Apologies to the ladies

I've just realised that my blogs of our Easter weekend showed photos of the three men, but none of the three ladies. My apologies for this unintended omission! These photos from our mini-Olympics show Sophie completing the obstacle course and Claire and Jenny taking aim with the bow and arrow. Did you know that in Elizabeth I's time there was a law requiring every man and boy to practise with the bow and arrow daily so that they would make good archers in the event of war?

The Bread Oven Works!

After our delicious lunch at the Kings Arms on Easter Day we did not feel hungry for several hours and decided to end the day with pizzas cooked in the bread oven I made in the garden last autumn. Ben did the skilled work of making the pizza dough and dressing two large pizzas whilst I lit a big fire in the oven and let it die down to glowing embers before putting the pizzas in. The result was two delicious pizzas, cooked to perfection, which quickly disappeared although no-one was supposed to be hungry! Photo shows the pizza maker and fireman proudly displaying one of their cooked pizzas.

Easter and birthday celebrations.

Our younger son Ben, his wife Claire and their children Thomas (7) and Sophie (£) came to stay with us over the Easter weekend and to celebrate Ben's birthday on Easter Day. We went to a wonderful circus in Yeovil, to the swimming pool in Sherborne, to the Methodist Church in Castle Cary on Easter Day and to the Kings Arms for Sunday lunch. When we wern't doing these things Thomas organised a mini Olympics with archery, hurdle races, long jump, triple jump, javelin and croquet competitions. Great fun and much laughter was enjoyed by all and Ben won the senior cup and Thomas the junior. The photos show the archery competition and the presentation ceremony.

Charlton Horethorne Youth Theatre Challenge

For 8 weeks in February, March and April Jenny directed a "Youth Theatre" in our Village Hall. Up to 22 young people aged between 7 and 15 came along each week, wrote their own play, made the scenery and props, borrowed and operated lighting and sound systems and put on two performances on Saturday 4 April. All this with just the lightest guidance from a small number of adults. The play, entitled "The Monks' Place Mystery" was about the ghost of a monk seen and exorcised about fifty years ago in an Elizabethan house in our village and the lady who saw the ghost as a young woman was present in the audience. The young people enjoyed the experience and want to do another play next year. The Village Hall committee backed the project (the first of its kind in the village) and were rewarded with a profit of over £650.

Kings Arms 2

The gremlins certainly got into the photos which should have been attached to my previous blog about the re-opening of the Kings Arms pub in our village. What went wrong? - I have no idea! But here is a photo taken by someone else of our party of eight on the opening night. The restaurant has been booked solid ever since but we managed to get a table for lunch on Easter Day (12 April) which also happened to be the birthday of our younger son, Ben. The six of us (Jenny and I, Ben, Claire, Thomas (7) and Sophie (3)) had a lovely time. Meanwhile our daughter in law Sally (wife of our elder son Olly) celebrated her birthday with a family day out in the tropical heat of Benin, West Africa, where they are working. Ben and Sally were born within a few hours of each other on 12 April quite a few years ago now - what a coincidence.