Saturday 29 September 2012

Village at War

It was a glorious morning, with blue skies and bright sunshine.  Stoke Bruerne's Village at War festival was due to get under way at 10am, so at about that time I started walking up the locks to the village.  On the way, I met a few people I knew, so it took a while to get to the top.  Getting there relatively early meant I could have a look around before the crowds arrived.  As well as the boats, there's a field of vintage vehicles, an army camp, and a field of traders.  Lots of people had dressed in period costume.  At lunchtime, there was a display by two Spitfires.











I had a bacon roll for lunch,bought some fire lighters from Hadar, some fudge from the fudge boat, and walked back down to Briar Rose.  I'd seen Allan Jones and his newly repainted boat Keeping Up at the top lock, and they were at the water point at the bottom lock when I arrived, so we were able to have a longer chat.

I needed to run the engine to charge the batteries, so thought I might as well combine that with giving myself a change of scenery.  I set off at about quarter to three, and moored an hour later in my usual spot just before Bridge sixty two.

3.5 miles, 0 locks.  (25.5 miles, 2 locks)

3 comments:

Andy Tidy said...

We quite fancy bringing the jam stall next year.

Adam said...

I wondered if you might be there. I reckon you'd do very well. The busiest traders seemed to be the boats (there was the cheese boat as well as the fudge boat). There are also a few stalls on the little green by the museum, plus the traders' field down the road, which were mostly vintage clothing, plus cakes, sweets, burgers. I reckon the foraging idea would fit very well with the wartime theme, and if you were prepared to dress up or do some themed labels etc, you'd do particularly well.

Andy Tidy said...

Thanks for that insight Adam. The Fudge Boat said much the same when we worked alongside them at Windmill End a couple of weeks ago. I have added it to next years plan. What I really needs is to be pensioned off but with the tidal wave of regulatory issues hitting us I cant see that any time soon.