A very 'Civil'-ized weekend!

As the bank holiday weekend arrived true to form so the weather got a bit wetter and a bit chillier out here in the gardens at the Jinney Ring.   This was a bit of a shame for the two civil weddings that took place but happily it did not spoil either day....

Firstly Dani married Anthony on Saturday.  We have seen the couple on a number of occasions, but had never seen Dani (Danielle) out of jeans - so were 'wowed' when she arrived at 1:30pm ready for a small civil ceremony in our meeting room which had been especially decorated in her colours for the big day.

Dani with her father and bridesmaids on their was to the ceremony

Teal was the wedding colour

Once the marriage contract was completed we saw a lot of the Bride and Groom as their photographer took them around the gardens for lots of photographs.  After this they went into the restaurant for their 'Wedding Breakfast' (personally don't get this as it was nearly our tea time - breakfast was hours ago!).  They had a specially designed menu cooked by Shirley the chef, they all seemed very happy at the end of it!  Finally lots more people arrived and they had a party, dancing in the Barn, it all looked very nice.

The next day there was a change of colour for the wedding ceremony of Sophie and Russell.  They  
wanted a really relaxed wedding at home so decided to just have the Civil ceremony and photos with us.  For this one the wedding party were all congregating in the gardens when the rain came, really hard and heavy - fortunately everyone go under cover in the garden marquee and waited until it subsided!  We ducks loved it - it was like a really hard massage!  It did not spoil the day for the Bride and Groom who made their vows and and got some lovely (if stormy) photos too.

Storm clouds could not spoil the day for Sophie and Russell

We thought we were in for a bit of a rest after this wedding party left but it was not to be - at 4pm a coach arrived and we had a large group of French visitors arrive.  They were all from Gruchet le Valasse which is in Normandy and the town is twinned with Redditch.  These visitors were very appreciative but as it was a bit wet and windy they did not spend much time with us, we were of course practicing our best 'charlatan' (quack) for them!  They moved into the restaurant at 6pm and had a typical English Sunday Roast meal with their Redditch hosts - there were nearly 9o guests in total so the staff were working hard.  

It has been pretty lively on the pond this week too - one of my Call duck friends arrived on the pond with 7 ducklings on Thursday - here she is showing them how to get out of the water.

New arrivals

Yesterday we also saw some new Mallard ducklings too - they diced with death getting to the pond though, as the daft mum walked them through the garden next door on the way here - she has clearly forgotten the two large dogs and the cat that live there!