Our traditional village fête

What a hectic weekend! Worked yesterday morning, then rushed back home to walk the dog and ice some cupcakes for the village fête, which was starting at 2pm. Knowing I would be short of time on Friday and Saturday morning, I had baked the cakes on Thursday evening, and they turned out really well. Mind you, what a palaver - I can only make 6 cakes at a time and only have 2 tins, so when one tin comes out, I have to run it under cold water until it is cold, before drying and refilling it. I did this 5 times!

The reason for the limited capacity is because my Rayburn caught fire on Easter Sunday, and needs servicing. They couldn't come until June, and I was going to put it out anyway this year June-ish, to try to save a bit of money on oil. So I thought I would wait until September (mind you - didn't bargain on the weather being so awful!) Anyway, as I have  no other cooker, I have to cook them in my combi microwave, which has proved absolutely invaluable.

So back to the icing - all went well and I used up a few bits left over from the Jubilee tea.

It was a bit of a rush but got to the fête just on time, took the cakes to the food stall and when I opened the tin, they looked so delicious, I had to buy one. Ha ha ha - I'm sure that wasn't the idea!

There was lots going on aside from the cake stall, there was a plant stall, bric a brac, book stall, charity stall, raffle, tombola, cream teas, bat the rat, a golf game, apple bobbing, balloon modelling, puppet show, golfing game and one where you have to throw a £1 at a bottle of champagne, and the nearest person, wins it. Sadly, I didn't even get mine on the 4ft square board that the bottle was standing on!

Such a very British thing, the village fête. Ours has changed very little since I first attended 35 years ago. One of the nicest things about it is the maypole dancing. This year there was a display which went brilliantly. The dancers all hold a ribbon and weave in and out of each other, creating a lovely pattern of criss crossed ribbon down the pole. Then, it's all change in the other direction, and amazingly, the ribbons were back to their starting position. Last year they got terribly muddled up, and everyone had to let go of the ribbons so they could be untangled!

As you can see, everyone had a fun afternoon, and luckily, the weather managed to stay dry all the way through. So many people put such a lot of work into it so hopefully a lot of money will have been raised.