Off to John Clare Country

Took my Mum over to the John Clare festival in Helpstone, near Peterborough / Stamford.  It is a lovely village and we spent plenty of time poking through the books and looking at Carry Ackroyd's work in a local print/art sellers shop.  The house where John Clare was born is now open to the public although there are other interesting houses all through the village.

We walked across to St Botolph's church where John Clare is buried. As part of the festival, local children had brought decorated turfs and placed them around the grave. Apart from the lavender, they were the brightest things in the churchyard.

The church has several windows but my favourite details were of the lilies and clothing on the older window.

To celebrate John Clare, we walked through the village in an occasional drizzle and followed the footpath across the bean fields looking at the butterflies in the lanes and listening to the skylarks above the cornfield.