Winchester Contemporary Craft Fair

Ah yes, there has been so much going on this week, I forgot to mention that I did get to the craft fair in Winchester last Saturday eventually, I say eventually because ...
the evening before, Niall and I attended a music evening at college put on by the Art Dept. Ian was working that night so was due to lock up when the event finished. It was a brilliant evening involving many of the teachers themselves that are involved playing in bands outside of college and we listened to Jazzatazz, featuring Andrew on Jazz guitar and Bob on trumpet, Joel playing Blues, Mist on the Bog, with Tim, - Irish music - really rousing at the end of the evening, Red Campion, a very talented melodic group, some Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell courtesy of Gary, Jack and Sue from the Music Dept and Dave on the Djembe Drums (where a lot of us got to play along on various percussion instruments. I was given a tambourine which I was really excited about and got a bit carried away!). Anyway... the evening overran by quite a bit and Ian didn't get in until gone one after locking up and came in with a little bundle in his arms, he had found a tiny poodle with cataracts in both eyes, looking very disorientated and frail outside the college gates and had brought it home. He then proceeded to phone around for three quarters of an hour to the Police, RSPCA, Dog Warden and 24 hr Vet who talked through his sympoms with Ian and suggested we contact the Dog warden in the morning. The Dog Warden had shut for the night and came on again at 10 in the morning. Ian had to be back in work at 8am as there was an event going on so it was up to me to phone the Dog Warden at 10 - which I did, again, again and again. It was constantly engaged or the answerphone came on, and whilst the dog (a male as we realised next morning when he went out on the patio) seemed quite content out in our back garden, he had been sick on a number of occasions and it was clear that something wasn't right with him. Ian eventually managed to contact someone at the RSPCA who said they would come and collect him and that they thought he belonged to an old lady from the old people's bungalows near the college, which is what we had thought maybe the case. the RSPCA lady was lovely and said that he looked well cared for although very thin and that me may be having treatment for his problems. We asked that she phone us to let us know what had happened to him and she did about half an hour later saying that his name was Joey, he had gone missing at 11 pm the night before, he was having treatment from the vet and that his owner had been beside herself with worry about him. On Tuesday night we had a knock on the door from the owner wishing to thank us for looking after him, but said that she had had to take him to the vet to be put down on Monday and that he had died as they were getting the injection ready - he had kidney failure. We were so pleased that she had had him back for his last couple of days - he was a really sweet little thing and had been as good as gold with us.

Anyway ... all this meant that I didn't get to the craft fair until about 3.30 pm on the Saturday aftenoon, but it was really worth going. There was some really beautiful stuff on show - textiles, jewellery, woodwork, pottery, ceramics, stonemasonery - people are so talented, and I was pleased that I had got there in the end.