Contrasts

Oxfordshire does a thing called 'Artweeks'. Local artists and craftsfolk in one part of the county open their homes or cluster in village halls, farm buildings, offices, at the same time to show their work - and try to sell it of course. There is a guide book, and yellow signs spring up, half hidden in the roadside grass. Much cake is baked and tea is brewed

We indulged ourselves for an afternoon. First stop was the sort of house where every blade of grass knows its place and stays there. The artist is a highly accomplished photographer, producing both minutely detailed figurative work and highly-worked, abstract images using multiple exposures, then combined with other images in post processing. I think the pixels are subject to the same discipline as the lawn-edges. I asked about printing and was shown a printer for which each ink cartridge cost £150, and it needs 10

Later, we came to a traditional family farmyard, in an achingly green valley at the height of its mid-May extravagance, heavy with the scent of hawthorn. Some tactile wood-carving (wood gleaned from the farm), some terracotta garden pots - functional but lovingly crafted, and does any colour look better with green? Some silver jewellery - the craft world is awash with silver jewellery, but this was more imaginative than most, some ceramics with intriguing glazes..

Upstairs, downstairs, in the yard, in the garden, in the shed, a bit of a maze. In a surreal touch, in the meadow, a man was practicing his golf drive and a labrador was retrieving the balls. Country life

My mind was impressed - no, overawed - by the photography, but I think my heart responded to farmyard chaos. We bought terracotta

Mrs M's trust in the soundness of the wall I rebuilt in the winter is encouraging. We could do with a little more green to balance the terracotta, but they are growing