Daffodil Festival. Still.

Yes, here are more pictures from last weekend's Daffodil Festival in Gloucester.  Sorry for not changing subjects the past few days, but it's been busy here in Chesapeake Bayville.

First and foremost, the weather has been in the very sunny 80s most of the week.  Yesterday at Daughter's soccer game the temperature hit 90 degrees as we hit the school parking lot. (They lost 2-0.) The warm weather--and the looming prospect of a half-marathon in Nashville in the near future--induced me to exercise in the evenings.  I was mortified at how much endurance I've lost from being  lethargic sedentary the past few months.

With the warm weather providing the much needed jump start, I accomplished quite a bit:

• Picked up four thousand pine cones
• Cut the back yard 
• Used the leaf blower to remove the top layer of pine needles from my back deck
• Discovered parts of my deck are rotting.  Don't want to talk about it.  
• Took all my ailing plants outside for their first watering since September some sunshine and water.
• Moved the stepladder out of my foyer. It's been there for over three weeks from changing an air filter in a dining room vent so high up you need a space suit and oxygen tank to breathe properly.
• (I moved the ladder outside.  It's standing on the deck outside my bedroom.  Out of sight, out of mind. I could not face the disaster that is my garage, where the ladder is typically stored.)
• Transported the last of the Christmas and Easter decorations back down to the dungeon basement. After all, it is April. An Easter wreath, however, still hangs on the fence post at the end of my driveway.  Who wants to wager it will still be there come July 4?
• Did three loads of laundry.
• Cleaned out the refrigerator.  
• (Cleaning the refrigerator was worse than all the above mentioned chores combined, by the way.)

In spite of these accomplishments, there is still much left to do.  

In other news, my father burned the shoreline this week when I wasn't home, so there is no photographic evidence. Click here for last year's version of this annual display of pyrotechnics also known as choking the neighbors with smoke.

What's going on in your neck of the woods?

Daffodil Festival

Here are more pictures from the Gloucester Daffodil Festival.

My mother was Daffodil Queen back in the day.

Her future father-in-law, who sold daffodils commercially, crowned her.

Little known fact.

I'm not sure there's any flower more cheerful than a daffodil.

These, with the salmon-colored centers, appear to be drooping but really they just can't wait to get out of their container and are sort of bickering as to who's going to get out first.  (Other people may just see a slightly off center picture of flowers in a bucket.  I could write a novel on the struggle, imagined or otherwise, these flowers seem to be experiencing.)

With everything going on in this picture, all I could focus on was Leigh's Market, which no longer stands beside the building on the far right.  My favorite grandmother, who lived on Corr Street just up the way, made us walk to the store with her since she had no license.   Once I accidentally took a candy bar from Leigh's without telling her.  I still have nightmares about her finding out.  To this day I cannot tell a lie, at least not relating to chocolate. I have been known to pilfer chocolate bars from people at work who are out of their office.  Old habits die hard.  By the way, she called Leigh's and reported the offense immediately.  I paid for that candy bar the rest of my life.  But I digress...

Although I was solely focused on the Antiques sign and the daffodil flag, the woman on the right was absolutely mortified that she might be interrupting the scene.  When she apologized for "being in the way",  I told her I wanted them in the picture, which made her clutch her bag even tighter.  They were color coordinated and took the focus off of the uncooperative daffodil flag. But she really begged to differ. 

Here the flag cooperates. The photographer probably shouldn't have chopped off the top, but chances are pretty good she was focused on the shadow in the window.

There was food, food and more food.

I'm only now reading the words on this banner.  At the time, I was mesmerized by the color and symmetry of the booth.(See above about flowers fighting to get out of baskets.  I seem to have an odd way of interpreting ordinary scenes. Truth be told, the one thing that catches my eye now that I'm looking at it again is the sign for sweet potato fries. I could go for some of those right now.)

Deep fried candy bars, anyone?

The only money I spent at the Daffodil Festival was here.  Iced tea and BBQ.  

If I'd had more time, I probably would have sampled the shrimp on a stick, which I'm guessing is a kabob, but around here you never know. There might just be one shrimp on one stick, nothing else.  The End.

If you guessed I wanted the pink hat, you'd be correct.

There was so much going on, even pony rides.  And ATMs.

T

The Kubota booth was a cruel reminder of what I was really supposed to be doing that day.

Lots and lots of yard work.

Then I saw something shiny!  All  household obligations were forgotten (once again) as I wondered where I might locate my own personal version of this blue tinsel hat with the daffodil adornment.

The Daffodil Festival was great. There is something for everyone even if you only go to eat people watch.