Last summer we made a decision: that we would not lamb in 2019.  Lambing is something that we've always done and it does feel strange not to do it.  However, it has freed us up to do LOTS of things that we wouldn't otherwise get to do:
LOTS of gardening (including getting on top of the veg plot in plenty of time for a change)
LOTS of days out in the recent good weather
And I am planning to walk the St Cuthbert's Way next week.  This is a big undertaking for me as I have completely lost my hill-walking mojo in recent years and this walk will be a challenge for me in terms of its (moderate) hills and the (moderate) distances involved.
This is the route:

And - I'm lucky to live close enough to come home and sleep in my own bed the first couple of nights. 
And I've had to do lots of planning: booking accommodation which means I don't have huge distances to cover; sorting out tide times for the last day crossing over to Holy Island; wee bits of shopping; and of course lots of walking in my newish boots.
I also decided to knit myself a cowl for the trip as a kind of meditation on the walk - and worked up a design which used up lots of the 'peerie clews' from my knitting basket. I loved knitting it. and you can see the basic design at the top of this post.  I tried to design and work in lots of motifs from the walk as well as some of the predominant colours: blues, greens, pink, purple, yellow and brown with bits of pale grey.
I'll try to knit another one that's better :) and post up the pattern.
I've also said I'll post a record of the trip so I might have to hijack my woolly blog for the next wee while.  

We were so so honoured to be awarded a place at this year's Make:Wool event.  This is an additional part of Edinburgh Yarn Festival, aimed at showcasing the work of those of us who produce wool from our own sheep (last year it was called Meet The Shepherdess) and so those of us who sell yarn with absolute traceability and provenance.  It was so busy for us last year, that we sold almost everything we took (lesson for this year is to take more stock along with us!).We HAVE been let down by the Mill at the last minute, and so still don't have any of the 2018 wool clip to sell but we have been busy dyeing, skeining and labelling everything that we have, to bring to the event.
We will have:
Laceweight (equivalent knit to a Jamieson's Ultra) both dyed and undyed.
4-ply ( equivalent to a jumper-weight) in Essy (pale grey Shetland and Romney blend which is sooo soft!) and Mountain Hare white.
Hand-dyed 4ply in a rainbow of shades (as can be seem in the hat above!)There is both white and grey dyed wool giving a lovely mix of shades.
DK in Haar (mid grey) and in a range of four hand-dyed-on-grey shades. which are ideal for knitting the Arboreal Sweater (see below).
As you will see, we've been busy knitting for EYF and thanks to everyone who's helped out.! 

Well, the snowdrops here are not quite as advanced as this - it's a photo from last year, but they ARE starting to show their heads above the surface; the bravest of the flowers.
January has been a time for several things:  business planning for the year ahead; getting applications in to yarn festivals around Scotland and the North of England; and trying to be kind to myself.  Years ago, at business school, I remember looking at marketing as being a mix of Product, Price, Promotion and Place - and it has been useful to force myself into applying that kind of structured thinking to my own work.  
Lammermuir Wool has applied to several shows - and we should hear back from most of them over the next few weeks.  The biggest news though has been being accepted for a place at Edinburgh Yarn Festival's Sunday event Make:Wool on 24th March. This is a development of last year's Meet The Shepherdess event which was the busiest event we have ever attended - a very busy four hours indeed.  If you are coming to EYF, or are in Edinburgh on 24th then please do get tickets for the Sunday event as we'd love to see you!
We made a decision NOT to lamb this year - as last year was so difficult.  Eleven years in and we thought we would take a spring off-duty.  So, no lamb pics to come this spring.
Over the winter, there is less grass for the sheep as it won't grow again until the temperature picks up.  They are fed hay each day and the quality of last year's hay has been superb - the sheep love it!  Later on they will also get hard feeding, and they also have fodder supplement via a mineral lick bucket.  They are certainly well provided for.  Grass is their favourite though - and even in the snow, they will dig down to find grass.
Last year's fleeces are off to the Mill in Yorkshire and it will be a stressful few weeks trying to get it back in time for the EYF event!  We have additional fleeces in the mix this time, too - following the success of last year's Shetland/Romney blend: Essy 4 ply.  We have been lucky to purchase fleeces from a championship winning flock in Aberdeenshire, as well as from a neighbouring flock of Shetland sheep.  Next year's clip will also be blended with local Cheviot fleeces: all to expand the range and amount of yarn that we have to offer.  Looks like all the dreaming and planning is paying off...

