Bank Holiday Monday
We had a jam-packed Bank Holiday. Not content with seeing Julia Donaldson at the Haslemere Festival, we headed to the Surrey County Show too.
I had booked the tickets for seeing Julia Donaldson months ago, and almost forgot we were due in until I'd checked my diary earlier that week. On the day it was lucky I'd been up since 5, so getting to Haslemere Hall for 11am wasn't being a problem. Oliver has loved 'The Gruffalo' and pretty much any Julia Donaldson book for ages now, and with Pip obsessed with finding the cats in 'Snail on the Whale', it seemed an appropriate time to see the legend in action.
You know you have an image of an author in your head when you read a book? Well, I had Julia Donaldson pegged as a late 30s, short-haired, slightly hippy artistic type. What I should have been thinking is slightly dumpy, in bad need of a stylist, man-made fibre wearing, frumpy woman. Sorry Julia, but I am still coming to terms with my (admittedly baseless) image of you being shattered.
The show itself consisted of her and her amateur-dramatic, guitar playing husband Malcolm singing her songs and stories with some help from some puppets and the audience. Jeff and I agreed it was so hilariously amateurish, it ended up being immensely endearing. What's that adage about never working with animals and children? Try having 15 odd under 9s on a pitch black stage in various stages of stage-fright trying to remember their one line, and terrified of the 10ft furry dancing Gruffalo (complete with 'nobbly knees, turned out toes and a poisonous wart on the end of his nose, his eyes were orange, his tongue was black and he had purple prickles all over his back.).
Nevertheless, Oliver stated he had enjoyed himself very much and could we now go and see the tractors at the fair? So off we trotted to the Surrey County Show, supposedly the premier show in, well, Surrey to show your prize cow/sheep/pig etc and enter the cut-throat world of cake making and donkey judging. We saw Morris dancers, tractor driving competitions, wood whittling and sheep shearing. Pip spend the day running around in bare feet, screeching every time he saw a dog. Which was a fair bit as it seems dog owners feel they can't bring their mutts to most events and, as this being one of the rare exceptions, they came in their truckloads. Oliver concentrating on developing his death-wish and insisted on going on the Ferris Wheel, the up-and-down-horses (or the 'round-about' as he called it) and the huge inflatable slide every fair can't do without.
Jeff had to get a £2 hat as (totally unfair) punishment for Mama taking out all the sunshine gear moments before leaving for the day in a fit of peak when the heavens opened. Mama's punishment was having to share her ice-cream with Pip (and getting maybe one or two sneaked mouthfuls of the pot). But purchase of the day has to go to Mama for buying a rounders bat for the big game of rounders we'll be having on July 19th for our street party. Yay.
Despite the fair being not up to years gone by, we still managed to spend 4 1/2hrs there (how? doing what?!) and came home to collapse on the sofa. Just about managed to eat and bath before hitting the sack. We didn't even watch an episode of '24'. Crickey.
THE GRUFFALO!
The Ferris Wheel
A happy camper indeed.
The produce of sheep shearing.
Pony-trapping.
I had booked the tickets for seeing Julia Donaldson months ago, and almost forgot we were due in until I'd checked my diary earlier that week. On the day it was lucky I'd been up since 5, so getting to Haslemere Hall for 11am wasn't being a problem. Oliver has loved 'The Gruffalo' and pretty much any Julia Donaldson book for ages now, and with Pip obsessed with finding the cats in 'Snail on the Whale', it seemed an appropriate time to see the legend in action.
You know you have an image of an author in your head when you read a book? Well, I had Julia Donaldson pegged as a late 30s, short-haired, slightly hippy artistic type. What I should have been thinking is slightly dumpy, in bad need of a stylist, man-made fibre wearing, frumpy woman. Sorry Julia, but I am still coming to terms with my (admittedly baseless) image of you being shattered.
The show itself consisted of her and her amateur-dramatic, guitar playing husband Malcolm singing her songs and stories with some help from some puppets and the audience. Jeff and I agreed it was so hilariously amateurish, it ended up being immensely endearing. What's that adage about never working with animals and children? Try having 15 odd under 9s on a pitch black stage in various stages of stage-fright trying to remember their one line, and terrified of the 10ft furry dancing Gruffalo (complete with 'nobbly knees, turned out toes and a poisonous wart on the end of his nose, his eyes were orange, his tongue was black and he had purple prickles all over his back.).
Nevertheless, Oliver stated he had enjoyed himself very much and could we now go and see the tractors at the fair? So off we trotted to the Surrey County Show, supposedly the premier show in, well, Surrey to show your prize cow/sheep/pig etc and enter the cut-throat world of cake making and donkey judging. We saw Morris dancers, tractor driving competitions, wood whittling and sheep shearing. Pip spend the day running around in bare feet, screeching every time he saw a dog. Which was a fair bit as it seems dog owners feel they can't bring their mutts to most events and, as this being one of the rare exceptions, they came in their truckloads. Oliver concentrating on developing his death-wish and insisted on going on the Ferris Wheel, the up-and-down-horses (or the 'round-about' as he called it) and the huge inflatable slide every fair can't do without.
Jeff had to get a £2 hat as (totally unfair) punishment for Mama taking out all the sunshine gear moments before leaving for the day in a fit of peak when the heavens opened. Mama's punishment was having to share her ice-cream with Pip (and getting maybe one or two sneaked mouthfuls of the pot). But purchase of the day has to go to Mama for buying a rounders bat for the big game of rounders we'll be having on July 19th for our street party. Yay.
Despite the fair being not up to years gone by, we still managed to spend 4 1/2hrs there (how? doing what?!) and came home to collapse on the sofa. Just about managed to eat and bath before hitting the sack. We didn't even watch an episode of '24'. Crickey.
THE GRUFFALO!
The Ferris Wheel
A happy camper indeed.
The produce of sheep shearing.
Pony-trapping.
posted by Emma Sweetwater at
May 28, 2009
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