23rd September
Had a good look at the Basinga website this afternoon to make sure that all my little articles were there and was interested to see that the Old Basing and Lychpit Village Show now has its own website. You can get a link to this from the Basinga website and it is well worth looking at! For the one or two people who had such a pressing engagement that they couldn’t attend the Village Show this year (death, disaster or near fatal illness are the only excuses), there are pictures of most of the winning entries. If you look very closely, you can see my winning Chocolate Brownies and you can even catch a glimpse of Spencer’s right leg in one of the photos. There is also a page that details the history of the trophies awarded at the show which has been running since 1864, and it makes very interesting reading.
26th September
Decided to go to the Panto coffee morning at Sue and Mark Offord’s house. This was another event that I managed to find out about through the marvellous Basinga website. I left Spencer polishing the Bentley, and took the opportunity to stroll down the Street from the Manor as it was a nice day. The garden was packed with people when I arrived. Cakes, a fantastic raffle, a book sale and advance purchase of Panto tickets were all available. Of course I bagged mine for the Sunday afternoon performance on the 15th November. Alas, again I was unlucky in the raffle.
27th September
I have been trying to contain my excitement all week! One of the nicest Silver Wedding Anniversary presents we were given in June was a voucher for tea for two at Tylney Hall. Two couples, who are dear friends of ours from the Village, had arranged this for us, but with one thing and another, this was the first opportunity that we had to go. We dropped Violet-Elizabeth off for her Gang Show rehearsal and left Marcus struggling with his A level maths homework and set off. I had re-created the feeling of our Silver Wedding day by wearing the same outfit (but without the hat), and had insisted that Spencer did the same. We certainly looked the part as we pulled up to the front of Tylney Hall in the Bentley. After a stroll round the grounds, we sat in the Grey Room for our tea with delicious sandwiches, scones and cakes. These were served on a silver salver equal in size to the one I have at the Manor, which weighed a tonne. I just wish the handsome young man who brought it also worked at the Manor as actually he was quite an improvement on our usual serving staff.