I was never just going to be able to follow patterns.  Years ago, i studied dance as my minor at degree level and it used to make me think about the merits or otherwise of learning a range of techniques before launching off into creating your own projects.  There is also something to be said for recognising the strength and beauty of the traditions from which your creativity comes.
And so it was exciting to just get out a pair of needles and some left-over yarn and start to think about what I might like to wear myself.  Wanting to stay close to the origins of my home grown Shetland wool.  
All of the yarn in this sample shown above are undyed natural shades of sheep apart from the hand-dyed strip across the middle which is a shade called Gloaming.
Before I knew it, my hands had knitted up a wee pair of very warming cuffs and I have only just managed to deconstruct and reconstruct what I did so that i can write it up into a pattern.
This pattern will be included as part of some yarn kits that I'll have for sale at St Abbs and afterwards on the website.  Scary and exciting times!

 World Mental Health Day is held on 10th October each year and it's important to me for two reasons:
Firstly because for nearly ten years I worked for 'see me', Scotland's national and multi-award-winning campaign to end the stigma and discrimination of mental ill-health.  Latterly as Director of the campaign.  WMHD (and mental health week) provided a welcome focus for local and national campaign and lobbying work - , work which went on all year without always making the headlines.
Secondly because for the last twenty years or so I have come to a recognition and acceptance of my own mental health challenges and learned better how to be more resilient, and how to take care of myself when things become difficult.  There is also now mere awareness in Scotland of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the impact that they have on us as adults. Not before time and very welcome.
My mental health is definitely better these days:  finally finding a good GP, the right medication, and a different way of living have made all the difference.  Being self-employed is not without its challenges for someone who is extremely diffident, but stepping away from the mental health charity which employed me is the best thing I ever did for my mental health.
Now my life is less structured (unless I'm working on a project for a client in which case I am mega-disciplined!) and more focused on the things I enjoy doing.  These are:
- being with my sheep
- working with the wool that they produce (whether that is knitting, crochet, weaving and - more recently forays into hook-rugging and needlefelting)
- walking outside and foraging
- scouring charity shops and eBay for clothes (have decided that buying new is a mug's game)
- coming up with creative ideas for the business
- reading Scandi and Scottish crime
- painting in watercolurs
- pottery (a constant and felt absence in my life while I try to get on top of things woolly)
​- talking to people about my wool and my sheep.
I am aware that I am incredibly lucky at present to be able to live life in this fashion: in a way that is good for me, good for my relationships and my mental health.

  The sheep now produce a great range of wool ....I like to check out yarn shops, yarn producers and sheep. 
The weeks away mostly consisted of wrapping up warm and dragging Hamish out on bracing walks along beaches and up glen paths but whilst staying in Kinlochmoidart recently (and hiding from Storm Ali) I was able to visit a flock of Shetlands with which we have a long-standing relationship.  Over the years, we have swapped ewes and tups and supported each other in finding a way forward through the world of wool.
The sheep are based at Sanna, on Ardnamurchan and - we managed to combine a visit to the lighthouse which we hadn't visited since about 2004 with an afternoon's sheep-talk.  The terrain is so different from that of East Lothian and the Borders, but the sheep that we have sold on to live here have adapted well and show what great value Shetland sheep are to the small holder and crafter where terrain and conditions can be harsh.  The sheep produce a beautifully soft range of wool for West Highland Woollery - check them out on facebook.

The approach of autumn always has me in a frenzy of activity - perhaps it'a a hangover from old lives where September meant the start of the school or university year.  This autumn we did our first ever Perth Festival of Yarn and I have to say, we were a bit nervous.
In thinking about how best to showcase our wool at this event I decided on two things:
- hat bunting (to illustrate our undyed and dyed shades working together)
- creating some new shades of dyed wool
The hat bunting was fun to do - although my hands suffered for it.  My aim was ten brightly coloured hats but in the end I could only get eight done.  And a swift web-based lesson in knitting iCord helped me to display them properly.
I had always been unsure that people would want to 'buy what they can see' but the display certainly helped to spark people's thinking.In picking two new dyed shades, in the end I went for Bramble and Bracken, with the bramble shown below.  When not working (or , dyeing wool or knitting hats, I have mainly been bramble and sloe picking ...
Over all, Perth FoY was an incredible event for us:  really helpful event team and lots of space so that the venue never felt crushed or crowded.  Financially it was very successful and has re-booted our enthusiasm for woolly events.  Big thanks to Eva and team!

