Mud glorious Mud

We we have done it - we have been working so hard during the last month, and now I feel quite confident to report that we have achieved our goal of taking over the garden properly and turning it into a mud bath (really good treatment for the feathers and the worms love it too!).  The constant bouts of heavy rain have assisted our mission but we have dabbled and dabbled too for the creation.  What do you think?

The shame of it is that all this will have disappeared by summer and the grass will grow back but it is nice while it lasts!

It has been a while since I have written in my diary, and there has been quite a lot going on, especially over Christmas and New Year.  Santa popped in for Weekends into the lovely grotto (with its round 'port hole' window),  we saw lots of children visiting (they came to see us too and all seemed pretty happy!).

'Hanbury In Voice' sang carols and songs to a restaurant jam packed with visitors on Christmas Eve and then it went quiet at about 4pm for two whole days, the only ones in the year that the Centre is closed.   It was not completely quiet though as the local Hunt came right past the Centre on Boxing day - they did look smart!

New Year's Eve in the Restaurant was lovely with everyone dressing very smartly for the 'Agatha Christie Theme' celebration.  There were moustaches on the tables (Hercule Poirot style) and some knitting wool and needles (Miss Marple).  Everyone threw themselves into the spirit of the occasion and an impromptu knitting competition ensued!  Jazz duo 'Blue2' had researched the topic and played music to suit the occasion including the theme tunes to the TV Poirot series and did us proud, then there was dancing to finish the evening - what a lovely evening with a lot of familiar faces.

New Year's day was heaving with folk too - this time they were with us for breakfast which was on the menu for most of the day. The weather wasn't very good but it was good to see so many people coming out, with or without headaches following parties the night before!

Since New year the staff have been having a good sort out and cleaning everything in sight - it is fairly normal to catch up ion jobs in January and there is an especially big sort outs going on the back rooms of the gift shop with a sale of some lovely items so that they can free up space for other things.

Finally - we also hear that once again we have been featured on the TV - this time it was for the BBC's 'Escape to the Country' (Thursday 23rd Jan) . Lots of people saw it and said how good the Centre looked and also how inviting Worcestershire came across - there were some great shots of the Malvern Hills and well as Droitwich town too. (It is on i-player at the moment)  The program was shot last year when the garden was not looking half as muddy as we have made it now - shame really would be good to have our work on film!

It feels a lot like Christmas....

The Jinney Ring Food and Craft Fayre on the 23/24 the of November was held in the gardens this year as it had grown in size.  This year we had sausages cooked in the garden, honey from a neighbour, jams and chutneys and some incredible meat pies, wines and fudge all added into the craft stalls - what a great flavour!  The gardens were really busy that weekend and there were things for the kids to do to  including watching the chain saw sculptor and riding on the teacup roundabout.  The weather was lovely too so we ducks had plenty of visitors and lots of corn - thank you all!

The Centre Christmas lights went of for the fayre weekend and will be on until the new year now - from 3pm to 7pm it looks really festive, especially in the front courtyard.

But the best is still to come - Santa has a new magical grotto this year and it looks great.
Elf Holly and the reindeer like it too!

Santa is in his grotto on Saturdays and Sundays between now and Christmas from 2pm to 4pm.  Children are emerging with lolly pops and a gift but we don't know what is in or what their secret wishes are.....

Next week we have an evening party in the restaurant and late night shopping too - Friday 13th is not necessarily unlucky in December - lots of Christmas presents could be in store!  The Christmas Feast night in the restaurant will be really cosy, already the log fire going everyday and a has a Christmas tree next to it and there are decorations throughout.

 "T'is the season to be Holly -- quack quack!"

Hot and Spicy!

The Moroccan Night on Friday was very colourful - lots of sparkly lights and candles as well as bright coloured organza.  The restaurant looked quite different when it was all dressed up.

The evening started with a pomegranate welcome drink and then moved through a host of authentic moroccan dishes before Tahira the Belly Dancer came on.

