Summer Fair

Yay, it's over and I didn't forget anything vital!

For the last two years, we have had abysmal weather, so this year we were really hoping it would be third time lucky! What a gamut of emotions through the week though, just looking at all the weather forecasts. First of all, it would be fine all week. Then 'they' decided rain was coming in on Saturday, then Friday night, and then, oh no you can't be serious, Friday! Stiflingly hot on Monday and Tuesday here, (we didn't really want the Fair to be boiling for our own sakes, setting it all up), cloudy and hot on Wednesday and Thursday, (please rain Thursday night and get it all over with!) Friday dawned cloudy but with only a 30% chance of light showers in the afternoon. Lots of prayers were being offered to various deities (and some threats too!) but thank whoever you like, rain IT DID NOT!

There are nine people on our PTA Committee but in reality, only four of us do any real work. I am not including the Treasurer in these, but in fairness to him, he does the Treasurer's job well, just nothing above and beyond that! He was rather press-ganged into it when we were desperate!

My main woe, I didn't get to finish my knitted pirate for the Treasure Hunt. There simply were not enough hours in the day. The knitting part is finished, just not the sewing up! However, the prize was still really neat and everyone seemed to like it.

Now, who wants a knitted pirate in need of a bit of 'haul together'?

You'd think setting aside a WHOLE WEEK to get ready for a Summer Fair would be enough wouldn't you? Well, I guess a fair amount of it was spent a) moaning about the heat, b) checking the Volunteer List wondering in desperation if all the spaces had been filled in (NO) and c) worrying if it was going to rain on Friday! But, even so, there was not a spare moment.

First of all, there was the 'gathering' of raffle prizes, which entailed much to-ing and frow-ing to businesses in the town and chasing letters. Some companies make it so easy (Woodlands and Honiton Show Association for example) and some seem to want their pound of flesh and four trips back to catch Ange, who's the only one that deals with that, before offering a very nearly out of date jar of pickle!

Then there was the sorting of the donations (aka, one or two good things and a load of crap):

into tombola prizes (sifting out the leaking/broken/out of date stuff):

and bric-a-brac:There was wrapping of lucky dip prizes to do: (this is about one hundredth of the total)

and plant sorting:

and soooooooo many other things I didn't have time to photograph!

Lunchtime looked like this:

and four nervous breakdowns later:-

George turned up to have his name guessed:

The Plant Stall was very competently manned:

Pink girls ably twirled their batons:

Boys (and some girls) looked really silly rolling around in big suits (I don't need the suit!):
Coconuts were splatted:Jigs and ballads were toe-tapped to:

and cakes were gobbled:

All in all, thank **** it's all over, and let's have a reject bun: