First Things First

As I said in my previous post, I have been away for two weeks and plan to post about our hiking holiday in South Tyrol. But before we started on that, we had a week at O.K.'s village which was busy and varied, with two birthdays to celebrate and the May fête.

And before all that happened, here is what the view from my kitchen window looked like on the 20th of April, with my cherry tree in full bloom:

And look at the fantastic light we had against a backdrop of inky clouds three days later:

Maybe you remember that I posted about the setting up of the Maypole already last year. This year, we were lucky with the weather once again, and although it may not look like it, quite a lot of villagers turned up to watch while the village band was playing before moving over to the beer tent.

 
Speaking of the tent, we helped to set everything up in the morning. The tent is big and has three annexes; one is the kitchen, one the scullery and the third annex is where cakes and coffee and tea are sold. It takes many pairs of hands before all is in place, and just as many to put it all away again after the fête. Add the people needed to man the various stations in the kitchien, at the food and drinks counters, the cash register, the waitresses and helpers behind the scenes in the scullery, and you get an idea of how much there was to do for everyone. Not to mention that all the band members of course were making music whenever they were not working!

It was an exhausting few days but also fun - so totally different from what I normally do.

Also, I did manage to put in a walk on the first night, and was rewarded with a magnificent sunset.

There was just one day between clearing up after the fête and O.K.'s birthday, and we used that day to get the cottage ready for the party. Shopping and cleaning, preparing the food and putting up benches and tables so that everyone would have a seat - it felt a little like another fête, just on a much smaller scale (and not in a tent!).

We had one day to clean up after the party and pack for our week away, and finally last week Sunday morning at 10 minutes to 10, we drove out of the village, heading south.