When I'm at woolly events, I always find myself thinking about the value of things which are have traditionally been classed as 'women's work'.  Several encounters this summer have brought this closer to home.  We spent a good chunk of Italy in Barga, in the north of Tuscany.  Not the Tuscany of a million postcardss: the chianti-shire rolling hills and olive groves with roads flanked by rows of dark cypress trees, but instead a mountainous landscape cloaked in chestnut and pines, where the traditional foods are wild funghi, castagne, mirtilli, lepre and cinghiale. Barga badges itself as 'the most Scottish town in Italy, and is home to a fish and chip festival each summer.
My in-laws - particularly my late mother-in-law, Bianca, and sisters-in-law, Anna and Letizia and cousin-in-law Roberta are skilled in a number of textile-based crafts.  I will never forget getting my hands slapped by Bianca before I was patiently shown how to both crochet and knit 'the right way'  I think that Italians always have 'the right way' to do things.  And they are, generally, right.
I spotted a leaflet for an exhibition subtitled 'Lavori di donne antiche e moderne in mostra' and persuaded Anna to come along with me for essential translation purposes - and also because I knew that she would be able to explain exactly what I was looking at:

 Many of the items that I saw looked familiar.  So Italian.  We have a cottage full of bits and pieces of trimmings, wee cloths and so on all in this similar starched white fresh Italian white cotton or linen.  Picked up at markets...  It has just become part of how we live.  
A lot of the pieces were designed for 'bottom drawers' and for special gifts.
Some of the items on show were made on a massive scale in tiny stitches - lovingly crafted by women working Without Electric Light.  My eyes hurt just thinking about it.
And every time I asked a question - and people who know me will testify that I ask a LOT of questions - there was a women on hand to show me exactly how things had been made and stitched.  Threading needles and showing me how to do it; explaining the Italian name for each technique.
The curator of the exhibition was a Australian Italian. and was passionate about two things:  preserving and highlighting this highly skilled work; and trying to encourage a new generation.  Young women who might want to learn these skills.  There were local workshops and 'new hands' were able to learn from older ones.  
A living tradition as it should be.  Such a rich heritage to risk losing it.

2018 was our first visit as stallholders at Woolfest.  I have visited a few times in the past; as a customer and also as a helper on the Shetland Sheep Society stand.  I have always come away awestruck by just how creative and entrepreneurial so many people are, and inspired to do more myself.
Applying to 'do' Woolfest was a big decision:  it is a multi-day undertaking requiring accommodation and paid-for doggy-care, as well as travel costs and stall fees.  We were encouraged to apply for a mini-stall; an initiative run by Woolfest to encourage new and smaller sellers.  I worked hard on the application and was both excited and scared to find out that I had gained a place at this year's event.  
Despite still being short of stock (because my missing 16kg of spun wool is still mislaid by Parcelforce), I worked hard in the weeks leading up to the event: weighing, re-skeining; dyeing; drying; labelling ....
We set up on the Thursday afternoon and were finished quite quickly which meant we could help out our neighbouring stall-holders.  Especially Paolo, as he has Long Arms Which Can Reach Things.  Our stall didn't look too bad and - as we were in a bit of a dark corner - we felt we had lightened it up as best we could.   ​

​We took this photo of a neighbouring field last month - when everything was still very fresh and green.  It does not look the same now!
The lambs - which were so tiny back in April have really grown, with some of the larger lambs now almost as big as their mothers.  To watch two huge lambs diving for their mother's milk with such strength that they lift the ewes back-end off of the ground is funny to see, but the ewes are starting to look a bit fed up of the whole business of providing milk to such boisterous and independent off-spring.  We will probably wean off the lambs in late August, moving the ewes a few miles away to a different field, where they have nothing to do but eat and regain condition.
We lost two lambs over the last few months - and each occasion was very sad.  One lamb developed CCN - a brain illness - and the other who we nursed carefully for over a month - never really recovered from being abandoned by her mother (and stolen by another ewe) at birth.  Both times we were able to take the lambs to our local vet to have them euthanised.  It's very upsetting for us as we spend a lot of time with our sheep (and even more with the ill ones!) and grow attached to them.
We had to bottle feed two lambs for the first momth or so after they were born.  The ewe birthed twins but would only ever feed one.  If the second lamb tried to feed she would butt it away.  However, she did not reject the lamb outright (as sometimes happens).  It turned out that the ewe really only just had enough milk for one lamb and so had made a decision not to feed the second. 
There's a wee film clip below showing the paler lamb (the one not being fed by mum) looking a lot quieter and less active than her sister.  We kept the three of them in a pen for over a week so that mum got used to the idea of both lambs being around.
​

