our day by day fete line up

There's going to be plenty of stuff to do at our fete on both the Saturday and Sunday so it might be worth planning what you want to fit in over a tea and biscuit before hand. So here's a day by day, hour by hour guide to what we have lined up over the weekend.

There'll also be loads of other stuff dotted about which isn't mentioned above. Like ferret racing, smoothie tasting, knitting and tea drinking, come and say hello to innocent area, face painting, petting zoo, funfair rides, kids assault course, a flea circus, a big farmers' market , real ale, cider and other bars, and much more.

bring a book, swap a book

We're having a new area at our fete this year, all about words, books and theatre. Along with live performance art, poetry slamming, Giant Boggle and storytelling, our friends at 4th Estate are also bringing along their book tombola.

The book tombola may not look like this in real life.

Instead of buying a ticket and praying to bag the bottle of gin over the collector’s set of King Charles Spaniel porcelain plates, you just need to bring an old book along to the fete. You then get to swap it for another book from the tombola. It might be better, it might not, but one thing’s for sure – you won’t be going home with a tin of beans or any commemorative canine crockery.

So please bring a book (or two) if you're coming to our fete.

any more for any more?

We're very pleased to now confirm that the wonderful Angus & Julia Stone will be also be playing at our fete on the Sunday. If you aren't familiar with either Angus or Julia (brother and sister) then have a little look at the below video.

I've got them on my ipod. They're very good.

ukulele a go go

Amidst the welly wanging, odd shaped vegetables and unruly ducks,  you might notice an abundance of small, four stringed instruments around the park this summer, that resemble a cross between miniature Portuguese guitars and plucked lutes.

As part of our cracking line up of music and dancing, we've enlisted the help of some very fine ukulele players to get everyone into the fete spirit.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are coming along on the Sunday to strum everything from Nirvana through to the theme tune from Shaft and a Cossack version of that old George Formby classic, Leaning on the lampost.

George - an inspiration to ukulele lovers everywhere and collector of execllent ties

The orchestra itself consists of seven ukuleles and a bass ukulele (which is actually a bass guitar but since it has four strings, is affectionately known as the bass ukulele). They've been going for 23 years, ever since Richie dared George to play his son's Smurf guitar at a gig, and they're still going strong.

According to Jodi who looks after getting the orchestra from A to B, the ukulele or 'uke' is relatively easy to learn and with schools across the country encouraging budding ukulele players of the future, there is now a shortage of ukuleles in the UK.

So if you've always fancied yourself as a ukulele player but have never got round to learning, you can come along and try the next best thing with the nice people from Karauke, who will also be at our fete on the Sunday.

Karauke is just like karaoke but instead of singing at a bored telly, you get to jam with a band of chipper ukulele players instead.

According to Nick from Karauke, soft rock numbers work really well and they do a mean version of Karma Chameleon, in case you want to get a bit of practice in before the fete.

And for any of you who were slightly concerned about toe treading or string bashing-at-dawn, Nick lent George from The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain a spare ukulele the other week when they were an instrument short, so there's no animosity or professional rivalry there.

Just plain, good old fashioned ukulele love.

Make sure you get involved in some at the fete.

some more confirmed acts for the fete

We've just had confirmation on some more great music acts for both Saturday and Sunday at the fete. So we're very excited to let you know you'll now be able to catch this little lot on the band stand.


Wallis Bird

James Carrington

Peter and The Wolf

Rod Thomas

And even more Wallis Bird, back for her second appearance of the weekend.

We're still dotting the t's and crossing the i's on a few more great artists. Keep your eye out here for updates as they come in.

put up posters and win stuff

We're hoping that you might be able to help spread the word about our village fete this summer in your local neighbourhood or place of work. All you need to do is download this post, print it out and stick it up somewhere where lots of people might see it.

Then you can take a photo of it and enter it into our flickr competition if you like. There'll be prizes for best placed poster, the strangest placed poster and the place where the most people are likely to see it.

It's all about keeping it local these days.

please say hello to the innocent band

Here's a very sneak preview of the innocent band who played for us here at Fruit Towers last Thursday lunch time. They'll be playing again at our village fete on both the Saturday and Sunday so keep your eye out for them on the programme.

Every single member works here Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm, so we're quite proud that they've managed to pull together a fully fledged 9 piece band in such a short space of time. In the blurry distance, you can probably just about make out Caroline, Cass, Ceri and Vic on vocals, Duncan on drums, Jamie M and Tim S on trombone and trumpet respectively, Ruvan on guitar, Malinna on bass and Ben T working his magic on the piano. Oh and there's a tambourine that gets passed around as well. We can't forget the tambourine.

And here's a chicken with his eye on some apples. Unfortunately, he's already been booked for another engagement this summer.

re-entrants ukulele duo do the ace of spades

We love a bit of the ukulele at innocent. That's why we've got the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain coming along to play at our fete on the Sunday.

If you also like a bit of the ukulele have a look at this rendition of Motorhead's The Ace of Spades by The Re-entrants. It's truly unique.

Just to be clear The Re-entrants won't be playing at the fete. But we will have cover versions done on ukulele's that's for sure.

flea for all

A fete wouldn’t be a fete without a circus of some kind and this year we have Professor Malcolm Jephcotts coming along with his very own flea circus. It’s a family heirloom, passed down from his grandfather to his dad, and consists of some extremely talented fleas.

There’s Bruno, who can lift a 2p coin, 70 times his own weight, Trixy who works her magic on the miniature trapeze and special guest star, Fleavel Knievel, who likes being fired out a cannon. We’re locating the dog agility arena in a different part of the park to avoid any walkabout fleas on the day, so make sure you pop along to see Bruno in action and don’t forget to bring your specs

local marketing, for local people

Ceri found a lovely example of some local marketing at our nearest pub the other day. Then on my lunchtime stroll today I came across this sign for our friends at Brackenbury Primary School's Summer Fair this Saturday (literally a stone, or stray tennis balls, throw away from Fruit Towers) .

Their Summer Fair is being supported by the local estate agent by the look of it so they've come up with the very nifty idea of sticking up estate agent signs with the children's own art work advertising the event.

If you'd like to advertise your own school/ WI/ cricket club or any other type of fete or fair, or to find the nearest ones to you this summer pop over to our fete finder.