My dad - Bill Bullivant - has an amazing hairdo and beard, he looks just like Father Christmas and regularly gets kids coming up to him or pointing him out to their parents saying things like 'it's Father Christmas'. Dad is a member of Waterbeach Community Players and has done shows/pantos/radio plays etc. for over 20 years now but his latest role as a gentleman, in a play set in the 1700's, meant his hair and beard have had to have the chop. So yesterday he popped round and I did the honors and cut his hair before he scooted off to Cambridge Corpus Christi Playroom for rehersals. Dad says he'll grow it all back ready for the Father Christmas season! Cambridge Arts Theatre - details of play
mThe other night we went for a walk up at Wimpole Folly. I love it up there, I have done a good bit of archaeology research and landscape history around Wimpole Hall itself and have loads of great memories of past field trips with people like Twigs Way and Alison Taylor doing things like surveying and working out where the old villages used to be. The Folly is part of the landscape of Wimpole Hall and if you park up the little side road near the folly there is a public footpath and gate so that you can go for a nice walk. I took Russ up there to show him the site as he hadn't been before and for the first time ever I saw cows in the field we needed to walk to. We made our way across the field up to the folly almost going from tree to tree incase the cows were bulls! The folly looks like a kind of castle ruin but that is exactly how it was designed to look. Once you get up close you can see the red brick work faced by limestone which creates this illusion. It was built as a feature in the grounds of Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire. Phillip Yorke (1st Earl of Hardwick), was the owner of Wimpole Hall in the mid-late 1700's and he commissioned Mr. Sanderson Miller to design the folly in 1751, it was later re-built by 'Capability' Brown in 1769. Most of the folly is set out as ruins but the Gothic tower was designed to be used. The tower is a four story structure and was a great place for the gentlemen to go off to play cards and get up to other 'activities'. Wimpole Hall itself is now a National Trust property. I love old parks and gardens and especially all of the garden features like follies and grottos :)