Handbags, Cake & The Fickle Finger of Fate

These beautiful handbags are made from paper and card, beautiful gift bags, each one with a gift card and envelope inside. 

Perfect for the bazaar, and quickly snapped up.   

Someone else donated some delicious home made fudge.  People are so kind, these little gestures really help pad things out and sweeten the mix of things on offer.

The giant tombola stall is always popular, even though prizes ranged from toilet cleaner right the way up to champagne.

This beautiful cake was made by Miss Read's son and was then iced and decorated by Miss Read herself.  She raffles one each year.   I don't know how many years she has been doing it, but I do know that her raffle ticket sales add greatly to the final total; the cakes are as delicious inside as they look beautiful on the outside.

This was the main raffle stall, directly inside the entrance doors, the chilliest position in the hall.  It was run by 'The local Squire's' wife.

The two ladies who are buying their tickets are born and bred village residents.   They are always wonderfully supportive and appreciative, and very sweet, to boot.

Each year they shop until they drop, then they sit down and enjoy a pot of tea and some hefty slices of home-baked cake, chatting away until it is time for the raffles to be drawn.



I had a stall with a bran tub at one end, the Rudolph game at the other, angels and fairies in between,  including the raffle for the three fairies, though one has now grown pixie ears, so it was for two fairies and a pixie.

The hall was filled to the brim at times, even though only a small percentage of the local people turned out.     Angel and fairy sales went well, so did the bran tub - and the Rudolph game ensured that the hall was filled with the sound of laughter.     Participants and spectators all got the giggles. 

Miss Read kept forgetting about filling out raffle stubs and had much more fun watching the children play with Rudolph!

When things finally quietened down,  the main raffle was drawn.   These days we don't have dozens of small prizes, we tend to go for making up hampers and stockings.   This year there was a 'male' stocking, a 'female' one, a mystery wrapped hamper and the main prize was an enormous Christmas hamper.

It was filled to the brim with delicious eats, treats, drinks, crackers, toys, chocolates, a beautiful plant...

While the draw was taking place I turned my attention to the fairy raffle - checked the envelope with the winning fairy name against the entry sheet and saw to my horror that my granddaughter had written her name in the winning square for her £1 entry...without insider information, or access to the answer.

Hey ho!


Meanwhile, the large hamper prize was being drawn - " and the main hamper goes to XXX"...XXX being my granddaughter!

I decided that emergency action was required, after all I could easily make three special fairies for her....     Fortunately,  attention was then turned to the cake raffle.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and got snipping all the squares of fairy names and put them into a paper bag. 

The beautiful cake was won by the landlord of the local Tavern.   Then it was my fairy raffle.

I held the paper bag out for someone to draw the winning name..   Remember the photograph of the two women buying their raffle tickets?  I was delighted to see that the one in the blue coat had won the fairies!

She was thrilled, had the most enormous smile on her face and said that she wanted to give the three fairies to the little girl she had been standing next to when she purchased her ticket, because the little girl had really wanted to win, and had been telling her all about the fairies as she carefully printed out her name in her best handwriting, she is six years old.   

You guessed it, the little girl was my granddaughter!

Those fairies were destined to be hers and I shouldn't have tried to divert them, except that by doing so I made an elderly woman very happy, too. 

In the Attic Today

My nose is still firmly to the grindstone, hence the lack of posts, visits, and comments.     Sorry!  Too few hours in a day, especially with running 'breakfast and teatime clubs' for two of my grandchildren, five days a week.

I am enjoying myself, but I will be glad when my self-allotted task has been completed, the dolls sold, and my free time becomes my own.

I had to go into our nearest market town today, for a free flu jab.   It was a production line all very efficient.   The clinic was held in the Corn Exchange.      To reach it, I had to drive down West Street and turn into the Market Place car park.   Not so many decades ago, cattle used to be walked along this road, on their way to the cattle market, now a Co-op supermarket.

Alford is a small town, a bit run down and shabby around the edges, but I like it.   It has small shops, family butchers, newsagents, craft shops, newsagents, bakeries, supermarkets - small, a few charity shops, hotels, pubs, takeaways, a fish and chip shop, fruit and vegetable shop, a pottery, the windmill for flour and grain, and an infrequently opened library, doctors surgeries, solicitors, a dentist, plus tea shops and cafes, of course.

Best of all, in my husband's opinion, is the Handyman DIY Shop. 

The red brick building to the right is the Corn Exchange, where the flu jab clinic was held.   Arrows directed victims to go round the building to the back, passing this

attractive cake shop.   I wonder how many people are seduced by the call of 'freshly' baked goods - delivered in a large van...

I entered the back door of the Corn Exchange and found myself faced by three receptionists each armed with a printout of names and a highlighter pen.   

"Name please."

"Elaine xxxx."

"Read this, then take off your coat and roll up your sleeve.  Catherine will see to you."

Immediately behind the receptionist, Catherine waited with her pile of vaccination syringes, plasters, etc.    No chair.   A quick hello, an even quicker jab, a slight pause because my arm bled a little, then slap on the plaster and move along.

I was in and out of the door in less than five minutes!

I did a (very) little housework, and then got back to work in the fairy factory.

There are glitzy ones, homely ones, and these pixie ones.    I have a few more to finish off, then they can go into the box, along with the assorted peg dollies, a range of Japanese dolls, the little nutcracker dolls, snowmen and a couple of reindeer.      Around eighty items.   That should be plenty, to raise funds for the hall and the church in the next village along.

I need to stop working on these soon because I have lots of crafts I want to make with my grandchildren before Christmas.

Then I plan to go into hibernation.

x   

Owl Wood and Parsonage Cottage in Autumn

Leaves are falling and Owl Wood is taking on the sounds and colours of autumn.    The squirrels keep scurrying around picking up the acorns and anything else which comes their way.      Toby knows when they are around, their smell gives them away.    He wanders around with his head in the air, scanning the trees and looking for the tell tale movement of branches as they head off for a more peaceful area.

There have been some wonderfully warm days which have bathed the quince tree in golden sunlight, giving my carefully nurtured fruit the chance to ripen before I have to pick them.   The three remaining pumpkins are very large, but not fully ripe yet, most of the butternut squash have been harvested and put into store.    I am still working on processing Bramley apples from the very productive tree by the back door.

I have harvested the last few grapes, supervised by Millie, of course.

I managed to mow the lawns yesterday, hopefully for the last time this year, but it all depends on the weather.    I really dislike spending the winter looking out across vast swathes of untidy grass.   The gardens are gradually settling down into their winter mode, though there is still a way to go in some areas.

This sunflower continues to bloom and is still looking very cheerful.

It towers above this shed in the side garden, sheltered from the wind and in the second sunniest spot in the garden.











There is a definite nip in the air and rain has fallen for much of the day.    Apart from a tiny bit of housework, and cooking some breakfast for two unexpected visitors (my grandchildren) who turned up on the doorstep at 8.30am saying that their parents were still in bed and could they come and spend some time with us (!)  I have spent much of today working on the dolls for the bazaar.

The log burner is lit, I have my fabrics, threads and brushes to hand all I need is to up my production rate!   

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.