Imagine a typical English Sunday summer afternoon garden party: a beautiful garden, summer sunshine, birds singing, people talking, playing croquet, background music, children playing, cakes, drinks a-plenty. What bliss!

Our hosts, Sue and Keith Hockley had everything organised: between our helpers we had everything ready to enjoy our summer’s afternoon – cakes, pavlovas, Pimm’s … and more.

However, the vagaries of the English weather did not cooperate. Initially trying to ignore the ‘drizzle’, we finally had to admit that our garden party was experiencing a rain situation.

Whilst our smallest person used the trampoline to keep dry, the rest of us found other solutions …

 

Under the gazebo, staying close to the drinks …

 

 

…in the kitchen, ready to head back out as soon as the weather allowed

 

 

Not too much of a hardship – food and drink weren’t too far away

 

 

In the dining room – probably the most civilised solution – and of course the cakes were kept safe

The inclement weather didn’t last – and we soon returned to the garden, continuing our conversations and drawing the raffle in aid of the RNLI.

 

 

 

 

One of our highlights was being serenaded in German by our very own Doris – a real treat, thank you Doris!

 

As in so many instances, our garden party wasn’t quite the one we planned. We couldn’t control the weather, but what we did do was to enjoy our afternoon together. Because of the rain, we all had to move several times – none of us sat in one place and only spoke to those in our proximity – most of us ended up speaking to just about everyone, which was a real plus as we had folk with us that we didn’t know too well.

Thank you to everyone for coming and making it a memorable occasion. It was good to spend time together, get to know each other, eat and drink, raise a little money for a cause so important to our coastal community and display our British bulldog spirit in the face of climatic adversity!