Last Saturday was an interesting mixture of the odd and the ‘proper’ In the morning I went to a scarecrow festival, in the afternoon I went to a tea party devoted to etiquette and manners. It definitely made a fascinating and enjoyable day out! This post is about the scarecrows, my next post is about how I learnt the ‘rights and wrongs’ of drinking and eating 
Scarecrows
Haslingfield is one of my neighbouring villages and lies 5 miles south-west of Cambridge, I travel through it every day on my bus journey to and from work. Every two years that journey is made much more interesting as, one week in September, odd things begin appearing around the village!
These peculiar objects are part of Haslingfield’s Scarecrow Festival weekend, which has been running every two years since 2000. Originally the scarecrows were part of their millennium celebrations, the scarecrows were such a popular idea it has been a part of the village calendar ever since.
Originally the event included around fifty scarecrow entries, recent festivals have seen the number increasing to two hundred! The festival is fun and aims to involve the whole community, whilst also rasing money for restoration of the village church and a number of other charities.
As you can see, the scarecrows are not scarecrows as you would imagine them to be, but fun and creative masterpieces. Although admittedly some of them could also be described as a bit creepy! The squirrel at the top of this post was amazing and definitely my favourite, but there were many others which came close. I have included a few of my pics in this post, I took too many to include them all!
It was a perfect sunny day for a walk around the whole of the village. Many of the scarecrows are found down the side roads, which those travelling through don’t get to see from the main road. It was the first time I had been to the festival so it was lovely to walk around the whole village, with scarecrows as an added bonus.
This years festival also included a dog show, an art exhibition, a fete and a barbecue amongst other things. It is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area in September 2014! A Google search shows many other places that hold similar events.
Also, if you would like to make one yourself check out http://www.makescarecrows.com/ or http://www.channel4.com/4homes/how-to/crafts/how-to-make-a-scarecrow
What a great piece, I’m going to go and look round with my son if its sunny tomorrow