This weekend was our local lavender harvest fair, and we went on both days, as we do every year, because we all enjoy it so much.  We went on Saturday morning with Granny and Grandpa who were visiting us for the day.  We spent a lot of time cutting the lavender, enjoying the wonderful scent and watching the bees and butterflies.  It was very relaxing and the children were completely absorbed in what they were doing.  They also enjoyed the local honey stall, where they won some tiny pots of honey and a bag of homemade honeycomb in the lucky dip.

As well as cutting the lavender, the children helped to hunt for rosemary beetles which have to be removed or they destroy the lavender.  This was even more popular than the lavender cutting and kept them busy for a very long time.  Owl particularly enjoyed it.  He made friends with two older boys and between them they collected a lot of beetles.

We went back today after church, and this time we bought some lavender and rosemary plants, lavender hand wash and bath foam and a jar of local honey.  We cut some more lavender, collected more bugs and spent time chatting to Mum Friendly Jo and her family.  (Jo of the many blogs – her post about today is here!)  We also saw our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick who arrived just as we were leaving, but came back to our house soon afterwards for a very late lunch.  We finished by learning how to distill lavender oil which was really interesting.  Owl is very keen to try this at home!