The Kendal Wool Gathering, held in early October, provided a great template for a celebration of wool which could be held in towns throughout Oxfordshire with a history in the wool trade.

The event in the famous Lake District town mixed fun and demonstrations, all connected to wool on which the town’s wealth was built. Stands and stalls representing all aspects of commercial wool products, including carpets, looms, spinning wheels and crafts, were on display.

A guided wool walk took in sites where, in the past, the wool trade had flourished. The ‘gathering’ featured a knitting blitz and other have-a-go ideas all organised by volunteers. The event confirmed there is a growing interest in natural fibre.

You can imagine a colourful festival of this sort in Witney, a town with a long history of blanket-making, or maybe at Blenheim Palace, where the estate has begun marketing its wool products.

One stallholder at the ‘gathering’ was The Wool Clip, which began as a co-op of Cumbria craftspeople in 2001, all enthusiastic designers and makers who enjoyed working with wool and highlighting the loss of traditional craft skills.

The group set up shop at Priest’s Mill, Caldbeck. Each member spends a couple of days a month in the shop and commission from sales pays for upkeep. Members organise the popular annual Woolfest in Cockermouth which began in 2005 and now attracts more than 100 stallholders and 4,000 visitors every year.

Wool is to be on the up after many years of decline. Prices have risen 34 per cent this year and the indicator price settled at 153p/kg in September, up from 114p/kg at the same time last year, as shown by figures from the British Wool Marketing Board.Tony Oakland-Smith of the BWMB said: “There’s a growing trend towards natural, sustainable fibres wool products, from the innovative to the traditional and vintage too.”

A modern twist on a 300-year-old idea is the ultimate green send-off: a wool coffin. Almost 350 years ago, an Act of Parliament decreed all people be buried in a woollen shroud to boost the English wool industry. The law was repealed in 1814, but Yorkshire family textile firm Hainsworth hopes to rekindle some demand with its Natural Legacy woollen coffins. There are many more uses for wool than knitting! For details visit natural legacy.co.uk You may recall a couple of weeks back I mentioned my new ram Percy and a meeting between him and our other tup, Valentine. It did not go well. After a week of bonding over the fence, things looked promising but fisticuffs ensued when I united them. They ran and clashed heads — a horrible sound which could be heard above the hum of the A34.

Percy looked bemused, while Valentine strutted about like Mike Tyson. Percy is a valuable animal and we are relying on him for some good lambs next year, so I decided caution was the best approach and separated them. I am not sure they will ever be best mates – but at least they are sitting side- by-side on each side of the fence.