08 - 08 - 08

I'll huff and I'll puff

Here I am hard at work, huffing and puffing and blowing down houses.

Of course, the modern wolf uses a hairdryer . . .

The Tower of London

Can you spot the difference between these two mighty fortresses?

Look really closely . . .




That's right - the first picture is in colour and the other is in black and white!

Try-athlon: great big bike ride

This event was another of London's pro-fitness/anti-car gestures. But as gestures go, it was loads of fun!



Cycling around in traffic-free central London was great - although the streets were by no means deserted.

There were free sandwiches, but they disappeared in the blink of an eye and my camera just wasn't quick enough!

We even won prizes!

What a shame though, that these superheroes weren't super enough to fly us all the way back home.

Afternoon tea

When it's your birthday, what could be nicer than a spot of afternoon tea?

We went to the Dorchester Hotel, which was lovely.


The sandwiches were really tasty - and mine were full of vegetarian yummy things. My plate is, of course, the one with the most sandwiches heaped upon it.

The cakes were a bit fancy for my simple tastes, but I ate two or three for the sake of politeness.

Afternoon tea is great!

Fruit-tastic food fiesta!

The loveliness of the Innocent Village Fete was all around us . . .
and was inside us too! There were several varieties of Innocent drinks to taste for free - although the glasses were much too small for my liking!

There was also a huge variety of food loveliness for sale. Oh how yummy it all was.

I nearly wept with joy at the sight of the fresh coconut stall. I'm sure green coconuts are freely available in shops and/or markets across London, for people who bother to look, but I hadn't tasted fresh coconut for years. Decades, in fact.

Can you see the straw poking up out of the coconut? Thankfully, you have been spared from the sight of the face I'm making as I try to turbo-drink all of the coconut milk while simultaneously grinning from ear to ear!



After all of this excitement, and the entertainments I have mentioned in previous posts, it was time for lunch. This was a suitably demure and tasteful repast, with the same delightful table manners we often see around the snack table on bubble night.

Lunch was great! After lunch we toured the craft area. There was time to make a few bits of bunting - to add to the record-breaking bunting-making attempt.

But, sadly, there wasn't time to knit a woolly hat for an Innocent drink bottle. Maybe next year.

But a real high point of the day for me was the human fruit machine. Due to a top tip from a friendly bystander, we knew that the sure-fire way to entertain the human fruiters - and therefore win a fruit machine prize - was to dance while the music played. We danced our little hearts out! Imagine our excitement when we won! This was even before we knew what the prize was.

This is how excited I was when I found out we'd won a *CAKE!




Huzzah for the lovely people at Innocent Drinks, who hosted this wonderful day, and for fantastic, fun-filled friends who will dance with me in the sunshine.

*I'm sorry to say that we were all too full of bubble food to share the cake that day. So I took the cake home and ate it.

Animal action at Fruitbox

The Innocent Village Fete was a fabulous feast of wholesome entertainment!


There was a lovely demonstration of precision duck herding - although the 'ducks' were actually geese. The dogs were really concentrating on their herding role, despite the distraction of the watching crowd.

There was a splendid dog agility display . . . and, due to my *excellent photography, I have been able to offer for you, dear blog reader, a bonus 'spot the dog' competition.

*Remember, you can always click on the picture to see a larger image. Or use a magnifying glass, if you'd prefer to enlarge the picture that way.

The excitement of this wonderful fete continued when I came upon that finest of outdoor fishing games - the dear old fashioned 'hook-a-duck' stall!

Unfortunately, there were so many little children bustling around this paddling pool that we were unable to try for a duck.

However, in another tent, there was a high-sided duck tub where we were all able to sucessfully hook a duck each and win a small nibbly cake bar prize. Each!

Not entertainment - or even hen-tertainment - but nonetheless interesting, were these urban hen houses. This green model (below) is designed to house up to 4 chickens. The hens have lots of room to forage, even if they mainly stay within the wire enclosure, and it is supposedly totally fox-proof (or 'fox resistant' as the information states). I'm not a big fan of caged birds, but plenty of chicken owners have told me about their happy hens and these models appeared to be really well designed hen homes.

Here is the super cool "peck here for for a drink of fresh water" device.

Here I am just moments before my very kind and patient friends finally lose patience and drag me off - so that we can all leave the fete and get to work on time!

Festival of Fruit and Fun

One morning, I was feeling a bit ordinary. Not happy or cheery. Just a bit blah.

But then I went to the Innocent Village Fete.

I drank some of their lovely tasty fruity drinks . . .

and suddenly I felt really happy!

My friends drank some fruity loveliness, and then they felt really happy too!

I loved Lovebox

I went to the Lovebox festival this weekend, with a bunch of bubble folk who were reaching out to share the bubble love. We had a bubbly good time in our little tent, but there was also some free time (lunch break) to enjoy the festival.

There was Lovebox loveliness all around . . .

Yummy food:

Crafty bits, with opportunities for shopping:


A main stage for bands, plus other performance delights all around the park:


There was super entertainment available for all:


They even had hats for sale! There were hats for sale - and yet I contained myself and didn't buy one! Even though they were as gorgeous as this! Can you Adam and Eve it?


But it wasn't all fun and games. Here is one of my esteemed colleagues, reaching out an arm of welcome support to a senior citizen.


Lovebox was great fun, and how utterly splendid that I was actually paid to go there! Huzzah for bubble land!