Our friends (& customers) Pam & Jeremy organised the first ever river festival in Bethesda. It was a brilliant success – art at several venues on the High Street and photographs in shop windows, river walks, bat walks, classical and rock gigs, etc.
Our contribution was to organise a baking competition – a strange experience. As it’s also a first time you’ve no idea if there will be four or forty entrants but you have to plan for the forty. A river theme: 4 classes – Bread, unders 12s & over 12s; Cake & Biscuits, under 12s & over 12s. Ist, 2nd & 3rd prizes in each class – that’s 12 prizes.
Did it properly. As the judge I couldn’t know who the entrants were, Sue had to be at the venue to receive the entries and to substitute cloakroom tickets for the entry forms. The judge’s grand entrance was a bit of a let down – just seven entries, three of which looked suspiciously as though they had come from the same family:
Spot a certain family resemblance? It wasn’t hard for the learned judge to deduce that they were the work of three children of two of our esteemed customers and the lack of entries and a surfeit of prizes allowed us to award joint second in the under 12s’ cake & biscuits and to have enough goodies to go round.
How about this for solidarity? Two cousins insisted on their entries going in jointly so that one couldn’t do better than the other.
No question, they had to be 1st prize in the under12s’ cake and bicsuits.
The only “adult” entry was in the over 12s’ cake & biscuits. Aparently he must have been just over 12 – Sue had to ask ask him diplomatically which category he was entering. I never saw him – he sent his Mum back to collect his prize (& cake) because he was too busy playing football.
The only bread entry came from 6 year old Gwenno:
Aren’t they fantastic? It had to be 1st prize because it was the only entry. But it would have won anyway.
After the initial disappointment we had a great afternoon. The kids were splendid and, sharing a room with walls of children’s art, we met lots of local people who had never heard of Bethesdabakers. Swings and roundabouts. Or as Kinky Friedman sang, “When the Lord closes a door, He opens a little window.”
The PArtisan Baker 
Great stuff 🙂 Should have got chocveg down there, she does loaves and fishes too
Yes – I saw those.
She could have been a contender!
Reminds me of those scary fellas at the Rugby bar, you know Mick, the guy’s who asked the “Yank” to come out for a chat! And the huge fella coming off the pitch straight through the bread geek crowd saying “Fockin Breeead!” Hopefully you will get the shop on high street where you should be!
Anyway, the cake with the abstract fish looks great, being a Pisces and all I think that theme was great!
Ta!
Jeremy
It looks great! and thanks for the mention! I could have sent up an entry if I’d known, I have a bit of a competitive spirit! Good to get community entering things, especially children! Next year you can get people to put in entries to boost the numbers, and then the following year, there will be no stopping it!
Hi Alison
Well, the organisers actually managed to end up with a small surplus which is amazing given the tiny amount of financial support they received. So this is going towards the second festival in September 2001.
You’re right I shall have to advertise it more widely this time. So keep practising your fishes.
Mick