Why did the tomato blush?

Because it saw the salad dressing!

That’s one of the terrible jokes I remember from a family Christmas a long time ago. For some reason it has stuck in my head all these years.

But let’s face it, salad in generally really isn’t that entertaining. Which is why I can understand the Other Half’s reaction when I mentioned to him on saturday that I thought we should have a fun day out at the Cucumber Festival, in Waltham Abbey Gardens.

Having recently watched the Peppa Pig episode ‘Potato City’, I suspect he may have had an image in his head (kind of like I did) of giant spangly strangely-accented cucumbers wandering around, enticing you to ride on cucumber shaped boats, eat cucumber themed meals, and buy cucumber shaped balloons.

Fortunately, that’s not at all what it was like.

Whilst there WERE some cucumbers present (and there was a person dressed as a giant cucumber too, so at least one of my predictive thoughts was correct) there was also a whole host of other fruit and vegetables to be found as well. Basking in the somewhat-elusive-of-late sunshine sat stalls of strawberries, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes, surrounded by a variety of other interesting wares. (The Wee Man made a beeline straight for the ice cream cone cupcakes, which were very clever indeed).

The Waltham Abbey Gardens themselves were very lovely, and having not been before I’d be interested to go again when there isn’t a giant cucumber event in the way, and just enjoy the greenery and the surrounding waterways (we had to cross a wooden bridge to get to the Festival, and the Wee Man was very committed to his troll-watching duties. At the moment, all bridges have trolls hiding underneath, although luckily as yet, none of them have dared make an appearance whilst we are crossing…).

The Lee Valley Farms people were also there, and had brought with them a selection of ducks, rabbits and tortoises which Bubby D and the Wee Man were both pretty amused by.

Cucumber seed planting was a hit, with a clever little gadget that made a pot out of newspaper, and a soil shovel/pourer made out of an old milk bottle – ingenious!

And I had my back checked by a chiropractor, who proclaimed it ‘a bit wonky and stretchy’.

The Wee Man netted a duck in the ‘hook a duck and win a prize’ stall, and was subsequently furnished with an inflatable ‘bopper’ (mallet) which he gaily went about smacking each of us with repeatedly whilst giggling hysterically.

This signalled that it was time to retreat (that and the rapidly expiring parking time) and we bopped our way all the way back to the car, carrying our bags of salady bits along with us.

A wierd sounding day out it may be, but I think we’ll be off to celebrate cucumbers again next year for sure.