the village voice

We've got a brand new area for words, theatre and performance at our fete this year which we've called The Village Voice. Along with performance art, poetry slamming, Giant Boggle and storytelling, our friends at Fourth Estate are also bringing along their book tombola.

Disclaimer: Tombola may not look like this in real life.

Not a sniff of tinned baked beans, bubble bath or crocheted egg warmers on offer. Just bring an old book along with you and swap it for another book from the tombola. Cracking stuff.

Other highlights include the first million pound poet, Murray Lachlan Young, who will be doing a spot of performance poetry on Saturday as well as Ross Sutherland and Chris Hicks from poetry boy band sensation, Aisle 16, who will be performing on both days. 

There'll also be amazing puppetry from Blind Summit, Lonely Planet travel writers telling tales of faraway places, live comedy and giant fridge magnet poetry for you to unleash your creative beast and make some beautiful haikus.

There's plenty of other interactive stuff to get involved with too, so make sure you get down there at some point this weekend.

some more things for the weekend...

Here's a quick run down of a few fetes happening this weekend from our lovely new fete finder. Please drop by any of them if you're in the area and let us know how it went. If you get any good pictures don't forget to post them to our village fete flickr group, there's a £250 prize for the best 3 photos by the end of the summer.

And if you have your own fete planned this summer why not add it to our fete finder aswell.

Here's the run down...

Friday 22nd June
Melin Gruffydd School Fayre and BBQ (Whitchurch, Cardiff)
Fair on the Green 2007 (Harlington)

Saturday 23rd June
Feckenham Wake (West Midlands)
Moseley Festival (West Midlands)
Woodthorne School Summer Fete (Wolverhampton)
Ombersley Village Fete (Worcester)
Krekorian (Congresbury)
Payhembury Primary School Fayre (Payhembury, Nr Honiton)
Sparsholt Village Fete (Sparsholt, Winchester)
Stimpson Avenue Primary School Fayre (Stimpson Avenue, Northampton)
Tideswell Wakes Week (Peak District)
Holywell Village Fete
Christ Church Primary School (Brick Lane E1)
Church Hill Summer Fair (East Barnet)
Hilly Fields Fayre (Brockley, London SE4)
Wimbledon Village Fair (Wimbledon common southside)
St George's Church Annual Community Garden Fete (Donnington, Chichester)
Blewbury Village Day (South East)
Balfour Infant School Summer Fair (Brighton, East Sussex)
Seer Green Cherry Pie Fair (South East)
Wargrave Village Festival (Berkshire)
Witley Parish Fair (Godalming, Surrey)

Sunday 24th June
Diggle Fete (Saddleworth)
Hardingham Fete
Doddinghurst Donkey Derby (Brentwood, Essex)
Vauxhal Park Summer Fair (SW8)

Oh and don't forget Peckham Pet-Tastic 3 of course.

a wicker fete

Here's a nice little music video for the Young Knives with a distinctly fete theme. It all starts to get a bit strange and ends in a middle english version of The Wicker Man. It's quite a catchy tune aswell.

peckham pet-tastic

Dressed up dogs have always been a favourite at innocent so we were happier than a pug in pearls to find a link to peckham pet-tastic (a fancy dress picnic for dogs, in Peckham) via the Leisure Centre zine again.

It doesn't look like there'll be a pet-tastic event in 2007 but you can view a full archive of the 2004-2006 picnics here.

the summer fete junkie

Tears in the Tea Tent is a nice a very nice little story about summer fetes by Rosemary Shirley of Leisure Centre fanzine. She's also got some nice fete photos here.

something for the weekend

Photo by linked directly from shepperton-fair.org.

O-Yay, O-Yay. If you're stuck for something to do this weekend why not take a visit to one of these great fetes happening all over the country. Starting with the very well organised Shepperton Fair in Middlesex (pictured above).

If you get any good pictures don't forget to post them to our flickr group, there's a £250 prize for the best 3 photos by the end of the summer.

Saturday 9th June
Shepperton Fair, Middlesex
Englefield Green Village Fair, Surrey
Dalgety Bay fete, Fife
Mobberley Rose Queen Festival, Mobberley, Cheshire
Tattenhall village fete, Cheshire
St James Church Village Fete, North Hants
Heavitree family fun day, Exeter
Wilton Windmill Open Day, near Marlborough
Shapwick Village Fete, Somerset
Ashridge Nursery Summer Fete, Wokingham
Abinger Fair, Surrey
Haddenham Village fete, Bucks
Charles Kingsley's Summer Fair, Hampshire
Shippon fete, Nr Abingdon
West End Village Fete, Woking Surrey

Sunday 10th June
St Michael's School Summer Fayre, Sandhurst Berkshire
Limington fete & dog show, Somerset
Southrop Village Fete, Gloucestershire

Hope the weather stays good for you all.

Barton Mills scarecrow festival

Photo by ee-dee linked directly from flickr.

Barton Mills scarecow festival happens in the second weekend of June every other year. Unfortuanetly we're in the year off at the minute so there will be no scarecrows in Barton Mills this weekend.

You can enjoy some of last year's amaizing scarecrows on flickr here though. Pencil in the second weekend in June in your diary for 2008 if scarecrows are your thing.

(Thornton Hough Scarecrow Festival is also taking a year off this year. It's hard work scarecrow making.)

the cotswold olympicks 2007

The Cotswold Olympicks took place last weekend and featured a battle for the title of 'world shin kicking champion'. This year it was won by Matt Healey, 29, from Moreton-in-Marsh who narrowly beat Eagle.

It seems a lot of these type of games result in serious bruising?

Please don't try this at home by the way. Unless you've got one of those big inflatable sumo wrestler suits.

cheese rolling

There are no hills steep enough for us to do this in Regent's Park. Maybe we need to reassess the location.

homemade bunting

a view through the bunting

Bunting is integral to the success of our summer of fetes. Some people measure success by the number of Lambos parked on the gravel drive, whereas we measure it in yards of bunting. So I am very proud to share some excellent bunting photos with you. They're from my wedding, and all of the bunting was handmade by my mother in law. Thanks Jane.

hoist the bunting

At our big London fete, we're looking to break the world record for the longest piece of bunting ever. If you fancy helping, have a look here. It'll probably take you 15 minutes to cobble something together out of your old pyjamas, and imagine the thrill of telling your friends that you hold a world record. They will surely all be jealous.

a ferocious dog guards the bunting

Go on, get the pinking shears out.