various times.