Olympic Torches, Village Fete and Cake Making

We arrived early, parked easily and wandered in front of Newport Free Grammar School listening to the school band as we went. Good spot found we met up with friends, had a cup of tea and basked in the glorious sunshine. We got the freebie noise makers, chatted to all around us, smiled and laughed and did high fives with the passing policemen and had a good time.

It was an amazing sight to see this small village street packed with people but everyone could easily get a good view and no one was jostling for prime position. It was all going  so well. 

Then the heavens opened and it didn't just spit with rain it absolutely soaked us! Luckily another coach in the convoy came along handing out plastic macs.

The excitement began to build and we could hear the music blaring. More police came along high fiving the crowd as they passed.

Then we saw the torch! We had heard some rumours about who might be running the leg we were watching and thought he would probably run past his old school. Sure enough Jamie Oliver ran past us with the torch. We wouldn't have minded who we saw but it was good to see someone we recognised.

I'm so glad we made the effort to go because it was a really lovely thing to be part of and now I just can't wait for the Olympics to start. Then after that excitement we raced back home to our local village fete. They hadn't had the rain and looked at us slightly perplexed that we were soaked from head to foot.

I stood for a long time admiring the bunting my mum and I made and it was almost (?) worth the time and effort it took to make it when people started coming up saying "Did you really make all this bunting?".

As usual at the Fete the adults stood around chatting and the kids started games of football and man hunt and generally ran amok.

They excelled themselves in the "running amok" stakes this year when I returned to the house to find a number of boys in my kitchen "improving" a traybake and also making a Lemon Drizzle Oreo cake! This is the sight that greeted me .....

There are times when you really just have to laugh especially when one of the lovely boys asked me "Would it matter that we got muddled up with tablespoons and teaspoons with the baking powder?".


Yes, it was a good weekend despite the rotten rainy weather and the wrecked kitchen :-)

Bunting, Bunting and More Bunting

Would you like to see what 150 metres of fabric double-sided bunting with handmade binding tape looks like? You would? Good. Ta da here it is ....

In all honesty it doesn't look that impressive does it? I really hope that when it's up in a few weeks time that it will look a bit more impressive than this photo. I will bore you with photos in July.


Also for the record I hereby promise to my husband, my children and my mother to never, ever, ever make this much fabric bunting again.

It took a long time and I also need to publicly thank my lovely Mum for helping me. Without her I just don't think I'd have got it done. I had about 10m of binding left at the end and so cut out a few more pennants so that I could keep it as a permanent reminder to myself to think before saying yes to things {yeah likes that's going to happen}.

Bunting, Bias Tape and More Bunting

No time for blogging ... no really .... I've got to finish making 150 metres of fabric bunting. Yes ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY METRES of bunting for the village fete. To be honest with you it's not exactly a solo project as I'm so badly behind that my lovely Mum is doing a lot of it. She also managed to get 40 odd metres made by some of her friends.

I honestly thought it wouldn't take long. How on earth could I possibly think that 150 metres of double-sided fabric bunting wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time? Give me my card bunting any day of the week!

Mum has insisted that I also make the bias binding which to me is a total waste of my life. Although saying that I did almost (only almost) find it enjoyable yesterday afternoon now I've worked out how not to steam burn my fingers. I know she's right and it will be much stronger than shop bought bias binding but honestly it is a bit of a faff, no it's a complete an utter faff.

I did have a bit of help from Oscar {briefly} keen to try out his sewing skills.

I've got another 88 metres to make. Mum keeps telling me it will be fine. However, now that I have children I say that too in a calm, "don't worry it will be fine" voice so I'm afraid I no longer believe her. I even cancelled a lunch invitation on Saturday. But perhaps if I really crack on I can still go ...... 

One man's trash is another man's treasure

I never mind having a stint on the bric a brac stall at the village fete because there are often some real gems (also some real tat!). Unfortunately, after the initial setting up of the stall, I had to go over to help in the beer tent and so I missed out on the "I'll just put this to one side" but I did manage to come home with a few things.

I love this little yellow dish - perfect for putting freshly laid eggs into. {Although Ed has yet to realise they are not hard boiled ones!}

I seem to be buying a lot of jelly moulds lately and although this isn't old and is made of plastic it is a good, easy mould and the boys and I are very taken with the idea of choosing between a star, Christmas tree, flower and heart. It produced a beautiful jelly on Sunday! Think it is my 'new' favourite jelly mould.

Now, quite why I bought these I'm not sure but I just thought they looked so lovely and because they hadn't sold at the end of the day there was the danger they might end up in the skip and I couldn't let that happen. They are well loved and well used and we will put them to use again in the summer holidays.

Fete Worse Than Death

That's not true because actually it's the loveliest fete ever!

Every first Saturday in July our village fete is held at the cricket pitch just behind our house and we love it. As it was Archie's birthday he got to have some friends over and so I had a LOT of boys running around but that is the joy of Fete day!

The children play traditional games like smash the china and have running races. There is a dog show. The raffle, bric a brac, book and cake stalls are popular and the teas and bar compete for custom!

As the day goes on people leave and come back and some of us stay the whole day (!) and in the evening we have the scrummiest barbecue. The children play games of football and cricket and the adults sit around chatting! Perfect.

 The girls do girly things.

And the boys do boy things!