The Day Started,

with an early morning visitor to the garden,

Reynard paid us a visit, not a great photograph, I did not have time to open the window before he disappeared,

next for us,

up the hill to the mansion,

for 3 reasons,

firstly it was a retro day sale, about 30 or so stalls were selling items from the 1950s or before,

secondly there was a classic car show,

a quick look at a couple, this a Studebaker, 

and a really nicely turned out kit car,

based on the Mercedes Benz W125, which later became the 154, the kit uses a Jaguar as its donor vehicle,

and nice it looked too,

I am guessing the straight 6 sounds as good as it looks, the kit was made by a company called Ronart, you can buy a kit to make one yourself, or for £68,940 (Test and registration fee and vehicle TAX not included), you can buy a factory built one, would I like one? of course! as an aside occasionally they come up for sale secondhand, like this one for £39,995,

I walked to the other side of the green,

to take a few photographs of all the cars,

when the heavens opened up, just look at the rain, so into the cafe for breakfast and a coffee,

lucky the rain soon stopped, so a quick look around the outside stalls,

then to the fair,

the Ferris wheel now working,

in the now completed courtyard, a couple in period dress of when the mansions owner John Cator, was alive,

we had by now,

meet up with Steve and Kai,

the now finished courtyard,

here the mayor of London is wafting around with his entourage, I will not comment on his performance as mayor, instead I will quote from The Spectator, 'he is underachieving badly', and that is an understatement, the article makes interesting reading, apparently he writes his own press releases, worse still he believes them,

any way the good news and third reason for visiting today is that the park is officially open, and this is the ceremony,

and so is the lake,

so we waited for the drum roll,

when it all kicks off,

well I had to have a pose,

the swimmers were getting ready, some from the bank,

and some from the jetty,

the order was no jumping in, the water was too shallow,

so down the ladder it was then,

the swimmers from the bank entered the water,

and made their way

 to join the others,

from the jetty, there were some that could walk on the water,

and the no jumping rule was never going to work!

the swimmers made their way around the lake,

the day was turning out to be really nice,

 there was one group conspicuous by their absence, Health and Safety, it is one thing not to have lifebelts in place before the official opening, but now it is open to the public I would have expected to see a few of these, but there were none!

roll up, roll up, all the fun of the fair!

the rides looking so bright,

in the sunshine,

and the good news was that seats had been put in place for picnickers,

hopefully,

now that the sun is out,

 lots of families will be here,

we made our way back to the courtyard,

passing through,

the now completed gardens,

to the courtyard,

where dancers gave a display,

of dances that would have been in vogue,

in the time of John Cator,

 the first,

where the circle of dancers gets,

smaller and smaller,

then opens out again,

then to a more formal dance,

as you might imagine,

everyone was so pleased that it had turned into a nice day,

the musical accompaniment was provided by a small band playing instruments and music of the time, 

the next number,

was almost like a barn/square dance,

with couples,

joining and then leaving each other,

all very 1700s,

the troupe make all of their own costumes,

and practise in their own time, delightful,

in a break in the dancing I had a quick look at the FSC stand,

next another round of Georgian dancing, but with a difference, volunteers! members of the public were asked to join in,

I managed to get out of it by going to the ice cream van,

and today he was allowed to run the vans engine,

so two ice creams with a chocolate flake in each it was then,

there were a number of food stalls, 

but as we had eaten it was just ice creams for us,

arriving back in the courtyard,

the lessons were going with some gusto,

arms and legs doing overtime,

I had never thought of Georgian dancing,

being so energetic,

to cool things down apace,

some of the group,

had a more formal dance,

such a nice display,

some of the troupe taking a break,

whilst others continued the show,

this was the final dance for this session,

the first of three during the day,

the performers take a bow, although it has now finished, this is the schedule for the day,

the good news now that it stopped raining we got to look at the cars, above the ever popular Ford Escort,

Jensen's were well supported here, this the CV8,

these two,

 early Interceptors,

it was now getting late,

and Diana had to go to work,

so after saying farewell to Steve and Kai,

we were off home, the good news was that there were lots of families,

and visitors going to the grand park relaunch, a big 'well done' to Lewisham council, especially for breaking your own rules and letting us have that delicious ice cream!

after Diana went to work I popped upstairs and found the external hard drive that had one of our trips to Paris on, I particularly liked this photograph of one of the bridges, just black, white and gold, so on the wall it went, 

 then time for my evening meal, first a read and a sherry,

 and for tonight, a tuna salad,

 and a glass or three of red,

 I listened to music until it was time to walk to the bus stop and pick Diana up,

and then back home passing some of the houses in the park, all of this walking must be doing me some good, please say yes! I am only making one post today as it has again taken an age, and I now think I know why, a couple of days ago when this happened before, the laptop had a hissy fit and crashed three times, which it did again today, it was when I was using photographs from the new Sony camera, I am guessing they, the files, are so large compared to the ones from the Lumix, the laptop can not cope with them, I can think of no other reason, so after the first crash today I started using smaller numbers of photographs to work with and resize, and it seems to have worked although it take a lot longer, but there it is, back to the evening, arriving home it was feet up for one from Game of Thrones and we were then off to bed.