A Hard Day's Night

Last weekend our friends Cappie and Jennie from Portland came to stay with us. Despite the wet weather we had a great time, especially on the Saturday night when we got dressed up to attend a 60s evening at the Village Hall. Entitled "A Hard Day's Night" this splendid event included songs from the 1960s, dancing, a quiz, raffle, bar, supper and a competitive sing-a-long which our table won (prize - a bottle of wine). It was great fun and the photos say it all.

Stonecarving

The nativity scene that I started to carve last winter from a block of stone weighing 16 stones (bottom photo) is now finished. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photograph of the finished job before covering it with wooden boards and building it into the wall at the bottom of our drive. The boards will come of at Christmas, the nativity scene will be lit up and I will invite people to make donations for CRISIS, the charity whose aim is to end homelessness. My next stone carving will be a stone "rose" window, measuring 25 inches square. I spent two hours last week levelling the surface and there is still more to do (see top photo).

Pumpkin Olympics photos taken by Ben Peet

Silk scarves

After our family left last week we found several of Jenny's silk scarves in Sophie's bedroom. Like most girls who stay at out house Sophie likes dressing up in these scarves and they reminded us of our lovely great-nieces, Zoe and Gina. They and their parents, Susan and Paul, stayed with us on their way home from the Isle of Wight in August and we had a great time with them, especially playing croquet on the village croquet lawn. Here are photos of Sophie and Gina dressing up, and of Susan and Paul not dressing up!

Pumpkin Olympics

Sorry, but I'm having problems publishing the photos of the Pumpkin Olympics (see previous blog). I will have to take technical advice. Meanwhile here is a photo of Thomas's Olympic games presentation ceremony - you can just see Sophie behind her unusual trophy for third place - we couldn't find any bronze so Thomas said that copper was the nearest thing - bright lad!

Pumpkin Olympics

It was half term last week and Ben, Claire, Thomas and Sophie came to stay with us for a few days. We had the usual fun and games - this time Thomas's ever popular mini Olympics consisted entirely of running and throwing events on the Millennium Green in the village. After that he still had the energy to take his Dad and Granny on a five mile cross country walk into Sherborne, although they had to telephone for a lift back! On the last afternoon we went to the Pumpkin Olympics at Ansty Pick Your Own farm, five miles east of Shaftesbury on the A30. Here there were 20 games or competitions involving pumpkins or marrows in one way or another and we all had a go. Great fun.

Three cheers for Royal Mail and Blue Cine Tech

There was consternation in our house on Sunday afternoon when Jenny turned on her projector and the bulb blew. She was booked to do illustrated talks on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week, we had no spare bulb and our substitute projector is very old with an inferior bulb of a different size, voltage and wattage. Where could we find a new bulb at 4pm on a Sunday? A few minutes on the internet provided the answer. Several sellers on ebay were offering bulbs of the type we needed at a "buy it now" price of £2.09 each plus postage. We ordered three from a London firm, they were dispatched on Monday and delivered by our postie on Tuesday, despite the postal strike. Problem over. Well done the Post Office and bulb supplier Blue Cine tech. If you would like to know more about our talks log on to www.peet-talks.co.uk.