We are holding a Birkenstock and Beads Party on Thursday 23rd July @ 8pm (near Rayleigh Weir). If you are a lady of fashion you will understand straight away what the word Birkenstock means. You are welcome to join us!

face painting at the big lunch

We celebrated our community on Sunday 19th July by joining in the nationwide Big Lunch at Downhall School. More pictures here.

Big Lunch is an idea set up by the Eden Project in Cornwall – www.thebiglunch.com/ .

Shy. Most of us are shy, many of us lead single lives and even when we are together often go our own way. We all know about the problems in our society and don’t need to be preached at about them.

The idea behind Big Lunch was to get together to eat, laugh, have fun, enjoy music and conversation bringing us together (for at least once a year) to celebrate the fact that we are so fabulously different in our outlook and experiences on many things.

So just for one day we remind ourselves about all that is good about us.

Community. It felt slightly uncomfortable to start with. It takes a bit of courage to stop being a stranger. But to be able to realise how many good people there are out there: people who, acting together, created a real sense of community – a word that in Latin means; “together, in gift”. We had over 70 people on the day and the short, sharp, very heavy rain shower did not dampen our spirits!

Food. We had a cake competition and a BBQ, live music bands, bouncy castle, sideshows, face painting and lots of fun!