The 4 Heatons Summer Festival will go ahead as planned.  Just back from the park, which is drying out nicely, we have had to move a few stalls, but it's not as bad as we thought, we might even still have the Fun Fair, but that will be their decision not ours.  

The only area affected is the F Field, & so we have moved those stalls,  please, do not go on the grassed area at the side of the tennis court, it's a bit wet.  Small lake is possibly a better phrase. We are trying to get the affected area roped off.

Today has been tense.  From the phone call this morning saying if the weather did not improve we would have to cancel, through to "We've had a look at the park & think it might work!"

At present the Festival is still going ahead. It may not bear much resenblance to the one I have been blogging about but it will occur.  We have a final meeting tomorrow to see if what looks as if it will work on paper will actually fit.

We are hoping lots of people are going to come on Sunday, if not we have done a lot of work for the sheer joy of it!  Thing is, there is not a lot of room to park around the Park, especially now we have lost the use of the college parking areas. For the past two years  the stall holders have parked down there, but this year there are over 50 stalls, each with a car or van full of things to show & sell.

I am just about to leave for the Park, yet again, this time to see where we can put a couple of marqueees for shelter.  Last year we worked on the assumption that if we said it would not rain, it would not.  (Well it worked the year before).

We have had so many prizes come in over the last few days, far too many for the raffle, so we sat down yesterday & had a brainstorm & came up with a couple of greatidea for you to get your hands on some great items.

Sharon, who has had the task of aquiring many of the items has written today's blog, so over to Sharon.

4HTA AUCTIONS

We’ve been given four fabulous hotel prizes for our auctions by clients of Vital Signs & Graphics, so thanks for that Sharon!

Regular Auction

Well fancy that, it's raining again.  I am sitting in the office surrounded by notes & to do lists.  Trying to work out the programme for the day.  The running order for the music has been just about fixed for some time, as has the sports, but the races & fun events have to fit in around everything else, especially the Falconry, so they are all a bit last minute.

If you are looking for day 8, you can stop, it got away from me!  Yesterday was a bit wet, not only that, it was the Heaton Churches Partnership Fun Day in Thornfield Park & I help run the St Thomas Stall.  This event has always been on a Sunday, but in the same way the Heatons Traders event was on a Saturday, they found people running it were a bit busy on Sunday, so they changed it to Saturday, funny we changed to Sunday for exactly the same reason.

A bit late today, I have been out to a tea party, courtesy of Time for Tea, a joint venture between Pebble Weddings & Pixie Bakeries.  Pixie is of course one of the food stalls at the Summer Festival & she makes a mean bun. I think I had a few too many, the choux pastry was delicious & I am an expert on eclairs, (eating not making). Joining her this year are Kro & Yeti's Retreat, who are going to do a barbecue Tibetan style.  Along side will be Marmaris & this year, for the first time, Kushoom Koly is joining us. Quite a treat.

If you go down to the Park today, you may notice that since last year a few of the trees have gone.  So where there was a mini forest in the middle of the Park, there is now an open space, not for walking on, there are low level bushes there, but you can see across it.  So we decided, what a great place to put a signpost, you can stand in the middle of the Park & see where everything is.  Great idea, now build it! Well, it's built, now we just need to put the directions on it, so in between the rain showers I have been painting the finger posts white.

Today we had a group leader meeting.  All the last minute hitches to sort, decisions to make & final bookings to make.  Not for us, for anyone out there who thinks they want a stall at our Festival,  this Friday 29th June is cut off day.  if you have not booked & paid by then, you're out of luck.  We only have one or two stalls left & then it is just a case of planning where they go.  The Food stalls look as if they are sorted, more details over the weekend.