Daffs, Raffles and Pressganging

A short piece in the local paper caught my eye last week, reading the that Bosvale Garden Society would be holding their spring flower show in the local hall. Now this is where we're having our wedding reception, and given that it's normally locked, and I haven't been in there for several years, I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to go and have a memory-refreshing nose about, count available chairs and that sort of thing.

So last night, off we duly trotted down the road, in a torrential downpour, I might add. Reached the hall, and entered the foyer. All very quiet. Cracked open the door, spotted some flowers, ok this is the right night - but rather to our alarm, instead of the expected visitors milling about looking at exhibits, there were two short rows of elderly people sat on plastic chairs listening to someone at the front.

I'd have cut and run with a muttered apology, but C. was recognised by someone in the room, and before I knew what was happening, we were hustled inside and they were finding us chairs and welcoming us profusely. With the hair-raising utterance "and look everybody - they're YOUNG". I sincerely hope it was only in my head that the next sentence was "their flesh will be tender when we kill and eat them..."

So there we were, inadvertantly inducted into the arcane world of local gardening and flower showing. Which was actually very interesting, and I now know a lot more about Dutch bulb propagation and the use of daffodil bulbs in Alzheimer's research than I did this time yesterday.

There was even tea and scones. And then a raffle, in which I won a pot of daffodils. Cornish Chuckles, indeed. Although there weren't any raffle tickets, we didn't have to pay, and I rather suspect this was a ploy to encourage me to come again. Which of course I now have to, having promised at least three eager members on separate occasions that I would.


Oh, and not only were there about exactly the amount of chairs that we'll be needing, there's also a pool table...