Entente Cordiality wins the day
Our summer party on 27th July took its inspiration from the Paris Olympics, which had just started, and was themed around France, Britain’s relationship with her, and the Olympics in general. The event had actually originally been scheduled for three weeks earlier, but had had to be hastily abandoned owing to inclement weather—thus highlighting one of the hazards of trying to organise an outdoor event at any time of the year in this country. But I think that shifting the date to the day after the Olympics started actually worked in our favour, thematically speaking. And the weather on the day could hardly have been better.
Our first game was a re-enactment of the Battle of Trafalgar. OK, it was hook-a-duck, using toy ships and a hook on the end of a string tied to the end of an umbrella. Each player had 60 seconds to hook as many vessels as they could. It turned out that quite a few managed four, but our eventual winner was Andrew Harrison, with a tally of five French warships to his name.
Our next game was to have been Onion Battle, derived from the original version which was Orange Battle. Each contestant holds a spoon in each hand: in one spoon rests an onion, which he or she must keep balanced on the spoon, while using the other spoon to try and dislodge his or her opponent’s onion. The only hiccup was that Scarheart had forgotten to bring the onions. And the spoons. Fortunately we realised we had teaspoons in our picnic hampers, and I happened to be wearing a necklace of garlic bulbs, so the game promptly became Garlic Battle. This arrangement seemed to provide a well-balanced level of difficulty, though one for which members of the Beckwith family seemed to have a natural aptitude: our champion, having won more bouts than anyone else, was Lizzie Beckwith and her father came second.
Our final official game was Baguette Javelin. Given that the park was pretty crowded, we decided not to make it about distance thrown, but instead about trying to a hit a target, in this case an EU beret mounted on an umbrella. The one thing we learned is that baguettes do not make good javelins, being aerodynamically unpredictable and prone to snapping in half. I have a feeling that no one actually hit the beret directly, but a couple did hit the umbrella it was hanging from.
Our last official activity was the traditional Grand Raffle, in which themed tat is distributed to the masses. One of the prizes was a proper boules set, so an impromptu game took place. Clearly our ineptitude was glaring, as a genuine Frenchman came over to show us how we should be doing it, which was an unexpected themed bonus on which to end the day.
Many thanks to all who came and helped contribute to a very convivial event.
