London Regatta, 2012

Each year, the village of Bursledon has a regatta, and this year's theme was "London through the Ages."  There are many competitions, and each year, the Goodisons decorate one of their boats in a competition for the best decorated float on the theme.  Fran's brother, Will, and his girlfriend, Megan, came up with the idea of the Great Fire of London. They did the bulk of the work, stenciling and drawing the outline of London's skyline on some plywood.

We all helped in painting the outline. 

And we also came up with themed costumes, perfected  a la glue gun. 

The girls had these great dresses and head pieces. 

On the day of the regatta, they rolled out the mirror (their boat) now with the plywood attached. 

And hitched it up to the car's trailer. 

The entire waterfront was completely decorated with London-themed structures, amidst many of the races. 

These next three pictures are taken from Hamble Interactive.  This is "Blazing Squad 1666" coming out for the parade, complete with costume and, I think the best feature, our smoke bombs.

Here is some of the competition: the London zoo.

And three other floats of buses and London-themed costumes.

 

The evening ended with a tremendous firework display in which a boat was set on fire and a man nearly hit when he attempted to put it out. 

All in all, rather exciting. We came second in our float, Fran came second in the swimming contest, and their crew of four came first in the paddle-less boat competition! Impressive wins.

This week, I've been gearing up for a new school year, and my head has been swimming, filling out forms and excel spread sheets, arranging dates ordering books, and I feel like my head is water-logged and I can't quite see straight. Better go fix that!