Larks in a small Thameside village.
Every other year the residents of Sonning engage in collective fundraising madness and craft mannequins and animals and all kinds of nonsense to decorate their houses and gardens with. For the first time we have a child old enough to enjoy it! Oh and there were ice creams, open gardens and vintage automobiles - Sally liked the red ones. (And I have just noticed how hilariously filthy Sally's legs are - there has been lots of playing in the garden this weekend, but bathing has also happened with irregular frequency.)
In a small point of really startling stupidity, neither husband or myself remembered to bring any money with us. We had just enough cash to by one ticket and Sally an ice-cream - unfortunately every adult needed a ticket to get into the open gardens so we missed out on the opportunity for a good snoop. ah well - the scarecrows were enough to provide plenty of amusement and I'd packed enough biscuits and drinks to keep us going.
There were 65 or so scarecrows around the village - I got a few photos, but unfortunately as there was no means of closing the village to cars, (there is a bridge which is pretty heavily used) there was also a lot of wrangling a daughter to make sure she didn't get squashed which seemed more important than getting my phone out every thirty seconds to take another picture of a mad papier mâché construction. But I got a few.
There were a number of Harry and Meghan wedding themed numbers - none had orange hair as bright as this one though.
There were also a couple of Suffragette displays - I like that this one matches the flowers in the window box, that really is excellent forward planning!
Sally was quite disconcerted that Chase seemed to have lost all his pals.
Of course Peppa Pig can fly - and there's nothing terrifying about it at all...
One of the many Peter Rabbit themed displays at the Great House and a beautiful fishing boat down by the bridge - there were other things going on at the river, but we didn't quite have the time to investigate. There were also plenty of displays not orientated around children's tv and books - someone had made a wall of Trump you could press a button to make fall over, there were quite a few Star Wars bits, a rainforest with snakes and all kinds of other bits and pieces. All the money raised goes to various village projects, but it is ace that so many people get involved in crafting weird and wonderful displays.
We ended up at the Cricket pitch and playground where Pip could finally escape from the pram for a bit under the trees - the shade and cool of which were most welcome. It was really nice to actually walk around Sonning. I drive through it all the time and sit in traffic enough to know the village pretty well - ok so we also go to the pub occasionally too... but it is a bit different to actually walk around it. There was a lovely atmosphere - everyone was out having fun, the Lion King display came complete with the householder and presumably friends all in animal costumes dancing to the music they'd set up and
waving at the kids; Sally got to put on some Mardi Gras beads for photos at another
house, and so on.
Then we wandered back towards the car across the fields, via a strange climbing frame, and both thought how nice it would be to live in Sonning. Except for the traffic over the bridge, and the insane house prices - I think if I'm going to spend all the money on a new house it need to come with fields for ponies! But it was a lovely afternoon and I look forward to 2020 and Pip being old enough to get involved.
(Those ringlets!) Sally had an ace adventure - so thank you Sonning for all the Scarecrows.