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Field Day favourite, author and Farms for City Children Founder Michael Morpurgo is in the spotlight again today.

He's come up with a story for the 2012 Olympics about the games' mascots.

Set to be unveiled on Wednesday (19 May), the mascots are apparently two drops of steel from some of the steel girders that make up the Olympic Stadium.

According to Sebastian Coe, who's king of the Olympics, or something like that, the story tells of the steel droplets going on a journey.

"It is a journey between now and London," he said. "And they are fun - they are aimed particularly at children."

Apparently the first official Olympic mascot was Waldi, a striped dachshund who hung out at the 1972 Munich Games.

But this being Field Day - aka Cat Chat - I thought I'd share a picture of Hodori, the mascot of the 1988 Games in Seoul:

London's 2012 mascots will be unveiled on Wednesday's The One Show on BBC1 at 7pm.

A group of rugby-playing youngsters were flying the flag for Staffordshire-grown parsnips when they went on a three-match tour of Canada recently.

Veteran TV broadcaster Murray Walker has covered a lot of races over the years, but last weekend was a first for him. He was commentating on a pig race.

Forget the glamour of the Monaco Grand Prix, the exuberant occasionally tongue-tied former Formula 1 (try saying that quickly and it won't be just him who's tongue-tied) commentator was on the mic at this unusual contest in Hampshire.

The event, which was the brainchild of farmer Rob Shepherd and attracted more than 1000 visitors, raised £7000 for the Damerham Sports Field fund.

Rob reckons 85-year-old Murray, who lives locally and jumped at the chance to get involved, had a great time. "He had a grin on his face from ear to ear. After all, it's a bit more interesting than opening a fete!"

As this video footage from the BBC shows, it featured five races and a grand finale, with the porkers hot-footing across a 100m course.

Lovers of the Lake District (my favourite spot is Blea Tarn, although I wouldn't recommend swimming in it) will enjoy this Swimming Wordsworth Country video on the Guardian's website.

It reminded me of the late Roger Deakin - the man who swam Britain.

Inspired to take to the water? Here are Adam Tierney-Jones's top 50 places to swim outdoors.

Don't you just love the silly season.

First it was acres of coverage of the death of the giant carp (RIP, Benson) and today I see the Daily Telegraph has got a story about conkers on its front page.

Apparently the season is set to begin weeks earlier than usual and involve a bumper crop, thanks to the mild spring and hot damp summer. Conkers have already started falling from trees - something that doesn't usually happen until late September.

According to the Telegraph, the game of conkers probably evolved from a game called 'conquerors', which may have originally been played with snail shells. Historical records show the game also used hazelnuts, but by the 20th century they had been replaced by horse chestnuts.

Thirty five teams battled it out at this year's 12-hour Endurance Lawn Mower Race in West Sussex.

With their pimped garden machines, the annual event sees brave teams of three race around a 0.8m circuit, with chicanes, hair pin bends and a couple of long straights.

And just to make it even more gruelling, the all night race requires them to keep going non-stop from 8pm until 8am.

The race begins when, with a twitch of the starter's flag, the drivers run to their mowers in a "Le Mans"style start to what is twelve hours of bone shaking, mud, sweat and tears.

Just been speaking to one of the two vets planning to row 2500 miles across the Atlantic. Good luck guys - it'll be an incredible achievement and Farm-Africa is a very worthwhile charity to support. Here are three more photos of them. If only the water was going to be this calm when they start their challenge...

Squirrels - when the troublesome little things aren't getting drunk, they're causing mayhem at baseball games in the States.

I'd hate to be accused of being bias, having written repeatedly about Phil Vickery (actually I am bias: Come on England!) so here's another rugby/farming story, this one from north of the border. A bit of sad news: Scotland's oldest rugby international, a farmer by trade, has died.

We've mentioned England rugby player and farmer's son Phil Vickery on Field Day before.

He's got a lot on his plate at the moment. As well as competing in the Six Nations (he was sin-binned in last weekend's game against Ireland), he's selling some land.

The prop, who now plays for London Wasps after an 11-year spell with Gloucester, is offering 80 acres of pastureland at his family's Cornish dairy farm.

There is 15,000sq ft of modern steel-framed farm buildings plus a range of stone barns, which could be converted into residential use, subject to the necessary planning consent at Part Killock Farm, which is near Bude.

Barry Hutchinson of agent Hamiltons, said: "Killock Farm is in a very beautiful part of the country and presents a multitude of options to a wide variety of potential purchasers."

Hamiltons has lotted the property four ways with a guide price of £535,000 for the whole. If you fancy the Vickery land, you can contact the agents on 01452 331134.

Right now, however, Phil Vickery is probably concentrating on his rugby ahead of next weekend's clash with France at Twickenham.

As for England's performance generally, well, I don't really want to talk about it, alright!

I've been reading Mouth of the Wash a lot recently. Can't get enough of veg art and tattooed pigs, me.

I've also been struck by the uncanny similarity between Matthew Naylor and former England cricket captain, Graham Gooch. Now I come to think of it, I never have seen the two of them in the same room.

Naylor                                                              Gooch

Ex-England rugby player Jason Robinson has gone into sheep farming. He'll need all his speed and agility to catch them when they escape!

I'm not as anti-Dragon Den as Mr Naylor, but I do find it a little boring these days. At first it was great, but the concept has worn a bit thin. And, I've never seen that Deborah Meaden say Yes to a single proposal.

Might be worth watching tonight through - as farmers son and racing driver, 18-year-old Robert Hall from Herefordshire, is on the show which airs on BBC2 tonight at 9pm.

He'll be pitching to the dragons for £50,000 and help introducing new investors to Motorsport to progress his career. 

No wonder Hugh's gone quiet. High winds have forced Cheltenhan to be called off.

The unseasonably mild weather over the weekend prompted the usual raft of stories in the media about people doing spring or summer-like activities in February. This is one of the few that warrants a second glance, though: a guy practising what, apparently, is set to become a popular new sport: horse-surfing.

Bearing in mind, I'm not fond of water and I hate horses, I think I'll give this one a miss.

Herefordshire farmers son Robert Hall is making quite a name for himself in the motor racing world.

Everyone’s at it – trying to get us to walk more.

And a good job it is, too, after that Christmas excess.

If you don’t fancy any of the National Trust’s month-by-month walks, you could join Natural England’s Outdoor Gym.

The countryside has got allies in the unlikeliest places. Like Wrexham Football Club.

A joint message from the Farmers’ Union of Wales and the Club urging fans to buy Welsh Lamb will be read out at half time during the Dragons' home match against Brentford this Saturday.

After unearthing a bit of info about Phil Vickery's farming pedigree, I've been asking one of my sports-mad mates about other stars with rural connections. Turns out there are quite a few.

The guy in the picture is John Jeffrey, a favourite of Scottish rugby fans and Kelso's most famous farmer.

John was known in his playing days as 'The Great White Shark' because of his predatory instincts and his shock of blond hair.