On Sunday we made our annual pilgrimage to my great granddaughters school, for the Summer Fayre. It’s always well attended and this year was no exception. There is always plenty going on to keep you entertained and it seemed that this year the school had excelled themselves.
Scattered throughout the school rooms, and around the grounds, were many stalls offering you the opportunity to win a prize. There were tombola stalls where you could try to win a teddy, some chocolate or perhaps a bottle of something alcoholic. Other stalls tempted you to guess the weight of the cake, or the number of sweets in the jar. Alternatively you could try your hand at the more traditional hoopla and hook-a-duck games. For those of a more sadistic nature there was Splat the Rat.
I found it quite interesting, the number of opportunities there were to win bottles of booze. Most surprising, since many of the purchasers of tickets were well below the minimum age required to carry off their prizes, needing to go and find an appropriate adult to carry off their booty.
Early on we were entertained by the rousing sounds of bagpipes and drums courtesy of Harbour Pipes & Drums, a locally based marching band.
They came back for a second performance later in the day.
There were some truly dubious characters roaming around the school grounds, one of which my granddaughter claims is her dinner lady. My dinner ladies, when I was at school, never looked like either of these folks. I’ll let you decide which one is her dinner lady.
As usual there was a brilliant demonstration of birds of prey, despite a certain amount of truculence from one of the owls which decided she didn’t want to play anymore and flew up onto the school roof.
Earlier in the day the handlers had apparently lost a bird to the lure of the tree tops.
In the gallery above is a photo of a juvenile Spectacled Owl. Actually, this specimen is one year old. Last year he was just a little bundle of white fluff in the palm of the handlers cupped hands. Apparently this species takes four years to attain its final plumage colour.
I am disappointed that I missed the Dog Agility Show. I’m sure it would have been highly entertaining. I was busy visiting my granddaughters classroom, viewing her art. I include a couple of examples below.
I’ll let you decide if she is a budding Picasso, or perhaps Gainsborough, as I can’t make an objective comment, biased as I am.
The weather was kind too, making this a very enjoyable afternoon.
WrAnTz 