To love a good old fashioned village fête?

[ButteredRadishes]

I don't want your professional fair ground side shows and rides where it's. £5 to win some generic cuddly toy.

I love a hook a duck in a paddling pool that Alice loaned them, where you win a little lolly.

a whack a rat made from some drain pipe 30 years ago and a sorry looking rat.

I love a tombola, don't care if or what I win.

Coconut shy? Take my money! Lucky dip? Even better!

I'll happily buy a cake and a jar of jam from the stalls.

. there's just something pleasant about spending a 50p on the possibility of winning a random bar if chocolate, or a can of soup on the tombola because you ngor a 0 or a 5 🤣

Lol yes at biggest marrow, and the displays of four identical onions.
And the kids craft contest for a miniature garden made with moss, pebbles and a little mirror as a pond.
And the cake contests where the best scones or jam sponge is taken VERY seriously

Sadly I think they'll disappear because they rely on volunteers who are usually 50 plus.

Contest for miniature pond? Haven't heard of this how does it work?

I love our one. Always on May bank holiday, run by the scouts and guides so there are always loads of volunteers (after a lot of nudging and sign up sheets), and because everyone has their slot, people stay even it it’s raining! Maypole dancing, tug o war, silly challenges, splat the rat, ancient gambling game with nails in a frame, tombola, dog and goose show, cakes and tea and a bar.

The absolute best thing is the Smash the Crockery stall. Let out a years worth of tension for just 3 throws for £1. See picture!

Love a village fete!!!! I'm playing in a brass band tomorrow at our local one! The raffle prizes can be amazing too, there's a Michelin starred restaurant near us and their village fete raffle has a free meal for two for their first prize every year!! I've gotta win it one year surely??!

It takes 200 people to run ours every year (not simultaneously, eg. the car park people usually do an hour or two, and there's folks who help with setting up/dismantling but are not there on the day etc.). It's a massive effort.
There used to be a gymkhana as well on the same day, but that ceased as they couldn't get the volunteers.

Don’t forget to pop by the Victoria sponge baking competition! Let’s hope no one was silly enough to get disqualified for dusting with icing sugar instead of caster sugar this year.

You’d love the one in our village! Our next-door neighbours are always in charge of the welly-wanging in the Community Orchard 😊

Ours got creative last year and had a live game of table football using an area blocked out with hay bales, then drainpipes across which people had to hold on to with both hands and try to kick a ball to score a goal. Hugely popular and made lots of money.

I like the coconut shy, hoopla and the school usually asks the pupils to fill a jam jar with random tat little gifts to sell.

Why would you be unreasonable?

Oh yes, stopping for a cup of tea in a chipped, mismatched bone china tea cup and saucer plus a slice of homemade Victoria Sandwich - hoping you're going to get a large slice because they never cut them evenly.

They are called village feasts in my neck of the woods and they are fab. I love a car show (four fancy cars, including an immaculate 1980s cortina), and my daughter is addicted to the tombola.

Is that you DCI Barnaby? 😀

YANBU. We live in an area surrounded by lots of well run little villages - dozens of old fashioned fetes round here for us from spring to summer, then the shows start in autumn.

Went to one last weekend with a duck race in a stream, coconut shy, tea and cakes in the village hall, tombola, bric a brac, a carousel and old fashioned fete games. Joy!

Also, they had r a lovely atmosphere as people mooch from one stall to another, chat to people etc. ,, and queue for the ice team can.

Ice cream van( couldn’t edit post)

Ours is in a few weeks; it’s got all
of these things! People come from
bloody miles around for it, it’s even got a stream running through it with a duck race. It’s amazing!

Yes ! Love them, my lovely mum was a huge fan and we always went to the same one every year. Always love the clothes and accessories and the books and the bric a brac.

Oh, I love a good village fete. The bunting that was hung and was the first thing you'd notice, the tombola stall where all you needed was to get a ticket with ) or 5 at the end - the anticipation of finding out what you'd actually won, the disappointment when it was a can of peas or, slightly better for a young kid, a Panda Pop (preferably cherry flavour), the cake stall (coffee and walnut, anyone?), the whack-a-mole, cups of tea served in pastel pink, blue or yellow cups and saucers, the second hand book stall, the plant stall where we'd always buy a strawberry plant and it'd always be dead within the week because we'd forgotten, yet again, that we actually needed to do anything with it.

Not forgetting the fancy dress parade, the ice creams scoops served in shop-bought cornets, the guess the amount of marbles or sweets in a jar, the face painting (that I volunteered to help on one year and realised I haven't got an artistic bone in my body!), kids running around hopped up on sugar filled drinks (back in the day when nobody cared that they'd had too much sugar!), the smell of sausages and burgers cooking, and, at the very end, the excitement of hearing the raffle being drawn and hearing that you'd won, only to find, it was the last but one prize and something ridiculously boring like a hamper of tinned goods.

Take me back in time to the late 70s/early 1980s and a good old fashioned summer fete. I remember getting excited days before the actual event and loving every minute - having forced either my nan or gramp to take me - I once even managed to persuade Tawny Owl from Brownies to let me stay with her for the whole event when my mum got bored and wanted to go home!
So many happy memories. I'm going to sound really old now when I say there probably nowhere near as good as they were in 'my' day! Ha :)

I don't live in a village, have not done this century. However, events such as the local Christmas Fair and a battle reconstruction are something similar and are enjoyable. I'd love them if I lived in a village again, I expect.

It's all about the giant vegetable competition. I once saw a leek that was longer than a bed and almost as thick as my leg.

Yanbu op. I'm not from the UK originally and I love these things so much, they are like a different (delightful) world to me. The first time my in laws took me to one they kept laughing at how delighted I was.

There was a giant vegetable competition
Morris dancing (I'd seen that before but it never disappoints)
A dog show...! Local people's dogs doing tricks. Never come across this concept, so exotic.

I felt like how I guess a Brit might feel going into a Moroccan souk for the first time. Just dazzled

@ButteredRadishes

come to mine. Got splat the rat, hook the duck, throw the hoop and some of the best old style bakers in Somerset - none of your American muffins, we’re talking Victoria sponge and cornflake cakes! You can also buy lots of other people’s junk at the brik a brak stall, crafts and try your luck at the tombola before a burger (£3) washed down with tea!

we get a few round here mainly Church ones out in the country raising funds for the roof, organ or whatever.
white elephant or bric a brac are amazing so much stuff usually the ladies running it have no idea of value hence why I bought a top label dress for a quid!
tombola turning the tickets round in the drum anything ending with a 0 or a 5 if I win drink no use to me so OH has it so I prefer shower gel or something like squash that I can drink
whack a rat has to be the daftest game going but is so much fun.
huge piles of books and jigsaws to rummage through
often have a dog show cutest dog, best puppy, best child handler etc my dog who we sadly had to pts a month ago used to do really well at those. usually only a rosette and packet of dog treats but it did not matter, I was just proud that Patch won!

Oh yes, adore these. Make me proud to be British.

Oooh what a coincidence, we are going to a village fate today! It says there is punch and Judy and a dog competition so will see what else. Everyone is bringing their vintage cars too!