Worcester Festival 12-14 June 2015

The reason for our visit - the festival was organised mainly by the Worcester Birmingham and Droitwich Canal Society, of which we are members, and The Worcester Canal Society.  A lot of work over many months took place for this event to occur.  All they wanted was good weather, but sadly, that was not the case.  It poured from mid afternoon Friday for 24 hours.  The last of the set up was done in a deluge and the first night did not attract the crowds they had hoped for.  Still a few hardy souls came along and the bands played.  There are a lot of photos to follow, but not so many words!

The Cleddau Captain braved the rain and put up the bunting

 We did not!  An arthritic knee and a wet roof is not a good combination

So what was there to see and do?

Stalls to browse and spend some money

Unfortunately a lot fewer boats than they had hoped - the original plan was for 50, then 30, but in the end I think there was only about 20 including visiting boats like ours

This is the re-furbished Canal and River Trust welfare boat for the volunteers

A C&RT education boat

There was a boat from the Black Country Museum along with this mobile cut out of the Dudley Tunnel - they will measure your boat to see if you can get through.

People to chat to

People to look at

A real Boatwif!

The gentleman on the left is the landlord of a local Pub - a real character

The first of 29 new milestones

New benches to be dedicated

This one is in the memory of Elizabeth Parker a founder member of the Worcester Canal Group

She used to live in the house with the blue open door which is within view of the new bench

Many musical acts to listen to 

This entertainer got an unexpected assistant who wowed the crowds with his dancing prowess

A local school choir - for me the little girl on the front row with no cardigan stole the show - she was the first and most enthusiastic with all the actions

The music making went on into the night on Saturday

A very pretty garden opposite our boats to admire night and day

The essential entertainment for children - two of our grandsons came to visit on Saturday - the slide was a great hit

Sadly for the organisers the crowds there were not many takers and at one point G and J had the bouncy castle all to themselves, so G could show off his cartwheeling skills  

Sunday was drier, so these two entertainments were brought out

Plenty of food - hot dogs for tea

Ice creams all round

They were deemed too big for J, so Monty was allowed to have a little of his

Apart from enjoying the festival the family were visiting to celebrate Chris's birthday

And brought a cake with them!

We certainly all enjoyed ourselves - we had three lots of visitors, so were able to show off our pride and joy!  I hope the weather cheering up brought enough footfall for the organisers to make a profit. They certainly work very hard and they are all volunteers.  We were not there to help set up, but all four of us (The Captain and Boatwif from nb Cleddau, Chris and I) pitched in to help clear up.  It certainly made me realise just how much was done to get ready.

Collect up the tables and chairs - the latter to be stacked in piles of ten by colour

First job in the marquees was to remove many, many toggles holding things together, but watch the gutters or you will get wet!

Then to cries of  'everyone grab a post, lift, remove the post and hold on tight'

'Everyone ready - then lower away'

Finally the roof is on the ground

Then fold it up 'both sides to the middle, then again until it is small enough to fold up and add to the pile'

Next it was take all the posts apart

Add them add them to the correct pile according to size and type

This vehicle did a lot of the heavy lifting 

We did about 2.5 hours before we headed back to the boats.  Most of the work had been done, but I am sure some of them were still there for an hour or so more.  I am not sure I have ever really thought about the amount of work involved to organise such an event.  A great few days and I am glad we attended.