Canterbury - 19th November, 2005 - The Advent Fair at Canterbury Steiner School

A lovely brilliant blue sky met us this morning with a frosty temperature of minus 1 deg C.

After weeks of preparation and mornings and evenings working on crafts to sell, the canterbury Steiner School Advent Fair was upon us.

The Rudolf Steiner schools, which are not funded by the state, are fee paying but try to keep their fees as low as possible. Typically they are about half the price of other private schools. So here you get 2 boys in school for the price of 1.

One way they keep the costs down is to hold fund raising events, of which today's Advent Fair is the biggest. The school opens it's doors and brings in as many parents, friends and family as possible. Our school has about 250 pupils but there were many hundreds of people there today.

Every room in the school is filled with craft items, homemade cakes, jams, sweets and a variety enchanting grottos and caves. There is candle dipping, circus performances (we had a circus arts teacher this year), bands playing, cafes and bbqs. It has a festival atmosphere and it's a great fun day.

I have some photos which are posted here: Advent Fair Photos. You don't need to sign in. Click on "View photos without signing in" in the bottom right of the frame when it opens. This is the sort of stuff the boys will be getting up to. Beats maths!

Then half way through the fair we saw a friend of ours from Ealing. She had come all the way with her son (a friend of Sammy's) and husband. They spent several hours with us and ended up leaving their son with us for a sleep over. What a perfect end to a wonderful day.