Village Fete

There's an article in today's paper about the demise of the village fete. Organisers now have to complete up to 15 different licence applications, legal agreements, forms and certificates, and insurance companies require 20 pages of detailed risk assessment. Police and fire authorities, first aid centres, and local authority restrictions have turned the administrative side into an absolute minefield - resulting in the loss of many famous annual fairs and fetes.

Thank goodness that there are still some people around who are prepared to tolerate all this stuff and who succeed in putting on a decent event every year. Yesterday's Rowlands Castle Fair (outside our front door) was a terrific success. By midday the Rumbling Nappa was on his second jug of Pimms, had failed to win on the bottle stall, had declined the two enormous bouncy castles, had greeted "Eric the Orphan Sheep" with a "How Do You Do", and had agreed on the purchase of a cake. Steel bands and Irish Country Dancing enlivened the occasion along with maybe fifty or more side stalls.

The grand daughter in attendance tried out the roundabouts, Mrs Rumbling Nappa paid great attention to the horticultural exhibits, and during the afternoon the Rumbling Nappa was able to slip back indoors to watch the British and Irish Lions play how they should always have played.

By nightfall the event had transformed itself into a noisy Mamma Mia party. All good stuff.

"Boo!" to the local authority questioned by my newspaper about the forms to be completed - "To give you all the information you need would take absolutely ages. Unless you issue a formal Freedom of Information request, we won't be able to give all of it, because it really is that much information".