Wonderful Woolfest Weekend (day 1)

Spinning Fishwife and I set off for Cockermouth on Thursday afternoon to spend a few days camping without kids and hubbies. However our main reason was to go to Woolfest (as I had said in my previous post). We arrived at the Graysonside Campsite just outside Cockermouth having only got lost once (I was the navigator) and this was not our fault. The instructions we had downloaded from the internet said bear right when in fact it should have been bear left, but hey we found the Woolfest venue then went back and found the campsite. The camp site was small but very friendly. The only criticism I would have was that there wasn't enough toilet/shower blocks (only 2), which meant we had to queue in the morning, but we all managed ok.

We were soon joined by other knitters from as far afield as Cornwall to Inverness!!!!
They were Sue, Becca, Glittrgirl, Scumkitten, Purlpower, Knit-Wits Anonymous, Flossie Knits, The Knit Nurse. Once all the tents were erected and beds blown up etc we relaxed and chatted before cooking our dinner.




Here we are, all sitting round eating dinner and chatting!!!!!






We sat around till long after the sunset, chatting, knitting and having a few glasses of wine or beer.

This is the sunset taken from the door of our tent.



Spinning Fishwife and I were up bright and early next morning, showered and breakfasted and ready to go by 9am. Woolfest opened at 10am, but we had decided to get there early so we could get the car parked and didn't have to stand in a long queue. We took Sue with us as she didn't have any transport and was going to walk. Most people in the queue were sitting knitting waiting to get in and there was a very friendly atmosphere. We met some really nice people whilst sitting waiting for the doors to open. Once they did ......WOW....The sight that greeted us was totally amazing, both Spinning Fishwife and I were totally mesmerised by the sheer amount of yarns etc all in one place, it was a knitters/spinners dream come true!!!!!! We wandered up and down the isles ooohing and aaahing and pointing things out to each other. For some reason I didn't take that many pictures inside of all the yarns etc, but I did take some.




Just look at the size of these needles....................








There were two Alpacas, but they didn't like being petted!!!! Having said that they seemed quite happy having everyone looking at them whilst they ate their hay.





This is Bruno, a North Ronaldsay Ram all the way from the Island of North Ronaldsay in Orkney, and he DID like getting his head scratched!!!!!!



We shopped till we dropped and boy were we about dropping when we decided to call it a day and go back to the camp site to rest and relax to do it all again the following day!!!!!! We arrived back to the tent just in time, as the heavens opened and we had a thunder storm. Very comforting sitting in the tent knitting listening to the rain on the roof and listening to Glittrgirl, Scumkitten and Purlpower etc singing in their tents to send the rain away!!!!!!! Must be a Geordie thing!!!!!

After the rain went off we cooked dinner and once again sat around chatting, knitting and having a few glasses of beer/wine before retiring to bed early, in readiness for Saturdays shopping!