While on our way to Wych Cross Garden Centre we had one of those serrendipitous experiences that come along occasionally. I had just missed the left hand turn to Cowden and had to turn around. I headed off down a country lane and managed to turn around in this driveway. While doing so I spotted a farmer shearing his sheep. I might expect to see this on Welsh hillsides or up on the Downs in rural Wiltshire but it did surprise me to see this happening in Sussex. The counties around London are very heavily populated but thanks to some wonderful planning regulations much of Kent and Sussex remains defiantly rural and this was a great example. Anyway I got out of the car to take some pictures and was pleased that they not only agreed to let me but also invited me in for a closer look. The farmer said he had 40 head of sheep which he raised for their meat but since they needed a shear to make them more comfortable during the summer he asked a mate to come over and trim them. He asked me what I thought a fleece might be worth and I suggested a tenner but no, he was hoping to get 60p. That means the fleeces from his entire flock would raise ?24 of which ?20 would go to his friend for doing it. I think I'd ask for more than 50p for shearing a sheep but hey he is a mate. It was a wonderful glimpse of rural life in England and it was almost on our doorstep. I think I'll stick to Accountancy.

n. *Apparatus: 1. equipment designed to serve a specific function 2. (anatomy) a group of body parts that work together to perform a given function"the breathing apparatus" Urban Apparatus, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. PixQuote: I think that basically all of my photographs are failures... I'm not saying that as a self negation, I just don't judge it upon it upon how "good" it was, but rather upon how I'd fail upon what I was trying to say. -W. Eugene Smith