a weekend of summer fetes

I have had a really nice weekend, even though the weather has been a bit on and off.  Sunshine one minute and rain the next.  Although it did mean that we got to witness a beautiful rainbow yesterday afternoon :)


Yesterday, we visited a church fete close to where Steve grew up.  It was a typical fete, like the ones that I remember from being little, face painting, a tombola, a coconut shy, bouncy castle, guess how many sweets are in the jar etc.  Steve had all the luck, and won these treats on the tombola!

What there never was at my old school and church fetes though, was birds.  There was the opportunity yesterday to hold an owl, a hawk or a kestrel.  I chose a tiny little owl (who's breed I have now forgotten!)  He was named willow, and was so cute!  The falconry is called Kinder Falconry, and the lady who runs it was really nice.  I don't think I was really their target market though!  Their aim is to enable children to get up close to animals (hence, Kinder in their name).  Definitely worth checking out if you live in the Leicestershire area.

Onto today, we have been very busy!  We started off with a little stroll around our favourite car boot sale.  Stupidly, I wore flip flops which are now ruined because the grass was really muddy!  Never mind, the bargains that we found cheered me up eventually!  I am yet to take any photographs of our finds, so I will make a post about them at a later date.


After the car boot sale, we traveled to Lubenham (a village close to Market Harborough) for their annual scarecrow festival.  There was also a fete there, on their village green.  Unfortunately our tombola efforts were less successful today, but I LOVED how they had chosen to organise it!

There were some crafts stalls dotted about.  My favourite item today has to be these rather bizarre doorstops, especially the owl one!  They are made from cuddly toys, and I just think that there is something quite sinister about them!

Obviously, the main attraction is the scarecrows that the residents of the village make and display outside their homes.  Here is a small selection of some of my favourites!

I thought that this display of Gulliver's Travels made by the local primary school children was very cute!

However, my least favourite display was this one...

You may have gathered that I have a bit of a soft spot for animals, so I really didn't know how to take this hunting scarecrow display, complete with cuddly dog toys and a sign reading 'Happy Hunting'.  


The house next door though, was beautiful, and I love this little quote above their door, reading The House That Jack Built.  An idea to remember for when I own my first house I think :)

There was also a classic cars display, now I'm not really a car person, but I LOVE this one! 

After the scarecrow festival, we travelled into Market Harborough where there was another festival taking place.  There were lots of different performances going, it was a great atmosphere but really busy, so we couldn't always see everything very well because of the crowds.  Also, no photographs of this event, as we left the cameras in the car - oops.


So that's been my weekend, so far!  I'm off to our monthly pub quiz soon, hooray!