Out and about

The Grunty Fen Rhubarb Festival is on Monday the 25th May, 2009 at the Burwell Museum at 2pm

The Rhubarb Gods are a bunch of curiously mythical ideologues. Some say they demand the perpetual growing of rhubarb to satisfy the Rhubarb Cherubs who inhabit the space between rhubarb heaven and earth.

Whether this is true or not, the Gods will be pleased, because the Grunty Fen Rhubarb Festival has returned for 2009.

Pete Sayers as Dennis of Grunty Fen

For the third year in a row the festival comes to Burwell Museum and there is no better way to spend your Bank Holiday Monday than rooting yourself in some rhubarb related revelry.

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Christopher South will open the event in honour of Dennis of Grunty Fen. Mr South would often listen politely as Dennis weaved his Fen-based tales of mischief on the old wireless.

Then the serious stuff begins. First of all there will be the judging of the rhubarb that folk from across the county have brought with them, so there's no excuse for not bringing yours.

Rhubarb

Judges will be looking for the the biggest, smallest, reddest, longest, prettiest, ugliest, limpest, stiffest, bendyest, straightest, weirdest and/or moistest rhubarb. There will be a special prize for the rhubarb that meets all of those requirements.

There will also be a demonstration of rhubarb semaphore, displaying how Fenlanders would communicate over long distances before the days of pigeons, mobile phones and speech. Very few olde English traditions are as highly respected as this art form.

Of course there will be the opportunity to write your own poem 'Ode to Rhubarb', and children are strongly encouraged, nay forced, to bring along drawings of the now long gone rhubarb forest (which is sadly now an Aldi) complete with the dinosaurs that roamed through it.

Glamorous guests such as Miss Rhubarb Tart and Miss Rhubarb Crumble will also be in attendance while rhubarb and custard tea will be simmering away all day long to keep the Gods and punters happy and fed.

And don't worry about the weather - it hasn't rained in Burwell since 1957.

The Grunty Fen Rhubarb Festival is on Monday the 25th May, 2009 at the Burwell Museum in Mill Close, Burwell. Car-parking at the Gardiner Memorial Hall in the High Street. Admission prices: Adults - £3, Children - £1, Under 5s - Free, Season Ticket Holders - Free.

For further information about this event please phone Paul Hawes (Museum Trust Chairman) on 01638 742847.