a trip to the Bagnall village fete

This weekend I visited the Bagnall village fete near Stoke, with Helen, Gayle, Dan and Hannah. The fete is held every fathers day and helps raise money for their lovely Moorlands village hall in Bagnall.

To start the day off, Morgaine Blake was crowned Chestnut queen. From what I gathered the role is largely ceremonial and unfortunately doesn’t include any real powers. We thought it best to keep the Chestnut queen onside anyway and shared a few smoothies with Morgaine and her retinue.

We had a good look round the fete to see if there were any ideas we could use for our own fete. On our tour we met the two Sue’s who were selling their Dead Rat Preserves. They have a great range of all sorts of jarred goodies without any deceased rodents or artificial preservatives. But if you try them you’ll have to search them out at fetes around the local area as they’re not yet available in the shops. Despite the memorable brand name, our Helen bought some apple and roast garlic chutney for our next cheese club.

We also met Carol (above with her stall) who runs Fruits of the Earth. She delivers fresh baskets of seasonal organic vegetables within about 25 miles of Bagnall. Carol also sells bags of organic, fair-trade nuts and pulses, and I got some South American Quinoa because the back of the pack suggested they were quick to cook. Neither Carol or I knew exactly what I was supposed to eat them with, so if you’ve any ideas, please let me know.

We had a go at the various fete activities. Whilst I was regretably ‘too old’ for the bouncy castle, I did have a go at splat the rat. Whilst the rat escaped largely unscathed, the bat did not and the game closed shortly after my enthusiastic but unsuccessful strikes split the bat in two. Our own game, ‘ball in the bucket’ went down well, especially when punters discovered it was free. Faith was our top scorer winning a record 5 smoothies. Even then Faith continued to play with the understanding that we didn’t have enough smoothies to give her anymore prizes. Faith told us she enjoys all sports that involved a ball and I suspect she’s quite good at all of them. Fete game owners beware.

We had a great time and I’d like to say thanks to the organisers for making us so welcome to this lovely community event. And a special thank you to the lads from the bouncy castle, for helping us push our Dancing Grassy Van out of the wet field at the end of the day.

Jan

Comments

[Kate]

Hi Jan
Quiona is great as an alternative to rice with a good curry . It is virtually tastless so it's more of a texture thing which makes it work well with anything that has a sauce. Better for you than rice too, Gluten free, contains protein and is high in iron and magnesium. I only know all this because I too bought some and had no idea what to do with it! Hope you guys enjoy eating it.

[Lucie Storrs]

Hi Jan,

We sometimes eat quinoa for breakfast, made like this (and it really IS easy): for 2 people, put one cup of quinoa in a pan with two cups of water. Add some Marigold vegetable bouillon powder to give it some flavour. Bring to the boil and simmer for 7 minutes. Then turn off the heat, make sure you leave the lid on the pan and leave the rest of the water to absorb for about 10-15 minutes. Then eat! Told you it was easy.

All the best, Lucie