Gifts left during the Summer Fête

A splendid time was had by all attending my Summer Fête on Saturday: at one point, guests were swinging from the chandelier in the main Hall, as shown above.

A short preview of my upcoming film was broadcast on a 40 metre-long cinema screen erected in the grounds, details of which I will be announcing via this blog shortly.  

In the meantime, I've been going through the Gift Tent with Juan, to see what my guests left as a present to me.  Gifting was compulsory.  My guest wishlist had previously been posted on my website: antiques, fine wines, classic cars and also an extensive entertainment wishlist from Amazon. 

Some of the presents were very nice, including a Ming vase; an Ormolu clock left by a Scottish baroness; various bits of artwork; however, some of the presents have left me with a taste of bile in my mouth:

When I published my extensive wishlist of Amazon.com music products , I never expected to be left this disgusting object. Apparently, a pufferfish from Brazil, it's been lovingly stuffed and was left on a silver platter in the Gift Tent.  What should I do with it?  Maybe I should attach a chain to it and wear it as an earring?

A case full of dentures? An outrageous and obscene donation. The person who left this should be flogged at dawn.

And a Greek Drachma note, completely worthless when Greece replaced it with the Euro currency in 1992. (And look where that got them.)

This is apparently a Hoover vacuum cleaner from the 1970s. Never used one or even seen this type of appliance. Wasn't on my Gift Wishlist so it's been thrown into the lake. Quite why anyone would leave such an item as a gift is beyond me.  I can honestly say two things: I've never used a vacuum cleaner in my life.  I've also never gotten on a bus before.  I don't even know what one is. 

This is a hedgehog hairbrush. Imitation, of course, but I still find it revolting as I love hedgehogs. Hedgehogs were not put on this earth to be made stiff and glued to a handle and spend the rest of their days combing people's hair!

 

The good news, however, is that everyone attending the event was asked to dig deeply for my collection of chosen charities, several HIV/AIDS organisations.  At the end of the event, we collected over £38,000 which will all go to great causes.