Steampunk Fair

It was dry when I set out, so I foolishly did not take a raincoat....
I took the early bus to Brecon, and changed there onto the T4 for Cardiff - and found that I could use the same Explorer ticket for the entire journey! £7.00 for a day trip to Cardiff is not bad.
I arrived in Cardiff quite early, so there was plenty of time to go to Forbidden Planet, and to get a cappuccino and Danish pastry at the Rendez-vous cafe, just across the way from the Owain Glyndwr pub where the Steampunk Fair was going to take place.
So, what is steampunk? Some people say it's when Goths discovered brown. For others, it's a re-imagining of Victoriana, with steam-powered spaceships gleaming with brass blasting off to Her Majesty's colonies on Mars, while airship pirates fight air krakens in the skies above the British Empire - and lots of cogs, on everything. I hadn't been to a Steampunk event before, but my young man had, and had enjoyed it immensely, and we held a steampunk party last year where everyone dressed up and Mark served absinthe.
For a first event, they did very well. The upper room of the Owain Glyndwr wasn't ideally set out for stalls, but they fitted in with a bit of ingenuity. There was a band set up in one corner, BB Black Dog, playing a couple of songs every hour, and there was a wide variety of clothing,including corsets and bustles, jewellery, and sundries on offer. Some of the jewellery had been made with delicate bones salvaged from road kill, and there were some cute plague rat cat toys, as well as a stall for historical re-enactors, with drinking horns and knitted caps and stockings. Everyone was very friendly, and the event's charity was Help for Heroes.
When I'd spent up to my budget, I went out to wander round Cardiff. In one place, there was a samba band playing, and further along, a band on a stage, and children's rides, and a giant screen showing the Olympic rowing. Cardiff is a city of shopping arcades, and I spent a while exploring them:

Here's one of them from the upstairs balcony.

I also explored Cardiff Market, which has a very good and extensive record shop up on its balcony - if I lived in Cardiff I think I'd be spending a lot of time there.
Then I had time to pop into the Goat Major for a half of Brains Dark. They didn't have any guest beers on, and they'd moved some of the tables near the bar, and the beer was served in a plastic glass - and there was a bouncer on the door! I'd also noticed quite a few police wandering around the city centre, and found later that one of the Olympic football matches was taking place in the Millennium stadium that afternoon.
Still, even the bouncer was friendly and later, when I was making my way to the bus stop, a shop keeper ran out of his shop to offer me a spare umbrella since the heavens had opened by that point!
To be fair to Stagecoach, the journey was very smooth, and on time throughout - and I can now recognise the Welsh for "The next stop is...." (though I'm not sure how to write it down).