Bloggers' convention

I leave you to decide exactly who these characters are.... but I'm pretty sure they're some of my blog friends meeting up for a chat. And we will leave them to their cogitating, in the lovely surroundings of Kettlewell village in the Yorkshire Dales.  I hope you enjoyed the Scarecrow Festival as much as I did!

August and September are busy months for me and I have lots more to show you, so stay tuned!

The preacher

The congregation of St Mary's in Kettlewell (see also yesterday's post) seemed very engrossed in the sermon by the visiting preacher.  Or maybe they were all asleep....

Hot tub humour

'This is what happens when you buy a hot tub off eBay....'

More scarecrows in Kettlewell.... but not scarecrows as you would normally know them!  This scene made me laugh.

Purple warning

                        Is 60 too young to start?

Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. 

Jenny Joseph

Olympics?

And now for something completely different... or perhaps not!

I went to Kettlewell last weekend to visit their annual Scarecrow Festival. It was my first visit and I was very impressed. There were scarecrows all over the village - a trail, in fact - and they were not just your average kind of scarecrow but really imaginative and topical little tableaux. Inevitably there were a fair number of nods to the Olympics... the Olympic torch, the cyclist Bradley Wiggins (winner of the Tour de France 2012 and Olympic gold medallist), Boris Johnson (London's mayor) stuck on a zip-wire (click here for video of that hilarious incident), James Bond with his parachute, me in my raincoat! Aren't they terrific?

Kettlewell is a lovely little Yorkshire Dales village.  I did a 'tour' of it in 2010 - click the Kettlewell label below for those photographs, of the village and the Upper Wharfedale valley.