Tuesday saw the finale of the hotly contested ‘Best Dressed Window’ competition in Odiham. This annual competition is designed as a warm up for the biggest event in Odiham’s calendar – The Christmas Extravaganza. The theme for the window competition is always based on the pantomime that is being performed at the Anvil in Basingstoke and this year it was the story of Dick Whittington. Despite our best efforts (?) Number 81 didn’t get a place this year, although having used a balloon that would be more at home on a hen night, shaped like a certain piece of male anatomy to make Dick Whittingtons head we can lay claim to being the only shop that had a real ‘Dick’ Whittington in their window It’s just a shame that we couldn’t persuade Smodge to sit in the window, no one else had a real Black and White cat to keep Dick company, but try as we might he just won’t perform on demand!

The winners this year were the Cottage Hospital Shop who had some fantastic pantomime scenery in their window. Second place went to Originals Jewellery who had a remote control mouse buzzing around in theirs, and in third place the runners up were the George Hotel. Although we were a little concerned that the Dick in the window in The George seemed to be a double amputee! Maybe he'd been in the pub before hand and got a little legless! (groan!)

We were disappointed, albeit not surprised that we didn’t win this year as we struggled to come up with any idea’s to top our ‘Jack and The Beanstalk’ window that earned us second place last year, beaten by Wine Rack – we were robbed! Good job Wine Rack are our friends!

So preparations are under way this morning for the main event. Last years Extravaganza saw over 8000 people visiting Odiham for the evening, which for a small village is quite phenomenal. The roads will close at 4pm this afternoon and the High Street will fill with the local shops setting up their own extra stalls in the road, visiting stallholders from the Hampshire Farmers Markets, charities and all manner of Christmas paraphernalia. The local schools will be singing carols on a makeshift stage with Morris Men, Millers Ark and their animals, Fireworks from Fab Fireworks , a Santa’s Grotto, The Surrey Pipe and Drum Band, a fun fair and lots more. It’s always been a great event in Odiham and really kicks off the Christmas Spirit (and Christmas Shopping) lets hope tonight is as good as ever.

If you happen to be in the area this Thursday (24th November) then why not come into to Odiham and join in the fun. At Number 81 we're sticking to a tried and tested formula, with a marquee outside of our shop, where we'll be offering visitors the chance to sample the delights of our handmade Belgian Chocolates and play with a few of the more shocking toys we have in stock. We'll also be teaming up with Wine Rack who are going to bring along Port, Desert wines and a few other tipples that make ideal partners with the chocolates. St John will be offering some of their delicious canapés and Foursight Audio visual will have a few tricks up their sleeves to keep everyone entertained. The Extravaganza kicks off at 6.30pm and normally finishes around 9.30. Happy Christmas!

Dear Cathy & Alison

Neurofibromatosis Association Odiham Jazz Weekend 27/28 August 2005

On behalf of the Jazz Weekend organising committee and the Neurofibromatosis Association I would like to thank you very much for your support in providing the lovely balloon decoration. This is a tremendous help and there were many comments on how attractive the stage looked!

You might like to know that we reached our target of £15,000, which is really quite amazing as the target assumed that we would sell all the tickets for the new lunchtime Jazz 'n' Barbecue. In the end, we were only able to sell half the tickets because of the deadlines for ordering the food. People were unbelievably generous on both days. On the Saturday the raffle alone raised not far off £1,500 and on Sunday nearly £500. A good time was had by all on both days and if we had 700 tickets for Saturday we could have sold them all!

We are delighted to announce that Ted & Eileen Pithers and family have generously invited us back to The Chalk Pit next year. Plans are already being discussed for 2006 which will include a very varied musical line up and, as always, something new!

We thank you again for your support and we would be delighted if you are able to help us again next year.

Kind Regards

Tricia Stephens
Fundraising for the Neurofibromatosis Association
www.nfauk.org

The Guns are back! With reinforcements! As well as new stocks of the ever popular Electric Shock Guns, we now stock Shocking Tanks! Being the dedicated professionals that we are we felt we ought to test them out before we offered them for sale to our customers.

In a thinly veiled excuse to play with toys we tested them out on our friends when we had a few drinks to help Garrett celebrate his birthday. He even bought his new friend Candroid along to join in. So fuelled by a few bottles of Red Wine and a glass or two of Jack Daniels we went to war.

The remote controlled tanks are great fun, boys (and girls) toys at their best! Each control unit is fitted with electric shock sensors and a direct hit from your opponent with give you quite a jolt, not enough to hurt (much) but's it's not pleasant and encourages you to learn evasive moves very quickly!

(If you fancy a set of your own, then please take a trip to our little online shop)

Sorry to have to say that once again we have sold all our stocks of these great toys, however we will be restocking very soon and will let you know as soon as they are back again

The latest store in our area to adopt the new corporate colours for Wine Rack was the Fleet branch.

As one of the larger stores it caused quite a stir in Fleet High Street when the new livery was unveiled, the bright blue and cream colour scheme stands out from the crowd and adds a much more modern look and feel to the Wine Rack chain of shops.

Wine expert Oz Clarke, made a guest appearance to help out with a wine tasting to mark the relaunch of the store, and to offer Wine Rack customers his advice on choosing the right wine.

81 Red Balloons were there to help out with a few simple balloon bunches in the corporate colours dotted around the shop to add a splash of even more colour and a bit of extra fun to the occasion.

P.s don't forget to visit your local Wine Rack or Threshers if you like wine. They are still running a fantastic offer of three bottles for the price of two, which you can mix or match out of any combination of the huge range of wines and champagnes they have in store.

Friday the 14th of October saw the return of the annual Oktoberfest at RAF Odiham. 81 Red Balloons were asked to provide the decorations for the second year running, and we were invited along to the evening to join in the celebrations. We decorated the Oktoberfest last year, using giant Beer Glass Supershape balloons, which were so popular with the Sgts. mess that they asked us to do the same again, albeit we added a little twist and made some floor standing bunches as well, using the foil beer mugs and latex balloons, in Bavarian colours, of course.

The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810 in honour of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Originally the festivities began on October 12th and ended on October 17th, with a horse race. The festival was repeated the following year and in later years it was prolonged and moved into September, which had better weather conditions. As the September nights were warmer the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and stroll over the fields for longer without feeling chilly.

RAF Odiham, as always, hosted a great party, the beer, wine, and Schnapps flowed freely all evening, and one or two of us indulged a little too much (oops!). As well as the ever-present disco, The Munich Bierkeller Men added to the authenticity and provided lots of table dancing, beer swigging entertainment and a great night was had by all.

We’d like to thank RAF Odiham for asking us to do the décor once again, and for the invites to the party, and we promise not to drink quite so much schnapps if we ever get invited again!