Rare Breeds

Not Goddards though, there were 7 of those (although there should have been 9, so perhaps rarer than planned!).

The Weald and Downland museum is somewhere both Ady and I remember going on school trips to as kids and somewhere we took Davies and Scarlett a few times when they were much smaller but it is quite pricey and one of those ‘on your doorstep things you don’t really appreciate or visit much’. They do have lots of events on there though including some good education workshops and weekend shows so when we had a bit of spare cash a few months ago it was one of the places on our list to get annual membership for.

So we became ‘Friends’ which is their version of membership on a nice day trip there with my Mum a few weeks back and today was the first event we’d planned to go to. Chris and Julie are friends too and had planned to go today to the Rare Breeds Show event too, particularly as they are wanting to start chicken keeping and were hoping to get some hens there. At the last minute Chris decided to stay home with Lorna instead so we hooked up with Julie, Jack and Maisie there.

The weather was rather against us and incredibly blustery with wind all day, much to the consternation of the stall holders with their tarps and marquees and gazebos. There were just two or three showers though rather than the threatened rainy day and we managed to be under cover for all of them luckily.

We’d taken a picnic and the queues for teas and coffees were long enough to discourage us so icecream (and very delicious ice cream it was too) was the only additional refreshment expense. Ady bought some flour ground at their water mill, Davies bought some mango scented soap, I bought a jar of lavender and chamomile gel and we did buy a set of bird whistles. They were being sold for £2 each or £5 for the set of three (cuckoo, duck and birdsong) with a free lesson on playing them, so we went for the set and the man showed all four of us how to play them :).

Davies and I had a demonstration from a very friendly lady on braid making and she gave Davies a little cardboard loom and some threads to carry on. It’s a bit like scoobidouing with 7 strands and he’s made a lovely friendship band to add to his wristful and Scarlett and I have made templates to make our own too – need to get some nice threads to do it with now.

We enjoyed looking at all the wool craft including the spinning (wheels and drop spindles), felting (wet and needle) and weaving. They had fleeces on show along with various wool crafts all having been judged.

We spent quite a bit of time looking at the bantams,chickens, ducks and turkeys and talking to the stallholders. We’ve decided to get some ducks and had been thinking of call ducks which are quite small. They are also very noisy and after spending some time near a cage of them I think we’ve decided against that! We then thought about mandarin ducks which are very pretty but not actually great as layers and realistically we probably want to be getting some eggs off them for their feed. After some chatting to a woman selling eggs for hatching I think we may go for runner ducks. The incubation is 28 days and they need at least another 28 days under the light before being ready to go outside so we need to wait until after our September holiday really to be sure we’ll be around for the whole thing, particularly as Scarlett is keen not to miss any of the hatching or early imprinting stage. She was in her element when a woman let her spend ages holding a couple of ducklings 🙂

We spent some time in the activity barn of the actual museum as Davies wanted to show Ady some of the bridge and house building things. Scarlett and I spent some time playing with cubes of various materials with the same volume but different weights on the balancing scales.We put them into weight order and then checked on the weighing scales.It took a while for her to grasp the idea of if something was heavier than the other thing then you could take it forgranted it would also be heavier than other things you knew were lighter than the lighter thing but we got there 🙂

We also spent some time playing with timber joints while Ady and Davies were tiling a roof with tiles and wooden pegs and playing with building materials of different sizes and weights.

We had a really good day out there and have written down all the other events with plans to get to as many as we can.

Back at home Davies and Scarlett spent ages up in Davies’ room watching a Michael Jackson dvd and singing and dancing along to it. They came downstairs and helped Ady with dinner while I was in the bath and then after some upset about just what I’d said about bedtime I read them some story before they headed off to bed.