Third time lucky

I attempted to visit the exciting Guide Dogs Gala Day this weekend, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the site being waterlogged. Had I bothered to check their website, I would have known this before I set off. And then I wouldn't have set off. But I didn't check and so we had a wasted journey . . . and all felt a bit disappointed.



To cheer ourselves up, we all decided to visit a nearby stately home/country park thingy. But when we got there it was a "no dogs allowed" kind of place. Oh dear.

However, things improved rapidly when we saw this sign on a noticeboard:

The prospect of seeing the famous Red Devils parachute display team was very exciting! We were very surprised to learn that the Kineton Summer Show was in fact just an ordinary primary school fete . . . but with the Red Devils!

I didn't actually see them doing any of their famous freefall stunts - as there was too much cloud to make a high altitude jump. So I took this image from their website:

However, I did see them doing this amazing "three parachutes flying together" stunt! At a school fete! The Red Devils!! My own pictures are all blurry and wobbly, so I took all of these from the Kineton Primary School website.

They came in to land soooo quickly! They're the Red Devils!!

Sadly, I was much too big to go on these cool quad bikes.

These witchy (twitchy) dancing girls are the Mini Mezzos, local 'slebs, as seen on 'Britain's Got Talent' TV show and now on You Tube. Go look. If you dare.


There was absolutely loads of splendid entertainment . . . roller-horsey jousting ( I was too big for that too), the Pimms tent, face-painting, crafts, tombola/raffle, etc.

Oh, I forgot to mention the aeroplane flypast (it might have been a WWII plane?) and the four military helicopters doing a fab flypast and aeronautic display.

I've seen more than my share of school fetes and/or village shows and this was, by far one of the bestest. The only things missing were the "buy one doughnut and eat it without licking your lips, and then you can eat free doughnuts until you lick your lips" stand (haven't seen one of those for about 25 years, but I live in hope) and that most traditional of entertainments, the "hook-a-duck" stall.