Kings Norton school and summer fair

We went with Matt and the kids to join Frances at the school fair. This is being held on the same day as the Kings Norton Sumer Fair in conjunction with their monthly Farmers Market.

We have been to the school fair before. On a pleasant summer day the playground was covered with stalls. These were mainly of two types. There was the table top sales ( can’t say  car boot type as this needs a licence! ) by independents and the school games manned by the PTA. I guess there were roughly equal numbers.

Frances had a Lego card game to win a food hamper. Really this was pure chance, 30p to buy a card whose number is entered into the draw. Apparently the hamper was donated via the university indirectly as it was an acknowledgement from a group using university facilities. All the cards were sold; the last few by Annette going around with Alice and browbeating folk. Frances half shared with a table selling dress up clothes, board games, books and the like. This meant as well as Matt doing stints on selling others did also including us.

We were next to a rather strange table top with “Mad Moo” selling new personalised ceramics plus an eclectic range of children’s and adult clothes. Neither was selling and Mad Moo gave up and left early.

Part way through the event we went for a visit to the Kings Norton fair. This was held by the village green but mainly in the churchyard. This I always think is very strange. Although the area of the churchyard is largely grassed there is the occasional grave. Anyway the “performance area” when we visited was occupied by some lady tap dancers. They were fairly elderly and the pace was decidedly slow. ( This is not a criticism as I couldn’t do it myself )

We walked through the Farmers Market where we bought some purple sprouting broccoli plants and at a confectionary stall an apple Danish for me and apricot turnover for Annette.

Earlier we had beef burgers at the school fair. I must say these were better and cheaper that our village church fair but they were without onions.so swings and roundabouts I suppose. The burger meister was very chatty and I found out later he was former head of PTA. Burger server was apparently the headmaster. Several staff were helping in various roles. I was a bit taken aback to get a cheery greeting from one: I assume that was her default for any attendee. ( of course she may have been thinking “poor old soul, bet he doesn’t get out much “)

Next to France’s table were two old ladies selling plants for a hospice. They only had a few but the plants looked in excellent shape. We bought one and Frances a couple. I admired their pluck as sales were very slow. When they brought books for the nearby bric-a-brac stall I donated a pound to them as I admired their effort. Re-reading this I realise those old ladies were probably younger than me!

Inevitably at these things the kids bought various trinkets plus lots of tombola goes. Annette bought an evacuee costume pack for Alex at the next forties day on the North Yorks railway.

We were very pleased to see all the reception class had individual plants outside their classroom. Each was in a decorated tin can. We duly admired Ben’s