Preparing for the Village Show

Today is a special day, for a couple of reasons  - it is my older son's 33rd birthday.  Happy Birthday Tim!  

It is also the eagerly anticipated Annual Village Show.  

Click to enlarge - I warn you, it is very messy...

This is how my kitchen looked 24 hours ago - normally I am a very neat worker, yesterday I had so many baking projects on the go that I abandoned my neat and organised methods and descended into chaos.

A short time ago we called in at the Village Hall to stage our entries.

It is the greatest fun as everyone tries to get a glimpse of the 'oppositions' entries.

Baked goods are always hotly contested, everyone has their tried and tested recipes, their own way of doing things...a village show is an interesting exercise in discipline as we try to conform to a standard ready for an outsider to judge.

I can tell you right now, Dominic's cherry pie looked sublime.

At the end of the judging, and after everyone has had a chance to wander round looking at the awards, the produce will be auctioned.

Annie, who lives in the village, is an absolute star at this.  She manages to cajole every last penny out of us all as she persuades us to dig deep for even the most unappealing vegetables, or battered pies.  She works hard at it, and she does it amazingly well, raising lots of money for the Village Hall, in the process.

Our village is very small - the photograph on the wall is an aerial view, taken about 40 years ago.  This afternoon George will be going along with a screwdriver - like a vandal and a thief he will take the photograph down from the wall...he does have permission.

It is gradually getting sun-faded and we want to scan it and save it...our house is on there.   It is shown in all it's glory, before Owl Wood was planted and before some of the old hedgerows were uprooted, which makes it of great interest to us.  We have talked about doing this for the last goodness knows how long, today is the day.

Right now I am going to put my feet up and have a cup of tea, it will be two hours before we are allowed back in to see how our entries have done.

I have one final job to do, I must go and find my piggy box and a hammer...I am going to do my best to get that cherry pie at the auction.