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.

fancy a ferret?

When it comes to ferrets, what Mal doesn't know about these furry chaps isn't worth knowing.

If you hadn't already guessed, Mal is a ferret handler by trade and before you start writing in to complain, that is his actual job title and not something we made up. He's been racing ferrets for the last seven years and is coming along to our fete again this year to race some more.

Here are his top tips for picking a winner:

Look for the pedigree

A twitchy tail, a well groomed coat and a mean look in the eye are all signs of a speedy racer. Ferret blinkers make no difference whatsoever.

Shout encouragement

Banging the boxes just confuses the ferrets. They know their names so call them and they'll come running. This year, I'll be bringing Crazy Jack, Eco Warrior, Bad Boy Bubba, The Silver Surfer and Kev the Ferret to name but a few.

Handler's decision is final

I am also the race adjudicator so if there's any bribery to be done, fizzy cola bottles in a brown paper bag won't go amiss.

Mal and his ferrets will be at our fete on both days so if you fancy a flutter on the ferrets, make sure you pop by and place a bet on your favourite furry racer.

as if it were yesterday

We have to apologise that it's taken us so long to upload a film about our village fete this summer. Its been quite a while since the fete, it's got very cold between then and now for example.

But watching the highlights from our weekend in Regent's Park back in August has managed to warm us all up a bit this morning. It feels like it was only yesterday.

I'm going to go and buy an ice pop.

(The music is by The William Fairey Band incase you are wondering. They also played at our fete on Saturday to a raptuous reception).

make someone's year

You probably remember that we started a village fete flickr group a while ago with a prize of a year's supply of smoothies to the best photo in each of the 3 categories. Well the time has come to decide on the 3 winners, the only problem being we can't decide.

So we're hoping you can help us by visiting our voting page and selecting your favourite photos from our shortlist. We'll then announce the winners in our family newsletter on Wednesday 19th September (you can join our family here if you aren't already a member). Voting will close at midnight on Sunday September 16th.

Go vote.

ball in the bucket

This weekend our mini fete made its way to the Cornbury music festival near Oxford, where among other highlights such as The Proclaimers, Echo and the Bunnymen and Blondie, our ball in the bucket game was clearly a big hit.

a Taste of Bath

We've just packed up the last of the bunting after another great few days of taking our village fete on the road, this time to Taste of Bath in a very floral Royal Victoria Park.

And once again the firm family favorites of splat the rat, pin the tail on the monkey and our coconut shy stole the show.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by for a smoothie and a chat. We hope you enjoyed the festival as much as we did.

Our next stop is the Cornbury Festival near Charlbury in Oxfordshire. Billed as being 'an eccentric, charming and irresistible musical carnival' we're very excited. Plus Blondie's playing on Sunday night, wonder if she'll play Sunday Girl?

We'll let you know..

a taste of London

We had a great time at Taste of London on the weekend, thanks to all of you who came over to say hello. Here are some of our 'favourite bits' as they say on the telly..

Pin the tail on the monkey (they're cheekier than donkeys).

Rat splatting.

Shy coconuts.

And the best of all, happy drinkers.

We'll be doing the same again at Taste of Bath from this Thursday (28th) to Sunday (1st) if you're visiting.

Wraysbury village fete

Michelle, Vic, Peta, Jonathan and Tansy all spent their Saturday at Wrasbury Village Fete, near Windsor as part of our village fete tour.  Despite heavy rain that morning, the opening parade started proceedings off in fine style, led by the Wrasbury Primary School.

Following them came the local fire engine, but that didn't escape the soggy ground and got stuck right next to our DGV*

And for quite some time.

Meanwhile our ball in the bucket game went down a treat...

As did the ferret racing with most...

Though some weren't so keen, including jonathan who took to making our game a daisy chain starting line.

(which we let this little lad slightly overstep).

All in all it was a wonderful day, we learnt about the local wine society, got some more inspiration for our own fete and met some lovely folk. 

It was an eventual happy ending for the fire engine too, though not so much the village green.

* dancing grass van

Tansy.

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

making fete games

We've started making a few of the games for our fete tour. Here are some pictures, direct from the workshop.

No sign of any coconuts yet. Guess they come later.