Wow wot a scorcha!!
12th - 14th July
We attended Tiverton Balloon Festival as traders this week, despite the weather being nearly 30 degrees, I think I am not alone when I say what a fabulous weekend was had by all that attended.
We arrived at about 2.30pm on the Friday afternoon, it was already boiling, but we knew we had a couple of hectic hot hours ahead of us, so we knew we just have to put our heads down and get on with it! After being shown our pitch site, it was a case of getting the gazebo up and "chucking" everything inside! We then had to go off and find where we were camping for the weekend (this is the first time we have both camped in over 20 years!!) after a bit of confusion as to where we were staying, we pitched our tent in with all the "balloonists" and met our very friendly neighbours. It was then back to the gazebo to finish setting up. At 4.30pm we were ready!
 |
Friday night was very relaxed with people coming round to have a look mainly. Which gave us time to have a look around ourselves to see what was what. We decided to pack up at about 10pm as it was getting dark and my solar lights were not good enough for people to see what they were buying, this meant we had time to get everything secure and enjoy the last band.
We were woken EARLY by the balloonists who were what felt like "blowing their balloons up inside our tent" at 5.30am!! Gosh they are early birds!!
We managed to find the showers in the sports hall, which made us all lovely and refreshed after our hot night tangled up in sleeping bags, bobbing about on an air bed - who invented camping?? We then had a wonder to Morrisons so that we could get some sausages and eggs for breakfast, which we cooked on our gas camping stove, lovely!
Then it was back to the gazebo to set up and get ready for not only the hottest day, but the busiest day, wow it was hot, luckily the gazebo gave us enough shade to not burn to a crisp, but I couldn't say the same to all the visitors, all those lobsters ouchy ouchy!
The balloonists did a couple of daytime flights which flew over our gazebo.
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
As it got quiet by 10pm and too dark to see we decided to close up quick as tonight the balloons were delayed for their evening light display, so we got the best seats in the house after putting things in the car in the camp site, very entertaining, good show!
Then it was another hot sticky night in the tent, ergh! And an early morning wake up call by all our neighbours!!
Porridge for breakfast. We discovered how much dried food you can buy this weekend! We knew anything fresh would be rank within a few hours in this weather, so we lived off food that just needed water adding to it and heated, as much as I would of loved to support the catering trade stands, for the two of us this would of worked out very expensive. We did however treat ourselves to an ice cream on Sunday, which was much needed!
When we arrived at our tent we were told by our trading neighbours who had slept in their stand, that we nearly did't have a gazebo left, as there was no air the balloons were finding it hard to lift and were less than a foot from sqishing our gazebo!
 |  |  |
Sunday was even hotter!! And this time the sun was more HOT! which meant more burning skin!! I think for this reason Sunday was quieter. But it still had a lovely atmosphere and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. But as the sun was so hot and there was no air there were less balloons, which resulted in people leaving early, but that was fine, we were about ready to go anyway.
 |  |
We were home by 10pm and back in our lovely bed!
Look out for Mark's video coming soon!
I am looking forward to next year, but next time I would like to be nearer to the main stage, so we can hear the bands.
I will definitly be back if Tiverton will have me!!
We now look forward to our next festival in 2 weeks time at Farmfest in Bruton, Somerset.
No comments:
Post a Comment