The Picnic

And no its not a new horror movie, though in some ways it could have been. At the beginning of the summer holidays a leaflet popped through the door, advertising a free picnic on the green near our house fun and games for the kids. Oh lovely I thought, that will be a welcome treat until I realised it was the local Churches organising it and that my kind would probably not be welcomed, (being a non practising Jew lol). So I put it in the bin and thought nothing of it. Saturday came and Paul and Ninja went off to do some bike riding practise. He has managed to come off the stabilizers over this holiday. They weren't gone long when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to see a very excited little face "Mum they are doing a funfair thingy on the green, can we go?" "Erm, ok we'll go see what its all about". So they put the bikes away and we went back to the green. There they were the God people looking a bit forlorn and down hearted. We were spotted and they began frantically waving at us to come over. I was frozen solid to the pavement and couldn't move, indecisive as to how to get out of this situation and if my prayers (haha) were answered the heavens opened and the rain came crashing down. At which point I bent over to Ninja and said "maybe we should go home as it pouring with rain". We ran home, "please mum, can we get our coats and go back" SH*T !! "oh ok we can" So we doned our coats and grabbed an umbrella. As we walked on to the green the look of relief on these poor bedraggled people was plain. "Please help yourself to food, here come and stand under the gazebo, sorry about the weather" as if it was their fault. I mumbled gratitude and told them not to be silly and then politely nodded to their questions on was I ok and was the food alright. At last the rain stopped and a few more people with children had turned up. Ninja was completely getting stuck in with all the games they could muster and when they ran out of ideas for races he started giving them ideas for new ones. He was loud and excited and within about 1/2 hour everyone knew his name, his baby brothers name and what his favourite colour, food, tv program is. They were ever so patient and welcoming and they really worked hard trying to keep the kids busy and entertained. Humf didn't stop eating and kept asking for a lolly every 5 minutes, he even lost he's temper at one point and ran off with all the beanbags for one game. We ended up having a really lovely afternoon and God wasn't mentioned once (which I was quiet grateful for). I'm really glad Ninja persuaded me to go and I would defiantly go again, and not just for the free ham rolls. It only goes to show that I shouldn't be so ready to dismiss something just because it goes out of my usual comfort zone.