The Day the Lions Came to Louth....

I was faffing around on Saturday when I should have been at a fab fair but had had to cancel because I was poorly when I saw this status update on Facebook from my littlest sister;

'What I was expecting today: irate customers. What I was NOT expecting today: 2 giant crocheted lions, a brass band of chefs and people dressed as camels and kangaroos!'

 

Needless to say, she works at Natwest so she was having a *fun* day with lots of cross customers but ignore that, she mentioned giant crocheted lions. This I needed to see.  I googled crocheted lions in Louth and mainly all I read about was market traders getting irate about not being told about things going on but then I stumbled across The Lionheart Project. 

 

The lions are part of a series of sculptures and artworks commissioned across the country to mark the Cultural Olympiad are were made and designed by Shauna Richardson.

I'm still slightly amused as to why they chose Louth. If you don't know the place (not many people do to be fair), Louth is a lovely small market town, north of Lincoln, kind of nondescript though in the big scheme of the UK. Louth doesn't generally sit alongside Chatsworth House, Nottingham, The Natural History Museum but I'm not going to complain because it means I get to play. 

Last night I promised J and L that we would go and see the lions if they went straight to sleep; Lucy was still awake at 2am so this afternoon I was torn; should we not go because she hadn't kept her side of the bargain but Jack had. Should I maybe blindfold her? In the end we all went.  

The lions were huge.  Apparently they are lifesized but surely this is bigger than a normal lion? 

The three lions are transported around the country in this glass display case that is also the back of a lorry....please tell me that they don't cover them up when they are driving down the M1!!

For some reason L thought that the display wasn't that good. She had expected real lions, roaming the streets of Louth.  Maybe that explains all of the photos she took of the lions mouths! 

J was impressed with the size of the lions but he thought that they would be giant pinatas and that we would be able to hit them and loads of sweets would come out..hmm. Maybe the lack of sleep last night effected their common sense? 

Katie and I decided that we would prove our crochet geekiness by having our photos taken with the lions, while we were crocheting. We were a little bit worrid that people might think we were a bit odd but then ended up spending 5 mins with Lou our mini photographer to get the (almost) perfect photo!