Oxfordshire and Thame Show

Oxfordshire and Thame Show is actually tomorrow, but as I'm competing in the flower arranging it is today for me, as it's today I go and put my arrangements together, so no time to chat this morning! Hopefully I will have some pictures this evening when I get back. I have a couple but I'm too tired to put them on tonight!

I was busy this morning getting all of my bits and pieces ready and baking some cakes for the Show, and getting my flowers into buckets for each arrangement I was doing. After having a couple of problems I was ready to go. Thame is about an hour away and I got myself there for about 4pm - hoping that would give me long enough. It was nice and easy to find and I parked up just outside the flower arranging end of the tent.

All the other ladies (or almost all) appeared to belong to the Thame Flower Club and were producing some stunning arrangements, I am guessing they have done it before and most were, if I may say so, mature ladies. I definitely felt like the outsider. The arrangements were done in situ this time and I have done 3 - although I don't think I am happy with any of them. The lighting was even worse than Bucks Show and I did my thing and I'm happy to give it a go. As I said with Bucks, it is a very steep learning curve for me at the moment.

I have entered several other categories this time too, seemed to make sense as I was going so far! Well it's all a bit of fun and I am going to be pretty busy for the forthcoming months (HINT) and I have totally enjoyed the whole experience and will do it all again next year hopefully!

I entered the

Novice Flower Arranging - I was not happy with this arrangement at all and left it until last as one of the problems I had this morning was getting this to hold the oasis firmly, so it was always going to be dodgy getting it to do what I wanted with the flowers on it as well. I feel that it is a good idea/concept but I need to go back to the drawing board on the mechanics to achieve the look and feel in the arrangement that I want to achieve. In the end as the light was going, I did what I could with it and then left it to it. I will be surprised if it lasted the night, as the wind was blowing around the tent. This one will be tried again.

Flower Arranging - 'Pottery Making' - I did a pedestal on a Jack O'Patsy cake stand and had planned to add a couple of smaller JOP dishes with smaller arrangements but ran out of time. So this one I will finish when I get it home tomorrow. The idea was that each arrangement in the set was a different classic style of arrangement, eg pedestal, asymmetrical, line etc and each was a different aspect of the colour wheel and then joined by ivy or bear grass. I will finish it at home.

Flower Arranging - 'Gardening' - This was the favourite of all the ones I did. It was called "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and was aiming for some post apocalyptic landscape effect (well that was what was in my mind) - a bit of an alternative/grunge type flower arrangement. That one I was most pleased with and therefore if no one else likes it I don't mind, cos I do!

I have entered 2 jams - a raspberry and a plum - both of which tasted too sweet to me when I tasted them but we will see. Certainly Jamie has gone for the raspberry one and loves it, so on that level - mission accomplished.

I've entered a scrapbook page into the papercrafting, I just pulled one out of my album - I will think about that category more seriously for next year and do a page specifically aimed at the show.

I also entered 2 cakes, I was supposed to do 3 but my pineapple upside down cake did not come out of the tin very well, so I decided not to enter it, but it tasted delicious! Again not much of it was left by the time I got home from the show, so again, mission accomplished really! My Lemon Cake tasted very lemony when I tasted the two mini ones I had left for Mike and Jamie but wasn't sure about the glaze. The Lemon Cake had to be made to a specific recipe supplied by the Show and I don't know if the glaze was right, but anyway I put it in and I hope it survived the night as it was the only one there when I left. Again my Victoria Sponge Cake was also the only one there too, and I have no idea how that one tasted so I guess I will find out tomorrow. If we dare try it after it has been sat out all day

A big Get Well Soon to my friend Andrea who has got the swine flu, I hope the Tamiflu starts working soon.

I also wanted to mention the sad if not unexpected passing of Patrick Swayze, who was to many of my age a real heart throb. I remember having a work experience girl with me for a couple of weeks when I worked at Cleveland County Council and she was shocked that I hadn't seen Dirty Dancing. I said I don't think it's my kind of film, but she insisted on me seeing her copy of it and I was hooked, I loved the film and watched it quite a lot over the years, although I don't think I've seen it for a good few years now. I may have to pop onto Amazon and order it, just for old times sake. And like so many others I blubbered through Ghost, but Patrick Swayze's work was so much broader than just those films. And to have stayed married to the same person for 34 years in Hollywood a real achievement.

And also a mention of Brian Barron, the BBC journalist who also died from cancer, who I seem to remember presenting news reports from all over the world for all of my life, I was surprised to realise how old he was and that he hadn't been on our screens for a little while now. For me one of those BBC journalists who I knew I could trust and whose voice I wanted to hear when being informed of a major event or world crisis, a broadcaster with integrity.

Ciao

Sue

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Reading challenge 8/16 - currently reading Lovers and Players by Jackie Collins
Jamie's Reading challenge 7/12 - currently reading Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Luceno
SLYMI - 1/52