Stafford show

Gudrun and Doug invited me to The Stafford Show to demonstrate fan birds in their woodland setup. It is great when people value what you do and say the fee is fair, without lots of haggling, and "we can't afford that much." It is also great to be paid and to be able to concentrate on demonstrating and not always chasing the next sale, and especially as countryside and/or woodland areas of big shows tends to get a lot less footfall and therefore a lot less sales.
The Thursday was wet and windy to say the least - and I know a lot of other shows were cancelled due to the weather, for example the Royal Cornwall, which I use to demonstrate at years ago.

As with all of the wood shows I go to, the other craftsmen are a joy to meet and are good fun to be around.
Doug is a horse logger and his apprentice Richard was using his own horse, Elizabeth, to haul logs and to pull the bracken basher. http://www.richardeames.co.uk/6.html

Doug is running a raffle to win a Morgan 3-wheeler, a Bristish hand-made car, to raise money for the British Horseloggers' Charitable Trust. http://www.britishhorseloggerscharitabletrust.org/ Doug's site is http://www.heavyhorses.net/index.htm and if you want to try and win a Morgan then you can buy a tickets here  http://www.britishhorseloggerscharitabletrust.org/pages/morganraffle.htm the odds are really good.

Gudrun was running have-a-go pole lathes, with many young aspiring pole lathe turners busily turning. I have seen Gudrun's chairs for many years and much admired them. I have never, as of yet, been to Clisset wood but her work can be seen here http://www.greenwoodwork.co.uk/index.html

Above is Jeremy Atkison, clog maker and man of immense knowledge. http://www.clogmaker.co.uk/

Owen Jones, Oak swill baskets and coppice products http://www.oakswills.co.uk/

This too seems to be turning into a list of peoples' websites, but I am off almost straight away to Kent, to run some fan bird carving courses for the Sussex coppice group, so I am busy writing this between unpacking the van and packing the car. Fuel is expensive and I cannot afford to spend £150 plus for diesel to take the van to Kent. £30 for very 100 miles. It is half the cost in the car.

Jenna Higgins, making besom brooms with a never ending queue of children. 

Sherwood, demonstrating cleaving. http://www.goods-from-the-woods.co.uk/

There are a few other people that I have not mentioned enough, for example Jo, doing lots of painting, printing and collage with children. http://www.moretonwood.co.uk/Products.php One of the few suppliers of bark seating materials.