It's the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. The sun is shining a bit but it's chilly. I walked Harvey at Hayling earlier this morning and was very glad that I was wearing my fleece.
As you can see from the post title, quite amazingly I now weigh under 13 st and I have no explanation for it apart from the 10,000 steps that I make sure that I do every day and the 8 glasses of water that I force down both of which I have been doing religiously since May 31st when I was horrified to discover that I weighed in at 13st 6lbs. This new weight is even more strange as I have spent the last few days baking and eating cakes for the Poppy Picnic. Sometimes there is no logic to these things is there?
On Friday I spent what felt like all day in my little kitchen baking cakes and bits for The Poppy Picnic which I held for the 2nd year in succession at my beach hut. I made elderflower and blackberry cakes, butterfly cakes, a gluten free chocolate cake, poppy seed and lemon muffins, some apple and spice sponge bread, some flapjack and some buttermilk chicken. Quite how it took me all day I'm not sure but I did have to walk the dog in the midst of it all and also had to shop for the ingredients so that may explain it. All I know is that by the time it was time for bed I was exhausted and slept deeply for 5 hours which was an unexpected bonus from my endeavours.
Come Saturday morning and I was up with the larks - or at least with whatever noisy birds were twittering away sunrise - and grabbed a cup of tea and a slice of toast before boxing all of my goodies into containers, loading the car with the same and some extra chairs and lots of blankets, and set of for the hut via the train station where I picked up my daughter who came prepared with some scrummy cakes that she had purchased from the local bakery en route.
We arrived at the hut and set it up in preparation for whatever visitors would arrive. Balloons and posters were put up, food and drink put out on the tables and the kettle was put on and seemed to be on all day from that point.
The weather forecast wasn't promising but I was determined to make the best of it hence the extra blankets. Fortunately, although there was a brisk chilly wind, the predicted rain showers didn't appear.
I'm delighted to say that we had a lovely amount of people who came along and stayed for ages despite the chill in the air. Some people brought their own picnics and some made the most of the homebaked goodies. My lovely stepdad did what he always does and brought loads of amazing food with him - chicken, prawns, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, new potatoes and amazing asparagus wrapped in bacon which was divine. One of my daughters made some brilliant pulled pork and I ended up with more food than I knew what to do with. Most people left with a goody bag of cakes to take home and my freezer is know stocked with lemon drizzle cake and scones.
We had a lovely mix of people - friends, family and neighbours of all ages came along and I was delighted to see them all.
I did spend most of my time in the hut boiling the kettle and making hot drinks to keep my visitors warm. I made lots of trips to refill my water bottles and I ran out of sugar!
I didn't take many photos due to my 'hot drinks maker' role so I have borrowed a few. The photo directly above shows how grey the sky was for most of the day but it didn't stop people paddling, kite flying and looking for treasure! My nephews left their mark after their first visit to the hut and their name stones are added to my growing collection of stones that line the shelves of the hut these days.
At about 7pm it was time to pack up and go home. I spent 10 mins or so sitting on my own thinking about the day and feeling pretty proud of myself and feeling grateful that so many people had made the effort to come along on what was not the nicest of days to sit out on a beach.
I am delighted to say that the day raised £108.50 for The Royal British Legion and a cheque for that amount will be winging its way to their head office tomorrow morning.
Have a good day everyone and ,to those able to celebrate Father's Day, let your Dads know how special they are and how much you love them. They will appreciate it more than you know.
xxxx
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