A Splendid Day Out

I really was seriously conflicted this weekend - Wonderwool and the Hereford Steampunk Weekend were on at the same time.
So, friends from Stitch and Bitch went to Wonderwool and I went to the Steampunk Weekend - after all, I'd been working on a costume for it:

The lovely chap at the Lurcher Gallery stall took this for me. I'm portraying Lady Mary Bailey, who was the first person to take photos of archaeological sites from the air - hence the flying helmet and camera. The dig she was flying over (in her own biplane) was run by a woman, too - Gertrude Caton Thompson, in Egypt in 1931. So more Dieselpunk than Steampunk, but the flying helmet was greatly admired. I was given it by Bob, who runs the Baskerville Hall acoustic sessions, and it worked so well that I got called Amy Johnson by one of the chaps from the Waterworks Museum!

There were fewer stalls at the event than there were last September, but Bernie the Bolt was there this time. He is well known in re-enactment circles for supplying authentic and reasonably priced material for costumes. The mead man was there as well, Professor T Bottom (of www.trollsbottom.com), and I came away with a bottle of fragrant heather mead. There was a rather fine artist there, too, with a selection of Steampunk and Star Wars inspired works - I liked the silhouettes printed on a page from the relevant book - so a picture of Frankenstein's Monster on a page from the book Frankenstein, for instance. He has an Etsy shop called Brambledown designs.
And there were vintage clothes, and costume makers, and jewellery, from companies like Good Faiy Bad Fairy and the aforementioned Lurcher Gallery, and someone who made bespoke waistcoats.
There were also the most adorable ferrets, from the Heart of England Ferret Association, who rescue ferrets, and they also organise ferret racing evenings - fun for all the family!
There was entertainment from Caroline the lady with the musical saw, Greg Chapman who performs feats of juggling and escapology on a stage mounted on a steam powered tricycle(!), and Ichabod Steam, who has converted a small trailer caravan into a stage for his musical event - it has an animatronic band, a rear "port hole" screen with which he can interact with other characters in his story, and a turret/submarine conning tower on top that he can climb up to. And he plays the guitar. In the evening there was a Cabaret, but I couldn't stay for that. One act had come all the way from Berlin!
And on the Sunday, the miniature railway next door was open, so that was available for visitors as well.
Of course, one of the big attractions of the day was that all the engines in the Museum were in steam, and they looked very impressive - they're mainly pumping engines, including the ones that used to pump water for the city of Hereford. There's a new hall at the back of the site where they issue ear defenders for anyone going into the engine house, though the other engines in the museum are quite quiet.
Food on site was provided by a stall doing rather good grilled sandwiches (I had the pork, which was lovely),and the museum café.
I had some fascinating conversations with interesting people, enjoyed the steam engines and the entertainments by Ichabod Steam and Greg Chapman, and some gentle retail therapy - and had time before the bus was due to have a half of Jaipur from Thornbridge brewery at the Beer in Hand. I returned to the city centre along the cycle route, which brings you out at the back of Sainsbury's, so the Beer in Hand was right on my route to the bus stop!
A splendid day out!