May Bank Holiday Monday

Yesterday was May Bank Holiday Monday. The Thatcher's Arms, a freehouse in Mount Bures, hosted a farmers' market and dog show. Claire, Justin and I walked up with Chaga to check out the scene and enjoy a pint. We each had a Golden Duck ale and Chaga and I entered two competitions, the "look alike" competition and the "don't take the biscuit" competition. We didn't do well in the look alike category as there was some pretty stiff compeition. However, since Chaga is well known for not accepting dog biscuits, especially the dry, tasteless sort, we figured we'd have that one in the bag!

This is us getting into position for the "don't eat the biscuit" competition...

Each "handler" (that's me!) was given a dog biscuit (we lucked out with the dry, tasteless kind!) to show our dog. We then were asked to place the biscuit on the ground in front of the dog and were given 15 seconds to convince the dog not to take the biscuit. After 15 seconds, the dogs were on their own! The judges then walked up and down the line of compepitors to see how each one was handling the temptation.

Victory!!! She won! And, to top if off, you can see how UNimpressed she was with the biscuit. We returned the biscuit and forfitted the prize - an enormous bag of the same dry biscuits!

Later we saw a huge Irish wolfhound walking away with the giant bag of biscuits. At least someone would enjoy them!

1st BBQ of the Year

On Sunday we had our very first BBQ of the year. Claire, James, Sarah and Becky came over. Justin spent most of the day pretending to be a spy with Chay but the two of them paused the game for a short while to eat and get in this picture! The BBQ was complete with cheeseburgers, sausages, Thai peanut noodle salad, tortilla chips, salsa and blood orange margaritas! It was a great day that we wrapped up with chocolate truffles and coffee. Mmmmm, mmmm, good. There's nothing like the very first BBQ!

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday marked the beginning of spring for me. Justin, Chay and I had Claire, James and Gilly over for the day. I made the traditional Ham and Egg Pie and Claire and I put together an increadible spread. We gorged ourselves silly and wrapped it all up with a cheesecake with raspberry and chocolate sauces.

Before gorging ourselves on all of the delicious food we took a fantstic walk through the three parishes of Bures, Bures Hamlet (where we live), Mount Bures and Bures St. Mary. We call it the Mount Bures Walk! It's amazing what you can get people to do just by asking.

As part of the fun, I asked everyone to pretend to be chickens.

Then I had us all pretend we were bunnies!

Toward the end of our walk we came across these three donkeys. They were sooo sweet!

The End. Happy Easter!