Cranham Country Fayer (by sarah)

Today we went to the Cranham Country Show which is basically the school fete but in a truelly grand and exciting country village way!

No I'm serious!

On top of that Alaric arrived home with Seth and Hamlesh! Seth was getting his motobike MOTed to take away with him as he has finailly gotten his liscense!

So we headed up early as there was the Scout recruiting stall to set up and Barbara had to get Mag (her MG convertable in sunshine yellow) into the classic car show. So we headed up on mass. Dad parking the orange van in the car park which was a bumpy lumpy field with me stating we'd probably get stuck (I shall say no more about this other than when it came time to leave - guess who had to sit over the rear axil? Thats right all of us).

Seth took one look at the classic car show and brought his bike in to join in the fun!

BBC Gloucestershire radio was there much to our amazement and they had this car with a humungous aerial on the top of it! I just had to take a photo of it!

Painswick Fire department turned out again though they didn't appear to be giving out free smoke detectors like last year (ie the origin of our smoke alarm - I wanted to pick one up for Barbara).

At some point we were pounced to enter into raffles and a pound pot thing. We only had £10 on us and hadn't had lunch so we had to be a bit sparing! Seth and Hamlesh where horrified to be told they had sold out of veggi burgers at the BBQ about 5 minutes in - someone miss calculated but this was also a little fib - there was one left but the BBQ people were saving it for Alaric!

Anyway there was lots of fun things there like dogs for a dog show where they ran round a course with jumps and things - I managed to somehow not get any photos of them but did get this photo of a dog driving a car with canine passangers!

The first thing we actually did when we arrived was go to the cheek/face painting - 50p a design! There was a board of designs and I was expecting her to go for the hearts or pink at least but she has been abit obsessed lately with 'canoes and so she picked the volcano and was quiet adamant about it! I am a proud geology mum 😉

Barbara was ecstastic as there were horses/pony rides and she got Jean on a horse - Jean hesitently picked the brown one but was unsure - they went round came back. She got off had her helmet taken off and asked to go on the other horse now! Barbara hastily paid another pound and off she went again :/

I was most impressed with the Think Bike Dudes who were doing some cool tricks - some of which I was never brave enough to even attempt on my BMX! I wish I'd had time to get some better pics of them and the dogs.

Jean followed Barbara around everywhere - this is a photo of them waiting for the dog show to begin - shortly after this I found Barbara giving Jean a skiff of cider which I confiscated :/ For some reason round here some of the older generations think of cider as non-alcoholic :/

This photo looks very similar to the last but there was actually quiet alot of time between them! Instead of waiting for the dog show they are eating Jean's hot dog! Though Barbara had filled JEan up with sweets at this point.

Jean's day was completed by her being the youngest climber on the climbing wall - She actaully managed to climb a bit herself though she had alot of help! She loved being swung around in the harness and went on all the different climbing faces! Proud ex-instructor mum 🙂

At the end of the day there was the dismantling of the marquees and the like which Jean wanted to help with - I on the other hand had managed to start shaking and had to sit down and have my cup of coffee brought over - I was not happy and felt a bit stupid about this but then Jeany was having such a great time I was glad I stayed the extra - I had been going to go home earlier on!

And off course there was the slight thing of we had run out of money and then - we won £72! Which is very fortunate as there was a slight incident of me forgetting to pay our water bill and getting two at once and one of those scary red telegram things :/

It was a fantastic day which ended with us all going for a meal as well which was great 🙂

Alaric Summer of ’82 (by sarah)

Lionel, Roderick and Barbara have been turning out the old family 'junk' and they found a few photo's of Alaric as a small child!

They gave me this one - I took it with flash as well as that one shows the colours more truelly than the one with out!

Voting (by sarah)

Barbara gave me a lift up to vote - now I'd read the stuff that had been sent through but realised I had decided who I wasn't going to vote for ie all those nasty fascist parties that seem to be creeping out of the wood work but hadn't actually gotten around to deciding who I was going to vote for.

So I had to recall on the spot who has promised what and hope I got it round the right way and feel sad that no one actually represents what I want - there is no one I agree with entirely so have to go for close as without being scary - this does not strike as a partically good way of running things but never mind - at least I got to vote and used the right people died to give me.

I would also like to point out that going up in Mag (the sunshine yellow MG convertable) with Barbara felt I was risking life and limb as she doesn't wait for you to strap in ectera!

Lovely Date 03/06/09 (by sarah)

Need I say more?

Walks off humming happily.

Arty Shots from the Wedding (by sarah)

I took some arty pics whilst at my cousins wedding!

I liked this white mirror and loved catching the reflected light and atmosphere in it!

I caught myself in the window of the car taking a photo which I thought was most apt!

This butterfly was on one of the wedding presants and well its a butterfly so I had to take a photo!

Jean pulled her guazy skirt over her head the effect was quiet erry which I think this ophoto conveys.

This picture is my favourite - it was a fluke but shows the light and movement and is somehow graceful and other wordly.

I really loved the way the disco lights highlighted Claires dress so took lots of photo's of the first dance!

More disco lights - the arc across the floor and the darkness beyound drew me to this image.

The little boy is looking at his balloon but the way he is highlighted by the lighting again just seemed to make it a fantastic portraite as far as I'm concerned!

Not sure these are any good but the roses changing colour was something I just wanted to try and catch.

The vibrancy of this picture drove me to keep it though you can't really see who is who.

This picture is almost perfect (the 99p shop bag sort of ruins the composition but I love it anyway) it's Jean at the top of Dave's stairs.