Village School Fete

An unusual day in that I didn't leave the village all day - quite a rare event. After a very long day yesterday I slept through until 8.00 a.m. and didn't actually get up until nearly 9 a.m. I cooked breakfast for me and the children - bacon, mushrooms, beans and black pudding and Sara took Mary into Salisbury for her ballet/dance lesson. Tom and I stayed at home. Tom cleaned the children's bathroom whilst I washed and cleared away the debris in the kitchen and then spent some time on copying David and Andrea's photos on to a disc to send out to Adam in Thailand as he is anxious to see all the photos of Sara's party and have a copy of all the slide conversions I've done. I also took the opportunity this morning to chat to Mum on the phone as I didn't speak to her last Sunday because of the hectic weekend with Sara's Dad and wife - party, horse racing and pub quiz. Towards the end of the morning I started on the mowing by cutting the grass on the bank. Because of the dry weather we've had it wasn't too long. I had a hasty lunch with the family - a small steak and kidney pudding from a tin which Sara cooked for herself but declared that it reminded her of a plate of dog food - and promptly gave it to me!!! It tasted great to me but I will be looking carefully to see if I grow a tail and a wet nose!! She then cooked herself toasted cheese sandwiches. After lunch she and the kids went off to the School Fete on the Rec leaving me to finish off the lawns - I find fetes rather predictable affairs after a few years -plant stalls, bouncy castles, cake stalls, guess the number of sweets in a jar stalls and the stocks! Well, I did at least manage to get Sara in them this year (see picture) - she being rather more trusting than me! There is, however, usually a beer tent! Sara helped out of the teas/refreshments/cakes stall for an hour and to show solidarity I went up to the rec for the last hour and allowed her to serve me a cup of tea! The beer tent had run out of lager and I was able to supply a fresh case from the leftovers at Sara's party last week. I had a very nice long chat with David M whom I hadn't seen since Christmas when we took Mum up to the Gospel Lifeboat Mission. We talked about Sara's job and the situation at work and about the work that I and others are doing in the church. I really enjoyed the chat. This evening I wrote and submitted my two articles for the parish magazine and made a decision to get to bed before midnight. We'll see if that comes off. Tomorrow, after church and because it is Father's Day, we are going to visit the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth and hopefully tour HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, HMS Mary Rose and the museum. We have ticket vouchers from Tesco to use by the end of the month but if we can't get to see everything I believe the tour tickets are valid for a year. I am really looking forward to visiting the old Victory again