It was a tricky lambing period over all with some new challenges for us but lambs now seem healthy, happy and are growing fast.

After several months of anxious waiting my last batch of wool from the 2017 clip has arrived.  I am still short of some but will have enough (fingers crossed) for the remaining shows this year.  
The wool above is a lovely soft blend of our Shetland first-clip and some Romney fleece.  It makes a beautifully airy wool with lots of 'bounce' in it.  And I have started knitting with it already .... .I'm using it with some dyed Lammerloch blue to make yet another Surge shawl.
I got another lovely box full of my Simply Shetland Single - laceweight wool, and a batch of pale grey DK which we have christened
Haar - named after the North Sea mist which sometimes rolls inland at this time of year - sometimes cloaking us in fog for days.  
All of these new items are now in the Store of this website and will be available at Woolfest
in a few weeks time.
Now we are just dyeing wool, waiting on wool bands to come back from the printer, and thinking about shearing the 2018 clip.  More on that next time.

Lambing was tough this year and threw up a number of challenges that we hadn't faced for a long time.  I like to think it was partly down to the odd weather we've had over the last few months.  Still, we've made it with only a very small number of losses and one caddy lamb who is slowly being weaned off the bottle.  The two lambs pictured above have also given us some headaches.  The mother - Alice - had a single white (shown) and also stole the grey katmoget ewe lamb from Birgitta (who had also had a GIANT grey katmoget tup immediately named Brian Boru).  Wee adoptee probably didn't get enough colostrum before we got to the field and has been on increasingly strong antibiotics over the last couple of weeks for fluid-filled lungs and poorly legs.  As the vet says - the prognosis isn't great - but we are doing what we can.
First lamb of this year was Breck (or breac) meaning speckled or spotted.  He was huge when born and is even bigger now!

I love  St Abbs Wool Festival - I love everything about it and enjoy being a vendor here. Despite being a bit shy, I can talk about sheep and wool for Scotland, and anyway I love hearing about what other people have knitted.
I was a bit short on wool to take, as I’m still waiting on a missing 16kg of spun grey wool courtesy of Parcel Force who now think they might have delivered it to someone else by mistake. However, I labelled everything I had, dyed lots more wool taking into account the feedback I got in Edinburgh, and I was quite pleased with my display!
I was also placed opposite my absolute favourite stall at the event; Pink Minis who designs and makes the most awesome tweed clothes.
Trade was great! I was very happy that people had come back after buying yarn from me at St Abbs previous festivals; including people who bought sweater-quantities of yarn, as well as people who had been at EYFs Meet the Shepherdess event a few weeks before.
I took along a good selection of dyed mini-skeins and was pleased with how they came out!

As usual, I spent a lot of time just chatting with people  about their own knitting and certainly fell in love with this shawl worn by one customer!  The pattern is Surge by Lisa Mutch on Ravelry and I was inspired by the combination of colours and the short rows used. It’s knitted in 4 ply and I just might have some Devonia 4 ply by John Arbon in my stash which would be ideal for this!  I also plan to dye some of my white 4 ply when it arrives from the Mill.

I really did have to sprint off at the other end to head back to the lambing field, but once again a massive thanks to Jennie from SkyBluePink Designs for all the hard work she does in organising this event.  It is a real success!

