Church Fete

      Yesterday was my village's Church Fete, it is what I think could only be described as a traditional English Fete, one run by the village for the village. It is comprised of a BBQ, a Cake stall which always sells out, a china elephant stall, a book stall, an Ice cream stall and a refreshments stand. There are a number of games including; China smash, tombola, wheel of fortune, bouncy castle, ten pin bowling, darts and tombola. There are also two raffles; one run by the mother's union which gives away two hampers, and one which is run by the Church, full of prizes donated by Church members and Local businesses. It raises a lot of money which sometimes goes towards enabling the Church building to remain a safe environment for the villagers many of whom use it at least once a year and sometimes it gets donated to a Charity chosen by the PCC. I didn't actually take any photos of the Fete, although I took my Camera to do so. I was on the BBQ.
     I actually started this post because while I was there I visited the Book Stall which enabled me to purchase three books for only 60p... the fete is full of bargains if you look for them. Of the books I bought two were Mills and Boon Omnibus' because I like to have a number of them in reservse in case of emergencies but at the moment I resent buying them full price. I buy them second hand from the Village Fete and Bazaar and Charity shops, a number of the ones I have my mum had growing up, and then I was given bags full by my Great Aunt who I believe gets them second hand herself, and by my friends Grandmother who was going to get rid of them... my friend claimed them on my behalf. The third was a completely unexpected bargain at only 20p as I would have probably paid full price for it at some point.

  

   The First Omnibus is titled 'Blackmailed Brides' and is comprised of novelettes by Kim Lawrence, Carole Mortimer and Kathryn Ross. It was published in October 2006 I think, however it's hard to guess as you can only work from the dates on the adverts in the back which span a period of about 3 months. Carole Mortimer is one of my alltime favourite Mills and Boon authors, writing a few of the books which I have enjoyed the most.

   The Books appear to be about women who were blackmailed into being a bride or a similar situation, to save either their own or family pride, or even their job. These books are a sort which I fully expect to enjoy, they will be about three women who will be strong-minded and unwillingly coerced into spending too much time with an overpowering man. They will begin to fall in love against their better judgement. The men meanwhile will have been in love with the women from afar for a long time, but will have seen this as the only way to get the women to reciprocate.

 The second omnibus is titled 'Summer of Love' and it is made up of four novellettes by Candy Halliday, Holly Jacobs, Cathis Linz and Elise Title. They don't really seem to have any common quality except for the fact that they would all be incredibly easy to read whilst lying on a beach and getting a suntan. At a guess I would say they're probably all set at least partially in either the tropics or Australia.

    The first novelette is about a girls secret and much despised crush on the man who is living next door to her. Chances are they'll keep bumping into each other and she will at some point need his help. They'll soon become friends, but on their first outing together the sexual chemistry will erupt.

     The second is about a woman who is pretending to be pregnant and the chivalrous man who rushes to her rescue. My best guess would be that he becomes extremely cross when he finds out that she isn't and whisks her away to a secure place to demand answers.

     The third book is about a man who wants a wife just to be able to inherit his fortune. I once read a similar book and if it's anything alike the sworn bachelor and world-weary woman will fall in love far too quickly and wonder if it's fate which brought them together.

    The final book in the omnibus is about a private investigater who is going to turn on the charm for a one time crush. I'm not sure if I can quite guess the plot of this, but I have to say it intrigues me.

The final book and true bargain which I picked up is 'Tom Jones' by Henry Fielding. The reason that this is a bargain is because it appears in my 1001 books meaning that I would have had to've bought it at somepoint and would willingly have paid the full price of £5.03 as currently found on Amazon. I'm not entirely convinced I'll enjoy this book, however I'll read it anyway, hopefully it's purchase will help me to maintain a healthy momentum, and at only 20p I really don't mind. It is 854 pages long and was written a long time ago.

    Tom Jones is  a 'high-spirited' 'foundling of mysterious origins'. It describes how he falls in love with a woman who is unattainable, as the heros of these novels so often do. If nothing else I would imagine the book will shine a light on a number of habits and attitudes around at the period.

Rowen