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.