On Saturday 30th June, we invited friends, family and all in the local community to “Eat Your Way Round the World with Muddy Boots”.
# The blessing of clean water in our Muddy Boots garden.
We were in the middle of a glorious heat wave and our event was planned for late afternoon to early evening. The Mayor’s Community Weekend was funded by the National Lottery and we used the grant they gave us for marketing the event and for buying ingredients for our multi-cultural feast and engaging a professional storyteller.
Talented volunteers prepared food from their home countries- we had the most delicious array of dishes with recipes originating from Korea, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Latvia, Moldova, Ireland, the USA, Poland and South Africa.
As visitors arrived, we greeted them and guided them into the adjacent garden for drinks and conversation and to listen to a guitarist playing pleasant music .
Then our storyteller, Christine, engaged everyone with a series of short stories which fed our imaginations and gave adults and children a wonderful experience.
Then – food for the stomach! And what food! The array of delicious dishes was outstanding and a record number of 100 people sampled a huge variety of recipes- many of them for the first time.
There was opportunity for much conversation and some people made contact with near neighbours they had never met before. Tom Vine from the Big Lottery came and was enthusiastic about meeting such a lot of people from a wide variety of different cultures. We discussed further possibilities for community development.
After the feast- more stories and music… The children listened, played and chalked their impressions on the paving stones.
Everyone went home tired but happy- it was a thoroughly good day!
Our event gallery:
It really was a lovely day…
