Friday 3rd June
This morning I completed and hung the outside “bunny” gate whilst Christine finished planting her garden, and this afternoon I jumped on the mower, again!!! Jane, Teaguin and her Mother Jo, who arrived yesterday evening, all went to a show. Teaguin was again riding Jet trying to get points towards entering a higher class. Though we did our gardening duties, it was a relaxing day giving us time for our bones to heal after traipsing around the Bath and West Show all day yesterday.
Dave arrived back from his climbing holiday this afternoon and brought his mother, Irene, back with him to do some property searches. Meanwhile Christine set about preparing the evening meal for the 8-of us tonight!!!
Saturday 4th June
Being bank holiday weekend we decided it would be prudent to stop around the house though Jane, Teaguin and Jo headed off at the crack of dawn to ride at another event. They had an early time slot so we’re due back late morning whereupon it had been “decided by Jane” we would go out to lunch. Now one would imagine going out to lunch would mean a roast, or an Italian or even a pizza, but no. Our lunch venue today would be “Kaspa’s”, described on their website as “a chain of exciting new desert houses that offer the worlds favourite hot and cold desserts under one roof”: I rather feel there should be a health warning as well!!!!!
Once the girls returned and sorted out the horses then themselves, the eight of us headed to Weston in a three-car-convoy; why three cars? Well Jo and Teaguin were heading straight back to Essex, Christine and I had to go to Tesco and the Littlejohn’s were doing something else. Strangely the multi-storey car park was virtually empty, being a bank holiday weekend I would have thought Weston would have been busy and when we walked into Kaspa’s, the place was empty; very strange, still we were spoilt for choice on where to sit. Fortunately right at the back was one very big table the eight of us could get round.
After many deliberations and much pontificating over the menu, we finally decided our “lunch” and headed to the counter to order.
When everything arrived, there must have been in the region of 10,000 calories on the table; just good healthy stuff 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. The upshot was, we all indulged and cleaned up our plates, though no-one went for seconds!!!!!!!
After our bumper intake of “naughties” and feeling “very fat”, we waddled out, back to the car park and said our goodbyes to Jo and Teaguin.
Tomorrow is the jubilee extravaganza on Lympsham’s village green and cricket ground, and we finally decided to take a picnic so we all headed off to Tesco. Having bought “several” picnics worth of food, headed back to Hope Farm in time to watch the jubilee celebration’s “party at Buckingham Palace”.
Sunday 5th June
What a shame, this morning is dull, overcast and rain is in the air and of all days when everyone is outside for jubilee picnics etc., we just didn’t need this; oh well, it is what it is and we are going to enjoy ourselves whatever the weather.
Today, whilst Jane was out riding Dave cooked us a full English and very good it was very too; only our second since being in England, gosh we are being good, we’ll fairly good!!!!
The festivities were an all day affair so no rush. After clearing up and sorting the horses we headed into the centre of the village, and much to Mia’s disgust having to sit in the boot with Oreo, the picnic and 5-fold up chairs, the six of us drove the 3-minute journey!!!
Having parked ourselves comfortably next to the roped-off cricket square, we set about enjoying ourselves. Even though Jane and Dave had only been living in Lympsham it was surprising how many people they had got to know, mind you this is a very friendly, maybe old fashioned, village but nice. The day was paid for by the council and happened thanks to the WI and many other volunteers who had put in a lot of effort.
There were the usual things going on including a mountains of food, meaning our panic to get a picnic together yesterday was unnecessary!! The WI had also plated up cream teas, scone, jam and clotted cream, lovely🤪🤪🤪🤪
It is difficult to pick the highlights of the day but probably for the younger children it was the good old fashioned “punch-n-Judy” show, mind you the announcer had to issue a warning prior to the start saying this show is most probably “politically incorrect” and that it “contained violence”; whatever next, has society gone mad???? The other event with a lot of participation at all age levels was the “tug-of-war”. The competition between team “A” and team “B” was ferocious, but the one that got everybody involved and excited was the “dads” V the “children”. The first pull went to the children, the second to the dads but for the final nearly everyone joined in, there was a lot at stake and those not pulling were shouting encouragement that was probably heard in Weston. Anyway force of numbers outweighed brute force and the children won. The seed of competition was sown and there followed several pulls between dads only; very competitive I must say!!!
At one point of the afternoon, the four of us played croquet, again very competitive between the “Pages” and the “Littlejohns”, but Christine and Dave decided that for this game Jane would revert to being a Page, fatal mistake, we wiped the floor with Christine and Dave😂😂
As predicted the rain came around 3.30pm which rather curtailed a very enjoyable day and people started to leave. Thank you everybody in Lympsham who worked so hard to make a very enjoyable platinum jubilee celebration.
Back at home and having eaten for England, food was the last thing anybody needed and inspired by the “opening” sequence of the “Buck House Party”, we settled down to watch the two Paddington Bear films. Though we’ve see them several times before, they never fail to give us all a chuckle.
Monday tomorrow so Dave is back at work and Mia is back to school, so a reasonably early night was had by all.
