Pleasant Valley Funday

Last week was Family Fun Day at the school.  There was a World Cup theme, each task completed won a country's flag.  Hook the Duck represented Argentina.  I was on duty.  It was raining.

A freckly boy came up and grabbed a duck out of the water.  'Hey! Put that back.  You have to use the hook.  Look mate, do it properly or you don't get a sticker.'

'I quit' he said.

'Don't be a quitter' I said, like the Marlboro cowboy.  'This sticker is the Argentinian flag.'

'So?'

'Argentina has cool stuff in it,' I told him.  He looked up.  'Like beef. And really long grass.'

'I don't want a sticker' said Freckles and went to Splat a Rat.

There was a Horticultural Show with thousands of categories.  Our six-year old was keen to enter all of them.   Teacher mum said 'Oh God, let them do it all this year and they'll with luck they'll have grown out of it by next time.'   But another advised 'Make the most of it, my kids aren't interested any more.'   Luckily mine have a mother who still hasn't grown out of it, so for two days the kitchen was a jolly landfill of useful junk.  My mum always had a huge cardboard box under the dresser called The Useful Box, full of old tat.  We have a bag.  From the junk (known now as recycling) they made a Monster Truck and a Fairy Creator with instructions: 'mix 6 drops of rain with the spirits of fairies that have died...'  Roll over, Tinkerbell.

The label for the monster truck was accidentally entered in the drawing competition.   It won first prize.  My son won first prize for all his categories, including cake decorating - red glitter and three sugar lions - and making a Lego church with a congregation of robots and trolls.  My daughter also won prizes, with a well deserved first for the Fairy Creator.  When disbelieving children everywhere are killing off fairies  and Richard Dawkins always on their case asking to see the paperwork, she's taking action.  I never think of Peter shouting 'Do you believe in fairies?  Clap your hands if you believe!' without my eyes full of tears for the ending of childhood.  The applause is growing fainter every day. 

Our new friend the Cartographer said he'd given up on the scarecrow building section. Last year he missed first prize despite spending weeks creating an enormous paper mache head.  The winning scarecrow was made by someone related to the judge.  Or it might have been that the judge was related to the scarecrow.

But he reconsidered.  'I dunno, I might make a tiny Wayne Rooney out of driftwood.'  He and his daughter have already hung a very convincing driftwood Peter Crouch on their sitting room wall.  Wayne Rooney was my inspiration for the 'decorate a potato' section.  Minimal embellishment required.  But I forgot to buy potatoes.

I heard that at a village show last year there was only one entry in the cake section, but the judges didn't think it was good enough to win so they gave it second prize.  'There was a massive outcry.  It was in all the papers.'  Must have been dropped from Newsnight at the last minute. 

The Best in Show was a display of hedgerow treasures found by the school twins.  On a wooden tray they tucked lacey cow mumble, elderflowers and pink herb robert into tiny bottles the colour of sea glass.  Broken egg shells, blue and white shards of pots and 'an unknown feather'.  I was enchanted and so pleased it won.  Our recent hedgerow find was a pigeon, shot and impaled on a blackthorn hedge and a dead mole with blood leaking from its mouth.  Soft little velvet chap with strong shovel hands.  Wildlife, wild-death.

It rained, we drank tea, it rained, children ran around laughing, it rained, people made the best of it.  A scurry of Rat Splatterers and Duck Hookers rushing for cover as rain hisses down is a particularly English sight.  So is the same crowd emerging into a drizzle. 'It's easing off now.  Look there's a patch of blue over there.  It's not too bad.'  And getting back to having fun.