As usual Jules was the alpaca star for everyone who stayed the weekend for the paarty. He allows complete strangers to stroke his neck and give him a hug.
The barn is returning to normal after a very good ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream party. We put on two parts of the play directed by Henry Bell. My first husband Russ was Theseus, Alex was the wall, Tom and Matt had major parts and the professionals Heather and Henry were Pyramus and Thisbe. Chas and I had small parts and I sang a song, truly terrifying it was too, but I got through it OK. Thank god for Henry who impressively got us into reasonable shape. I shall think of Heather saying ‘your eyes were as green as…leeks! for ever, it was very funny. I wore my marvellous vintage red pvc raincoat that I bought in Exeter the other day, it is fab. Matt painted a huge moon and we had dragon fly fairy lights in a tree we cut down and moved into the barn and of course there was the amazing flashing palm tree and an awful lot of very large fake flowers. I made an enormous amount of food which astonishingly vanished, dreadful gannets our guests. The band – the same one we have had the the last three years were very good and my feet are still throbbing. Our neighbours from Groubear Farm arrived with a troupe of girls wearing wings who were fantastic dancers particularly after midnight when the band departed and we hit all the classic dance songs. The hen and her chicks were in a little house about a yard from the dance floor but seemed unmoved.
On Sunday morning the house was heaving as the great breakfast cook-in proceeded – the hens had done their bit and there were enough eggs for everyone. The porch was covered in shoes, I kept looking at them, thinking, god what a lot of shoes. I had only had about three hours sleep.