This was a new event for this year and I felt very honoured indeed to be asked to participate.  There are people who have seen the potential of Lammermuir Wool when I could not (more in another post) and Mica and Jo are definitely among them.
The aim was to create a less formal, smaller event on the Sunday after EYF which would have a small number of stalls and focus on bringing forward yarn producers.  I think there may have been a dozen stalls in the end; among them yarny colleagues I had met before from Uradale Yarns, Lifelong Yarns, Black Isle Yarns and Hawkshaw Sheep.  Customers would have chance to take coffee and cake, knit and natter and buy wool with local provenance from small suppliers.
Things have not been great for me over the winter ( I was recovering from two operations and the loss of my eldest brother) and sometimes it didn't feel as if spring would ever come. 
While I do seem to spend lots of my time either at meetings or looking after the sheep, having Meet the Shepherdess (or Meet The Princess as I once called it) to focus on gave me something creative to get stuck in to.
My major problem was possibly going to be a lack of yarn to sell - despite the Mill receiving my fleeces in September last year, when I checked in January nothing had yet been scoured or spun.  Nor had it been when I checked in February.  There is a limit to the amount of preparation you can do without being able to weigh and measure the finished yarn - but I was able to make a start on dyeing my new Colour Pops.  These are 25g mini-skeins which would (I hope) complement the grey and brown yarn that I would be getting from the Mill..  But it was also important to me to find a blend of colours that I could expect to find in my own landscape.  I spent a good week or so dyeing the mini-skeins and was quite p[eased with them.  .  You can see them at the bottom of the photo above and also below​

Mica & Jo had mentioned the need for me to have things knitted up in my wool and it certainly did make a difference on the day:  especially my Horseshoe Lace scarf which can be seen in the top photo.  I am not a fast or even remotely experienced knitter and I have never knitted so much, so quickly.
The wool finally arrived from the Mill on the Wednesday afternoon before the event - well, ONE of the bags did; the other is still languishing somewhere in an unknown Parcelforce Depot - which meant several days of frantic re-skeining and labelling, and I could only manage a limited number of hanks in each weight and colour.
Saturday night - packed car.  Organised!
​Next morning:

Hasty re-packing of stock into The Mighty Defender, then a nerve-wracking crawl through the snow.
So - people were queuing to get in - which surprised me and - after an initial two minutes when I thought we might not sell anything, the stall went like a fair for the next four hours. I absolutely love talking to people - and will talk to absolutely anyone - and did not stop talking and selling until the event ended. At which point we had no wool left to take home.
I love the fact that people from all around the world were there (Paolo was able to practise his Italian), and I received some great and constructive feedback on what we were doing. Someone (unprompted) said she thought the Colour Pops were 'just like the colours you see if you drive over the hills from Haddington to Duns'. That will do me nicely.
Among the lovely feedback I love this You Tube vlog by Minna S from Northern Finland (a place close to my heart!) where - 30 minutes in - she talks about her experience of the Lammermuir Wool Stand
I always come away from wool events awestruck by how many talented and entrepreneurial women there are in the woolly world - and it starts me musing on how we as a society place value on crafts (especially those traditionally the domain of women). i may have given an incoherent and rambling interview to Louise from Knit British on this subject.
If this event runs again, I hope to be invited and I wouldn't miss it for the world.
As for now? Ti,me to try to chase this missing parcel of grey DK and get ready for St Abbs Wool Festival!

Edinburgh Yarn Festival really has grown into a 'must-attend' in the world of woolly events. As well as the fact that the show just gets better and better each year (more below), one of the things I really admire about the show organisers is the way that they have created a warm and friendly community feel to such a huge event, and this festival and events like the Knitters Christmas Party are a real testament to the fact that there is nothing we knitters and wool-makers like better than a chance to get together!
There will be two blog posts about EYF this year - this one about my experience as a vendor, and the next one about the awesome Meet The Shepherdess event.
Firstly, I did not manage to get booked into a class this year. Despite being warned in plenty of time about when bookings would 'go live', I completely forgot. I also did not get organised in time to get tickets for my preferred days, but sometimes you just have to suck it up.
I arrived half an hour before opening time, and queued around the block in horizontal snow. The queue is always a good time to get chatting to people, and everyone I had spoken to had attended at least one of the previous days and thoroughly enjoyed it. Was early in (like a greyhound), which meant things were quiet for a while. Quieter.
I was determined to be quite strict about purchase this time and did have a mental shopping list which I nearly stuck to. My stash (photo above) is very focused indeed:
1 sweater's worth of Midwinter Yarns Blane wool for making a purple Carbeth later. A Merrie Dancers Toorie's worth of Shetland Handspun from Elizabeth Johnston (already knitted up) and three skeins of Devonia DK from John Arbon which has a luxury woven scraf in its near future.
Added to that my Notions bag (now I know what a Notion is) from Woolly Originals - an item I have coveted since the Christmas Party when I didn't win one in the raffle - and my knitters notebook. Not bad going really. No single-skeins destined to languish in my Yarn Stash Box.
Managed to check in with friends and colleagues from Weft Blown, Threshing Barn, Dye Ninja, Uradale Yarns, Whistlebare, SkyBluePink and Borders Mill. Hoping they all had a great few days!

