Invasion of the scarecrows!

Every year our village holds a very special kind of fete – a scarecrow festival! This involves lots of people around the village spending weeks beforehand creating straw-stuffed masterpieces to enter into a competition.

Each year we’re given a theme to follow – for 2015 this was TV shows – and then over the weekend we all put our scarecrows out on display, creating a trail through the village. Visitors then follow the trail, guessing as many of the scarecrows as they can before choosing their favourite and handing their forms in for a chance to win £100 in our special prize draw.

This year we had some corking entries, so I’ve put together a selection of some of the best (there were 65 in total!) – lets see how many you can correctly guess!

It can take a while to do the walk around the village, but there’s much more to our little festival that guessing the scarecrows. Â Our village green becomes a hub of fun, with beer and burger tents, a stage with live music, and special events taking place throughout the weekend – as well as the village school turning into a craft fair!

A lot of families work together on their scarecrows, but there’s also a special section dedicated to those made solely by children. I have to say they put us to shame – some, like the picture below – were better than I could ever do!

Below are two of the winning scarecrows from this year’s competition – are these the ones you would have picked?

And finally, I bet you’re all desperate to see what we came up with for this year.

Well, with (a lot) of help from my in-laws, here’s our entry! Sadly we didn’t win any of the main prizes, but we found out that quite a few people voted for us and we received a ‘Highly Commended’ rosette, so we’re all pretty chuffed!

Although it can get quite competitive, overall the scarecrow festival is really great fun and it’s lovely to see so many of our fellow villagers take part and get into the summer fete spirit!

What do you think of our scarecrow festival? Have you ever been to one or does your town/village hold a quirky event of its own? We’d love to hear what you think…