Finito, benito....

Some of the many displays

 Well the good news is that I think despite the weather deterioration this week we have finally finished all the work we set out to do when we returned to the UK.

Loads of flowers awaiting their turn to become something.

The decorator has finished his bit's at quite a steep price but hey ho.  He has done a great job on a couple of walls with forty five degree curves in them which for anyone who has wall papered themselves will know keeping a match around anything but perfectly straight is not easy.

The staircase as usual was very wasteful on paper, we've enough long offcuts to paper another room, memo to self next time get a none matching paper.

Village hall, each table had a little arrangement in a teacup.

Of course it appeared that I hadn't got enough rolls in to account for that so a quick trip to B&Q was needed, of course in the meantime they had stopped doing that particular paper and we had to get a contrasting one with a view to using it on adjacent walls.  Of course when we got to the bottom of the stairs the master engineer had measured correctly after all and the trip for more paper had been a total waste of time.

Larry and Maureens scaffold arch.

 All is well that ends well though and it looks like a new house now just finished in time for the day when the new tenants signed up and took over responsibility for the old house.  I hope Gary and Claire have a long and happy stay there and continue to treat it with the love and attention that it deserves.

Geoff having his sneak preview.

Jean, Libby and Sandra awaiting the throng.

The real event of the week however was the flower festival to celebrate Geoff's 90th birthday.  Sandra put an enormous amount of work into it both before the event and during the weekend itself.  She started collecting all her green bits on Wednesday, ours and many other peoples shrubs, trees and vines have been decimated.  And then with the help of our talented daughter in law, Fiona, started making their creations on Thursday working late into the evening both Thursday and Friday.

It seems Sandra was baptised 4 days after my 1st birthday.

Many people from the surrounding villages also had displays including a couple of local florists.  Sandra had arranged for a supply of blooms from a local flower packing warehouse who pack in foils for all the national supermarket from Harrods to Lidl.  They came up trumps and gave her hundreds of pounds worth of flowers, Thank you JZs you were great.  There were also some very imaginative creations from various people.  Paul and Sue, Geoff's neighbours made a coffee table out of the three hundred year old bell hanger which had recently been removed from the church and decorated it to suit the occasion.  Sue also went to the county Registry to get Geoff's marriage certificate and Sandra baptism certificate to display.

The glorious twelfth.

Another off the wall thing was a découpage picture of close up photographs of the church's gargoyles, interspersed with flowers displayed in a huge frame, a bit garish but very imaginative.  There was also a display of painting by a local artist.

 I particularly liked the "Glorious twelfth" (Geoff's birthday) displayed in the entrance to the church with a couple a bales, shooting stick, gun bag, old Harris tweed coat and of course loads of flowers.  This was donated by the florist which Fiona works for.

No 2 son - gotcha!

The weekend was ended with a church service to close the festival and commemorate Geoff's birthday.  He'd had a marvellous weekend meeting loads of people and doing what he does best - TALK.  Best of all the whole event we think will have raised two thousand pounds by the time all the money is finally in.  This will be going towards to cost of the major roof repairs which the church needs and we couldn't have found anything closer to Geoff's heart than that.
Sandra and I would like to thank everyone who helped with the flower festival or donated cakes, quiches, pies or anything to the refreshments in the hall.  We would also like to thank all those local businesses who gave generously of their time or wares to make the festival such a success.  Last but by no means least thanks to every one of the people who came and dug into their pockets to make an old man very very happy.