A Day in the Village

On Saturday, Bottnaryd, our nearest village, had a 'fun' day to raise money for the equivalent to the UK's Cancer Research. There was a whole day's programme and all the shops got involved, the shop and the pizza place donated a portion of the day's takings, the beauty palour did 10min massage/hair things and the gym had spinning classes and stuff.  The Pentecostal Church did the cafe for the morning and the Swedish Church in the afternoon, there were concerts by local talent, inspirational talks from people who wanted to cycle from here to Paris, who had survived cancer and stuff, a fun run, a jumble sale, the scouts had fun games and popcorn and there was even a bouncy castle.

Graham was already booked to work down the church (they are redoing the grounds at the front), so he had the car, and managed to contribute to the effort by eating pizza for lunch - he does have a hard life!  I decided that, as I'd managed to change the voice in my head to 'look after yourself', I would cycle.  It's only 5km and only 2 hills after all.  It was a bit grey and cloudy for the first time in 4 weeks, but that was OK.  So I decked myself out in my best 'sitting in a cafe, listening to live music, being charitable, whilst occasionally throwing balls at things' look and set out.  The air dampness started halfway up the first hill (yes, I was walking! live with it!), it coalesced into drizzle on the straight over the lake and became serious drizzle at the top of the second.  It was possibly a bit damp...  Fortunately part of the look was my old Post Office duffle, which is guaranteed to keep out all Welsh weather - drizzle? pah, it laughs.

It was great fun, music was good, the Pente coffee brilliant, scout games fun, fun, fun and I chatted with loads of people.  The dampness and need to not look in a mirror got too much and I left for home at 2, so couldn't compare the Swedish Church coffee and hear the country band (shame...???  who were also very good examples of the genre), but it was actually great fun cycling home.  I felt terribly, terribly french, probably the combination of turtle neck jumper, moleskin skirt and wicker basket.  and for a village of about 800 inhabitants (plus us country odds and sods), they raised over 75000SEK!