The Village Fete.

August Bank Holiday Monday arrived last week.
Linda became animated and insisted we visit the Wisbrough Green Village Fete.
I'm never keen on these events as they always seem to be a pale imitation of the village fetes I went to as a child.

On arriving at Wisbrough Green we are directed to a large field where we are to park the car.
The field is under the control of an overworked Venture Scout who seems to be buckling under the responsibility and the onslaught of 4 wheel-drive vehicles. My heart goes out to him.

Linda and I wander down to the village green where the action is.
The first thing that greets us is the 'entertainment':

To be fair the lad's doing his best to provide musical entertainment and is only the warm up act for the brass band.
He had one neat trick.
By moving one of his legs, or elbows I couldn't tell which, the top of his hat lifts up and a teddy bear pops out.

I buy a terrible cup of tea for £1 from a tent run by the Girl Guides and go to look at what must be my favourite type of exhibit, inexplicable pieces of machinery:

In truth I do know what most of these machines were intended for as my father used to repair them.

The Red Arrows Display team flew over on their way to some air show and a 30 something woman looked up to the sky then shouted at her children "Look! look! Spitfires".

I enjoy another piece of redundant farm machinery:

Linda and I decide that the bales in this machine were, given the amount of moss growing on them, probably the last ones it ever made.
Restored/preserved Fergusons and Fordsons are all very well but I grew up with them and find them prosaic now.
I would love to see/climb about on one of the really big combine harvesters that I see in the fields nowadays or even one of the monster tractors that clog up the roads here about.


Restored cars:

A thing of beauty perhaps but I spent a good deal of my childhood 'helping' my father (i.e. being used as slave labour) restore these type of vehicles.
The M.G. in particular is a disturbing reminder of my lost childhood.  To my memory I've 'helped' restore seven of them.
The resto' jobs on these two are first class in my opinion but bear in mind that a Nissan Micra could out accelerate and out brake these relics and should you want to start them on a cold morning well, best of luck.

The 'Fun' Dog Show:

This was essentially a beauty pageant for dogs.
Linda, having been raised by dogs, knows what to look for in a 'good' dog and fumed at the choices made by the judges.
This picture was taken just before a loud cheer went up and a English Bulldog pup had a rosette pinned to it (I blame the Churchill Insurance ad, Oh, yes.)
Linda nearly exploded.  She has very strong views about the breed points that define these dogs.
(It was very cute though.) 

The child racing was announced (one of the few announcements I understood from the rubbish P.A. system).
I would have had a bet but there didn't seem to be any bookmakers at the fete.
The sack race was hilarious and, had I been able to film it without getting beaten to a pulp as a suspected paedo',  I'd have cleaned up on 'You've Been Framed'.

So, sad to say, I prefer my memories of the village fete rather than today's reality.
Mind you, I didn't go into the flower and veg marquee.
That could changed the whole experience.

Lastly, here's a picture of a street name that should give Mr. Old Fool a bit of a chuckle: