The day of the Duck Race dawned bright and clear, well, it wasn’t raining anyway. Preparations were under way all round the village as people counted ducks, made cakes, moved tables, put up gazebos and bunting and generally just got everything together. The ‘boys’ (Keith and John) cleaned the stream so the ducks would have a clear run, Liz and Rachael sorted cakes and drinks, Sally kept the ducks in order while Sue helped everyone generally. At 3.00pm the fun started with much laughter, and a little competitive edge to the proceedings too (especially amongst the adults!). Several heats were ‘run’ or ‘swam’ or possibly ‘bobbed’, as winners were announced to go forward to the Grand Finale. All this time tea was being drunk, juice was being poured, and cakes were being eagerly consumed from a wonderful array produced by lovely local ladies (and the occasional man!) – not to mention continual harassment about buying raffle tickets! And the sun shone!

The Final Race took place and the First Prize, a Magnificent Silver Cup, went to Poppy Loveday, the youngest member of our community (possibly even smaller than the cup!). The Adult’s Cup, another magnificent trophy (?) went to Jo Blowers who promised to cherish and look after it for the next year! Grateful thanks to Jelka and Edmond who very kindly offered the use of their garden for the setting of the Duck Race.

After the Duck Race some of the younger members of the community went to the Millenium Garden to play games, (whilst some older ones went to recover slightly) before the next festivity took place – the Barbecue. HUGE thanks to Di our landlady at The Wink who allowed us to use the Car Park (actually I think we took it over) for the barbecue, and loads of thanks to those who organised, bought, made and cooked the rather special food that we all so greatly enjoyed. Special thanks to every single one of them plus thanks to the ‘chefs’ – Wo, Nick, Colin and Edmond – who all did a ‘grand job’ in cooking and serving all the food to such a hungry mob! A special mention to Dick who stepped in at the end to toss pancakes, and also to Paul the Singer who produced such great impromptu music.

The Race was won, the food was gone, and all that was left was the RAFFLE. And guess who won? None other than our very own Dick W – (strangely he said that he would win when I sold him the ticket…….hmmmm…….) Anyway he won a very nice bottle of bubbly and seemed very happy with that. Lots of other nice prizes won by lots of other nice people and a wonderful time was had by all.

Of course, the rather splendid outcome of this rather splendid day was that we made a rather splendid profit for the Village Hall funds, an amazing £358.00. So WELL DONE TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO HELPED AND ALSO TO THOSE OF YOU WHO JUST CAME AND SPENT MONEY AND ENJOYED YOURSELVES. Hey, let’s do it all again next year…….