Weddings galore and ....more ducks with a difference

Matt and Alex have been regular visitors to the gardens and feed us, so we were a bit delighted to see at how well they "scrubbed up"  for their wedding on August 17th .  The weather was not brilliant but they spent a little time with us before going inside for their weeding breakfast and dancing.  They are very much "Northern soul" fans sot he music was really chilled out as we swam along with their dancing.

The following week a huge marquee went up in the gardens pretty much at the same time a lots of sculpture arrived.  The annual sculpture trail is something we look forward to all year - it gives us a chance to live with art for about a month.  This year it is even more exciting as a lot of it is on the water so we get to sleep with it as well....

We are however a little unhappy about the number of additional ducks that are getting attention - for example this big boys are considerably bigger than us and do draw the eye!  (Fortunately they are not eating our corn!)

It turned out that the marquee was being put up for Karl and Kate's wedding which was a really luxurious affair.  The family all pitched in on the Friday and decorated the marquee - the chosen colour was blue - for Birmingham City it turned out  (Bride's choice!).  They put some lovely lanterns up and the whole thing looked wonderful. 

There was not much football going on on the 24th but the children did play croquet - however I think we have most of the balls in the pond now!  The party was fantastic from start to finish and the Bride and Groom were lovely, both to look at and in nature, we hope to see them lots in the future.

Karl and Kate - our fiends for life!

For the two days after the wedding there was a wedding fayre in the marquee so we saw lots more people, particularly as it was also bank holiday weekend., my goodness we were 'quackered' at the end of the period...but there is more to come yet.

Such a busy summer....

You can probably tell that I have been busy as I have been very slack in writing this diary of late, there has been so much to do, so many visitors to meet and so much corn to enjoy... it seems to be over now (the rain has started and the gardens have been much quieter this week with the return to school of many of our playmates).

Here is a bit of a record of what has been going on since I last wrote....

The Norbury Theatre were here performing The Merry Wives of Windsor at the end of July.  Fortunately the Jinney Ring has a garden marquee because it did rain during the performance on Saturday night - not just a little bit but a lot.  The actors did really well raising their voices above the sound of the rain and the visitors were even better going down the garden in all that wet after they had been warm and wet fed in the restaurant!  Everyone seemed to have a great time and the play was a huge hit for both the Saturday evening and the Sunday matinee.

A real farce!

 Next up we a corporate sports day and BBQ in the gardens - watching them do three legged races, egg and spoon races in our fields after enjoying a lovely BBQ did make us quack!

The now familiar sights and sounds of the Blues and Beer tents going up for the 5th festival in the gardens caused us to loose some sleep but we did enjoy the bands very much.  This year it was a weekend festival with the big bands on Saturday and a couple of excellent local bands on Sunday as well as the winners of the W-Factor competition.  Lots of beer, plenty of people and also a lot of dogs (all very well behaved though).  The weather was unusually kind and it stayed dry so everyone seemed pretty happy and all the beer was drunk.

 

Boperator

Stomp and Holler!

Robert Hokum

Too Tired!

Between bands

BBQ - Big Ron cooking the chicken!

Sunday - W-Factor winners on stage

This is going to be far to long a catch up so am stopping here and will catch up again tomorrow!