community cohesion

This morning the kids were playing so adorably with dollies that I could not bring myself to drag them out to the Rawtenstall Mela. They all disappeared into a small playtent for ages with their three prams parked outside it. I had told Jill last night that we might go and see our "people" in situ and it sounded a bit diffrent, anyway. We finally arrived at about 2, 2 hours after it had started (that's home-ed time for you, now), after a leisurly morning, in which I tried to recover from staying out too late, and found out there was no coffee. I was informed by Elaine, by international textepathy (I am a tomorrow person), that I needed to go out and buy more coffee or else I would die and that the decaf I had found lurking would send me into a coma. Well, this was nearly true, as I headed off in the wrong direction, having completely sailed past the Bacup turning and went for miles before noticing.
It was a multicultural festival, but fairly municipal, with lots of info stalls in tents giving away stuff. If you have ever seen that episode of Peter Kaye's Pheonix Nights when they have a fun day, just imagine that in a park. There were two food stalls, an Asian one, selling chips and kebabs (halal), which was mainly frequented by the Asian population, and an English one selling burgers and fries, attended by, you guessed it..., and there was a similar obvious divide in who watched the bands. The boys spent the first half hour clinging very quietly to my skirt, slightly open-mouthed, while Jem did a banner making workshop, had her face painted, and had a henna tattoo on her arm. By this time the boys were happily occupied with a balloon for ages. The highlight for Fugs must have been the chip pan fire demonstration, which we managed to get so close to we had to back off when they showed what happens if you put water on it.
But the biggest damper on the day was when Jill reallised her jacket, which my children had been sitting on, had gone missing. It had her car keys and wallet in it. She had to get driven home to get her spare car keys so she could move it off the park. I felt really awful as I had unwittingly moved the children off the jacket so they could sit on level ground a few feet away, as I had got them some chips and me a cup of tea, and I didn't have anywhere near enough hands and when I got back with the second lot of chips Allie had knocked the first lot over Jem so she was sitting helplessly still, with ketchup and mayo all over her, waiting for me too *do* something about it, and no-one wanted to hold my tea for a bit because it looked over stewed (just right for me, though!), and then the buggy started toppling over, you know the senario, but I managed to keep calm, but somehow lots of things got left a bit far from us, and Jem retrieved her wellies and the baby cup, but somehow the jacket got left and someone else must have picked it up. O dear.