Sheepy-wise it has not been a bad winter so far. The grass kept growing until very late in the year and here in the East, we have avoided the very wet weather seen in the south west, and down in parts of Cumbria.  The snow has arrived in the last few days and the sheep have access to shelter from the winds.
Shetland sheep are hardy creatures and cope with cold wet weather fairly well.  They are now on ad lib hay, as well as having access to mineral buckets and occasional hard feeding.   They have been treated to prevent liver fluke and have had their pre-winter vitamin drench.
The tups were in amongst the ewes from Remembrance Sunday until the weekend before Christmas, and we have gathered together the tups that we loaned out to people as far as Skye and the North East.  We borrowed two tups this year: a handsome white boy and a stunning wee grey tup lamb with the softest fleece I have ever come across.
We currently have a batch of ewes and ewe lambs in isolation awaiting transport to a farmer in Northern Ireland, and some ewes who are soon due to head off to a new breeder in Orkney.
Woolly-wise we are busy applying to various wool events and working on our business plan for the coming months.  We aim to have new wool supplies ready for our spring events, and we will publish details of these on our website as soon as we know them.  
The last few months have generally been spent catching up on knitting and weaving projects, finishing off those WIPs that have been hanging around the house.
We are also working on some new projects that we aim to launch later this year.

Where to begin?  Am just re-emerging from a period of illness and then family bereavement, and it feels good to be back into the website, replying to a backlog of emails from potential customers (sorry!) and updating the stock levels.
New of Clive's death threw me into a period of wool dyeing and also (rather less
successful) home-baking.    It's hard not to feel creative when you are surrounded by such great autumn colours.
I've attended two great woolly events in the last few weeks, which has helped with a sense of focus:  Highland Wool and Textiles Festival and then St Abbs Wool Festival.  It's easy to underestimate the amount of work that goes into making these events such a success until you are at the event and see how much needs to be co-ordinated and how much effort goes into the pre-event publicity.  
At both events I had lots of lovely visitors to the Lammermuir Wool stand, and it's filled me full of enthusiasm for the year ahead.
​

The sheared fleeces have been taking up useful space in the conservatory for far too long. Although the cats have made lofty perches up on the tops of the sacks, and will miss their high seats.
The fleeces were well skirted at shearing-time, with all daggings and 'clarty bits' removed.
The task for today was to unroll each fleece in turn and give it a good shake, removing any double-cuts and vegetation. Then the fleece is laid (skin side down) on the table and checked over very carefully. Any remaining bits of vegetable matter are removed, then the fleece is rolled back up again and packed - as tightly as possible - into a sack. The colours are each kept separate, so that they can be processed separately at the Mill.
It's tiring work, and a bit greasy as the fleeces are still rich in lanolin. The trick is to remember how soon it will come back, cleaned, spun and ready to use.

The weather her has been fantastic and Hamish and I spent the afternoon wandering around Lammermoch, taking new photographs for the website - especially the shopfront section.  We are lucky to live close to the hills and the reservoirs, and so there is plenty of opportunity to take great photos while enjoying some peace.
I met a lovely lady last year who got me thinking about photos, and branding and the like, and so I'm happier now that I have product photos which are as much part of the landscape as my wool is!  Check this out - sunbathing wool.

I love going to the Great Yorkshire Show (or GYS) each year.  I usually divide my time between the sheep lines and the Yorkshire Dry-Stone Walling Guild project, and rarely get to see much else on the showground.
This year the Guild was working on a permanent bench which (when the fields are not full of cars) will have a great view down over the Crimple Valley.  Here are some of the team hard at work:

I was also asked to show my friend's sheep in the ring on Tuesday afternoon.  Never was a third prize more happily received!