Sunday's spotlight - Flowers Everywhere

By guest blogger Pete.

Well, we went to the South Holland district of Lincolnshire's Churches Flower Festivals.  We managed to fit in four  churches and each one was an absolute riot of colour.  I made a second visit on Wednesday and managed to see another four.  I did tell you that there is an abundance of flower festivals in the churches there at this time of the year.

Pam came with me on Monday and the four churches we visited were Long Sutton, Moulton, Sutterton and Surfleet.  Each was very good and each were so different from the others.

The display in Long Sutton was worth visiting but I reckoned that this was the weakest of the eight in that, although it had flower arrangers from outside the town as opposed to locals for the other churches, it was a long way short of its usual standard.  I have asked others what they thought of this display and the majority seem to agree with me. Their theme was "Opposites", which I thought was rather a "cop out" for the arrangers.  There definitely wasn't the style and thought of previous displays.  When you think of it you can just put together red and white flowers and easily decide a theme of some sort of opposite from that.  Added to that most of the displays lacked variety of colour.  However I would award nine out of ten for the home made cakes.

Moulton was a new festival for us, we've never been there before.  As you entered the church you were met by a trapeze sign ordering "Tell me a story!".  The theme for Moulton was obvious.  Each display illustrated the title of a book and here variety and thought predominated. Home made cakes were good here and earned nine out of ten.

Sutterton cleverly combined a display of scarecrows with their flowers and the display had the theme of "A year in the life of a scarecrow".  Both the scarecrows and also the displays were great - again showing originality, great displays and a good use of props.  No home made cakes here because time was passing and we wanted to fit in anther church before we set off on the journey home.

We had started off at Long Sutton at 10 a.m. and it was 2.30 p.m. when we left Sutterton.  Just time to fit in a visit to the festival at Surfleet.  I thought Surfleet just edged out Moulton for the best showing.  Variety of colour was definitely on display here both from the hats - the theme here was"Hats" - and also from the flowers.  The home made cakes here weren't as good as the others so they earned an eight out of ten.

After all that cake tasting - someone must do it! -  we thought we'd give a hot meal a miss when we got home.  We also gave a cold meal similar treatmentl.

The photos this week are from my Wednesday festival  visit.  It features the small church of the small  village of West Pinchbeck.  Hope you like them.

If you're in the area and would like a trip out today or Monday then go for these festivals.  Last day for them all is Monday.

Sunday's Spotlight - Spring has Sprung!

By guest blogger Pete.

No one seemed to detect my "deliberate" mistake in last week's blog, when I credited Jimmy  Connors with making Gene Kelly look as though he had two left feet.  In actual fact it was Donald O'Connor who had the aforementioned effect on  Gene.  What do you mean "deliberate", I heard you saying - (I've got very good hearing!!!).  Okay, you win.  Put it all down to "crinkly" weaknesses.  At least I nearly got the surname right!

We did see Debbie on Sunday. How's that for name dropping?   "Whose Debbie?" my extraordinary hearing hears you ask.  Well, Debbie Reynolds, of course.  A very entertaining afternoon it was as well.

She is an extremely professional performer. In fact I would say that her one weakness was that she was too professional.  Of course she didn't dance - at 76 years of age  (our local paper said that she was 77, but that's par for the course) -but you can't expect her to give a repeat performance of "Singing in the Rain".  She was a bit unsteady on her pins and the one fear I had was that she'd fall; fortunately that didn't happen.

The poster advertising her performance read "ALIVE and well".  As someone who shall remain nameless but has the initials RB said, " Just as well that she is alive or it wouldn't have been much of a performance!"  in actual fact she joked continuously about her age and closeness of death  so the poster blurb wasn't as wrong as it may have sounded (or read).

She cracked some great gags and turned out to be a very talented impersonator.  She now has a bit of gruffness in  her speaking voice - this enabled her to do a first class impersonation of Jimmy Stewart.  That gruffness, however, disappeared when she sang.

Although she received a standing ovation at the end of her performance it was a pity that she didn;t think an encore worth while.  A few years ago we saw an equally aged Tony Bennett at the Sonoma Jazz Festival.  Of the two I would say that Tony Bennett's performance outshone that of Debbie Reynolds.