Tahira has been here before and she is one of our favourite entertainers - such a nice lady and she speaks English so well!  (It turns out she is from droitwich and she Teaches Belly Dancing for a living!)

There are lots more visitors here at the moment and all of the craft units are working very hard to stock up for Christmas sales,  we can feel the excitement growing....Next week the marquees go up for our Food and Craft Fayre (23/24th November).  Santa's grotto is also underway, opposite the plant stall, so we have him to look forward to as well -- hope he comes out into the gardens too.

2 Weddings and Funeral....

The beginning of October saw two weddings and funeral party here.  The first weekend was the wedding of Lauren and Dan - we had got to know them and their lovely daughter Adelaine quite well as they came to visit us ducks a lot during the planning of their big day.

The bridal 'vans'- all dressed up!

'Bearly' a minute to themselves - Lauren and Dan with one of this years sculptures

 

A 'staggeringly' pretty Bridesmaid! 

The weather was lovely for the wedding party and held for Sunday too when we were privileged to celebrate the life of one of our Hanbury neighbours Isobel, with a buffet lunch party in the garden.  The family were determined that she should be remembered in memorial in the way that she had lived her life, with a cheerful and happiness so they brought along lots of pictures and memorabilia and lots of her friends came and shared stories.  It was a lovely day and a great send off.

The wedding party of Emma and Michael was wet, really wet so we only saw them through the window of the restaurant.  The weather did not put the party off though - the restaurant was all dressed up and looked cosy and warm an everyone danced the night away until the early hours.  We caught a brief glimpse of the Bride and Groom as they had some photos taken under the eaves of the building - they looked gorgeous.

After this last wedding of the year we had a bit of a breather - mostly becuase it rained for 2 weeks.  There was a bit of a rush in the middle of the week as they Centre staff took down the marquee sides once they heard the storm warning forecast - we were preparing for the worst ourselves but as it turned out it was not too bad at all on the pond.

There is probably no such thing as a quite time at the Jinney Ring, half term has just finished and despite the rain we have seen a lot of children and adults alike and it looks like Christmas shopping has started!

On the ponds the 6 'late' ducklings that hatched a few weeks ago have been growing steadily in the pen and this weekend decided to brave it into the bigger pond - they certainly chose a noisy and windy weekend to 'breakout', we all watched the local fireworks from the ponds yesterday, we stayed in our safe zone!

Diamond are for ever...

Sunday the 1st September was a very special day for Alec and Vera - they celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in the gardens here with lovely luncheon in our garden marquee.  They had invited lots of friends to celebrate with them - some of whom had been at their wedding 60 years ago.

Starting off with some Pimms and finishing with Prosecco for a toast the whole event was extremely civilised and lots of laughter ensued.

After this we were back to another wedding on the 7th September - Lynn celebrated getting married on the same day as here 50th birthday.  They opted for a really chilled out party with very little formality.

Lynn and Dave with a couple of 'guests' from this years sculpture trail.

Lyn underwent a knee operation a couple of weeks before the big day - but still managed a dance.  We hope to see them both again very soon, a lovely couple.

The sculpture trail is now being put away and people are collecting the pieces that they have bought, it will be odd to have the gardens to ourselves again.  We are tremendously lucky here though - how many ducks get to live with art like this for a month each year?

Also finishing this week was the QuackArt competition (named in our honour of course!).  There were about 60 pieces of art entered into the competition and the judges found it hard to shortlist.  The shortlisted items were then exhibited for our visitors to vote for their favourite by class so there were 6 classes. (254 people voted in this).  Our judges (Photographer Martin Strivens, Jinney Ring Artist Michael Salt and Charity representative Jane Roberts from Worcester Snoezelen then had the task of choosing an overall winner.

"There''s two kids watching me" by Sue Wilson was the overall winner.

We hope to see Sue getting her trophy presented here very soon and will get a picture for the diary.

All of the entry fees for this competition are going to the Worcester Snoezelen charity and we are all very grateful to entrants, visitors and judges for their support for this exhibition.

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!