Bury St Edmunds

I had not known that if one drives to the end of my road and turns left, the road is straight all the way to Bury St Edmunds, an hour and a half away. It takes two and a half hours and a lot of waiting on cold platforms by train, and is practically impossible by bus, which is a shame, because it is a lovely town, especially on a crisp sunny winter's day.

Mind you, at least half an hour of the drive was taken up by a lengthy discussion of the rise and fall of the English Wayside Lavatory over the last few decades, the exceedingly unhelpful flatness of the landscape and thinness of the hedges in East Anglia (and the very strong possibility that on a November Saturday one would just about get one's trousers off when the beater's wagon would hove into view over the brow of what hills there were), and the curious fact that despite the relentless march of Tesco (and their customer toilets) across our countryside, there was nary a one to be seen. I have never been so glad to see a petrol station in my life.

Like Great Yarmouth, Bury St Edmunds was having a Christmas Fayre, but on a rather grander scale. It was as if a focus group had been asked to list all the things they could think of that the town could do, then a magic wand had been waved to enable them all to happen on the same day. There were Victorian market stalls in Angel Hill, and Mediaeval market stalls in the museum. There was a Living Nativity with what I think might have been alpacas (although I am open to corrections on this one).
There were dancers in the street wearing bells and clogs.
(I don't think they were morris dancers).

There was a woman playing a hurdy-gurdy while wearing Victorian dress (her companion's smock was also worth a look).
And there were ducks in the Abbey Gardens. Remarkably tame ducks. No zoom was used to take this picture.
I kept forgetting to take my camera out, so all the above pictures were taken by mum, who is a better camerawoman than me anyway.

I have mostly knitted Chris's sock this weekend, because it suited my lack of concentration. I have also nearly finished photographing my stash to enter it on Ravelry. And I started designing something to do with a ball of very special yarn I received last week, then realised that I needed another ball for what I had in mind. So for the first time ever I found myself in the hurly-burly of the Posh Yarn's Sunday night frenzy (everything I've bought from there in the past has been later, when the rush has died down, seeing what beautiful skeins are languishing, curiously unloved). It was a nerve-wracking five minutes, but I got my wool. I now don't intend to buy any more yarn until the end of March.