Bob, Dave and Priscilla

After helping set up the Fairy Forest yesterday, I became the Fairy of the Forest today, introducing families to some of the fairy folk that live in the Fairy Forest.

They met Clara the fairy, who likes to sunbathe – with sunscreen on, of course; Simon the gnome who reckons he’s good at hiding, yet everyone found him – he owes me a tenner; Amy the fairy, who was looking out the window; Bob the gnome in yellow; Dave the gnome in the green hat – gotta watch out for Dave; Priscilla the fairy, who was wearing her best dress; Mary the fairy, who was going to have a picnic with tiny sandwiches and fairy cakes later; Bella the fairy, who I suspect had too much Pimms; Pauline the fairy and Pauline’s cousin’s friend – Pauline’s cousin was too shy to make an appearance; and everyone’s favourite, the fairy version of the headteacher, even while his human counterpart was having wet sponges hoyed at him by schoolchildren.

When it was all over, and Mary and her friends were readying their picnic, we tidied all the decorations away, including the bunting.

We were careful to bundle it or fold it flag to flag: it was easiest to unravel these yesterday. A parkrun friend decided he knew better, despite me telling him otherwise. He said he’d lay it all out flat when he’d taken it all down and I could tell him what to do then. Against my better judgement (it was a mighty long piece of bunting made from tying lots of other pieces together), I allowed it.

When we’d all finished, he was still faffing with the bunting. Most of it was ok, but he had a mighty big clump of tangled bunting that he was trying to unpick. One or two people went to see how he was getting on, but he wasn’t doing well. I went over.

The first thing to do was to make him laugh. That accomplished, we regretted that I had only thought to bring scissors when it was too late. Nevertheless, we made some good progress, while having a laugh and a chat.

Alas, the progress was too slow, and we had to cut the bunting with a key after someone else came up without scissors. My friend dropped me off at home with the tangled bunting, where I roped a begrudging Mr Pandammonium into helping me. He soon forgot himself, and he got stuck in. Eventually, it became merely ravelled, then unravelled.

I’ll give it back to the friend who roped me in to help next week at parkrun.

Check out the extras for more fairy folk – there might be one or even two of the Fairy of the Forest – and yes, I went to parkrun like that!