Wind in the Willows!

Well, actually, wind everywhere today.  Thank you all for the lovely encouraging comments on yesterday's post, they did help :)  As you can see from the welcoming flag, the wind was in full fettle this morning and the flag was erected under glowering skies....

We began assembling the gazebos around 10am this morning and it quickly became evident that we had a problem as one awning took off into the air and landed in the hedge, smashing a vital piece of the structure, without which the gazebo simply had no integrity.  A fine start....it had to be quickly dismantled and put away leaving us with only one.  We used all the tent pegs on that one and, just to be on the safe side also tied it to the wire within the hedge.  Hey ho it still looked welcoming with 'Big Ted', the raffle prize, sitting on meet and greet duty.....

The refreshments had to make do with trestle tables (you can just see them in top left of the photo)and pray that it didn't rain....

 

The party was due to start at 2pm and at 2.05pm we didn't have a single guest.  We, the helpers,  looked at each other in panic then a dribble of guests turned to a flood. Phew!

We had some wonderful prizes donated so used those for the 'Pluck a Duck' stall which I was given charge of......( just look at the gold cloth billowing in the wind)

Dope that I am, I forgot to photograph the wooden duck, but for the uninitiated it was a big board in the shape of a duck with tiny holes drilled into it into which were placed tiny rolls of raffle ticket numbers.  For the princely sum of £1 you could choose 6 tickets from the duck's wooden body and any ticket ending in a zero or a 5 won the correspondingly numbered prize. 

It was great fun! At one point people were queuing up to pay me!  There was lots of fun and laughter and much drinking of tea and coffee and eating of cake.  After all a cup of tea/coffee and a cake for 50p were not to be sniffed at, a whole cream tea was £1 and strawberries and cream £1 too.  Any cake left at the end was sold off at £1 per plate of 4 cakes/slices.  By 6pm I was ready for a shower, a cuppa and a quiet half hour.  At least it hadn't rained....  :)

We don't yet know how much money we took as it was all put into the sealed collection bucket which will be taken to Air Ambulance next week for emptying.  I know I put several £10 and £5 notes in during the course of the afternoon, including my card sale money.  It will be exciting when the total is revealed.....

Thanks everso for popping in x