Surreal Saturday in Forest Hill

There's nowt like a bit of a surreal weekend to keep things interesting...... and yep, my weekend was a bit surreal.

It all started on Saturday, when I noticed in Izzy's busy diary that she had been invited to attend a fancy dress Mad Hatter's Tea Party, organised by the Village Hall Committee. It was a marvellous concept; all the children (about 35 of 'em) in the village were invited for no particular reason other than community spirit. There was to be 'Alice in Wonderland' themed food, games and entertainment, and it was all free of charge. You wouldn't get that in London.

Unfortunately, I had totally forgotten about the party, and as such, the day arrived and I had no Alice in Wonderland costume to hand. Arse.

But Aha! no flies on me; I can be quite resourceful when needed, and so I looked at the things I had to hand, and cobbled together a makeshift outfit consisting of a snow queen dress, a pair of 'Hello Kitty' shoes, some wings and a Father Christmas hat.

"Come on Iz, we are going to be late!" I shouted, before realising that she was standing next to me with a 'you're weird' expression on her chops.

After we left the house, I encountered a surreal sight. The main street of the village was awash with strange looking creatures making their way up the hill, including at least 15 lifesize white rabbits and 10 goblin-type creatures in enormous top-hats. It bloody freaked me out, it did. Especially when they came scampering over shouting. "Look, I'm a rabbit!" [note to self: check that I took today's medication.]

Of course, they were all headed for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party but man, it was still weird.

As we arrived at the Village Hall, Izzy spotted her gang of friends from school, (even though they were all donning mentalist costumes), and immediately deserted me in the middle of a cleverly decorated hall which was designed to make everyone feel like they were down a rabbit hole.

"Iz," I shouted to her, "do you want me to stay?"

She looked back at me, "No. I'm ok."

Crikey O'Reilly, she is only four and was already trying to get rid of me.

I left her to have her fun, and I have to say............. the Forest Hill Committee did themselves proud. It was an amazing community event and has been much talked about in the village.

P.S. Sorry I didn't get any pictures, I was too surrealed-out!