Over the early May bank holiday the churches flower festivals in the South Holland district of southern Lincolnshire begin.  As you read this that festival started yesterday and will go on until Monday week.  Pam and I plan to visit Long Sutton tomorrow.  That town has a large church and they draw flower arrangers from all over the midlands.  It's a long drive but worth it.  The photos for this blog are taken from last years South Holland flower festival.

Keep on singing.  If you want to see Debbie Reynolds then she's due to preform at the Leeds Grand Theatre tonight at 7.30 p.m. (UK time).

Sunday's spotlight - 1.2.3

In no way could I ever be described as a regular visitor to the cinema. Perhaps I'm showing my age here but I can see no point in spending good money on films that show violence, sex, or magic in its many forms. I like films but most of my film watching is through the TV or via DVD. Our DVD player also shows videos so old tapes made years ago can still be viewed.


A couple of weeks ago, I went with my elder grandson, to the local cinema to see "The Taking of Pelham 123". The main reason for this visit is that I have a video of the original "Pelham 123" and it has remained one of my favourites. I enjoyed the new version, although I was left thinking that John Travolta didn't make a convincing "baddie". He lacked the real menace that was seen in the character of the original film.


Denzyl Washington, on the other hand, always seemed in control of his role. Of course the new version was more sensational than the old one and the changes in the story were well done and, on the whole, believable. However, I came away with the opinion that the original version was better and its ending more convincing. I'd recommend the film to anyone but, if possible, I would suggest that they then view the original as well. Any comments?


My wife celebrated another birthday on the 15th of this month and some friends gave her a floral display that included orchids. Our last orchid just faded away for no apparent reason so Pam asked the giver how to avoid that for these orchids. "The more stress you put them under the more they'll flower", was the reply. So before going to bed that night I had a good shout at the orchids and really told them off. For some reason it didn't have any effect on them!!!!!!! Any readers have ideas about raising orchids?


Kaleidoscope photos this week. For some reason they don't like you taking photos inside the cinema so all the kaleidoscopes are from a flower festival held this year in the Parish Church at Gosberton. With the exception of known readers from the Deepings, I wonder how many of you know where Gosberton is?

Sunday's spotlight - Flowers, flowers everywhere

By guest blogger Pete.

Here in the U.K., last weekend was a bank holiday. In the southern part of the county of Lincolnshire - an area known as "South Holland" for reasons that will soon become clear - the landscape is hill-less and the soil fertile. It's one of the main areas for vegetable production in the country but it's also an area well know for the production of daffodil and tulip bulbs. It's a wonderful sight to see whole fields of daffodils and tulips in full bloom. Alas, it's a long time since I've seen fields of tulips in bloom but we did see some fields of daffodils in bloom three weeks or so ago.


For a number of years now the May Bank Holiday weekend has been the date for the well know Spalding Flower Parade, when various floats are drawn through the streets and end up at the large tulip gardens in town. The main ingredient for all the floats has been the petals from tulips. Just lately, however, the production of tulips has fallen off and it was thought that this year's parade would have to be cancelled. Fortunately an alternative source of tulip flower heads was found in the neighbouring county of Norfolk and more cash came from the County Council and other donors so the parade, although somewhat different from previous years, took place. I'm told the weather was typical for bank holidays but this didn't deter the crowds from turning up to witness the event.

For me, a more interesting feature that coincides with the May Bank Holiday and the Spalding parade is the churches flower festivals. A large number of village and town churches in the South Holland region hold their annual flower festivals at the same time as the Parade.


Pam and I paid our annual visit this year, taking with us Bill and Jane, two friends, for whom this was a first visit. They'd never seen such floral displays before. Each church visited is, literally, a mass of colour - the colour of the flowers - and the scent is indescribable. These church displays are done by experts - local folk who have been doing them for years.


Most churches adopt a different theme from each other so every church visited has something different to marvel at. So many and varied are the displays that it took us the whole day to visit just four of the many churches offering festivals. The photos for this blog are the first ones I've worked on - only a few so far - and were taken in the church at Pinchbeck. Try finding that village on a map. We also visited the villages of Donington, Surfleet and Gosberton. It's impossible to say which one was the best - they were all so very, very good.

Keep on smelling the flowers!