The rural English bank holiday

It was Spring Bank Holiday so it was going to rain like it was raining for England.  The choices are clearly B&Q, the seaside steamy car chip platter or the muddy field.

We opted for muddy field.  Well actually it was about 4 large muddy fields.  Lamport Hall 'Festival of Country Life'.  And so it was but with a twist of 'vintage' thrown in too.

There were lots (and lots) of antique stalls and craft stalls set indoors in the stable blocks.

There were endless displays of old toys, dinkies and model railways.  It threw me straight back to my childhood talking to a guy about how to build hills up on your railway scenery out of chicken wire, paper mache and the sprinkly green grass.

We had the garage on the front right.

There were marching bands going between fields, Shire horses pulling carriages in another field and men driving their tractors round in circles seemingly endlessly in another field.  Sheep dogs doing sheep doggy things, lots of stalls selling wax jackets and  hats.

Lots of vintage vehicles of many different kinds from minis to lorries.

The odd tank.

We soaked up the weather with true British grit.

There must of been 200 of these little engines all set out in rows in front of caravans in which people sat drinking tea, occasionally popping out to wipe them with a rag and squirt oil onto them.

There were more steam rollers than I could shake a stick at (there were walking stick stalls too!).

There were all being tended by men in oily all-in-ones.

Some men just found a dry spot under their machinery and sat it out.

HWMBO declared the mud as 'up to festival standard' and there was plenty of heavy metal around.

But for all the rain this was a really interesting day out.  HWMBO and I love looking at the old cars, tractors, threshing machines, steam rollers, motor bikes.  We poured through boxes of old coins and bought new ones for the collection.  We discussed model railway gauges, how the cream was separated from the milk, how to start the old lawn mowers and the size of them 'in our day', the type of clocks each of our sets of elderly relatives had, whether the old dial phones could really still dial a number.....it was endless and bonding.

COG's eyes couldn't have rolled any further into the back of her head and she declared after a solid 4 hours.  Apparently she really wanted to go home to do some homework - a parental win we felt - driving her to it whilst having a ball ourselves.

A successful mud bath of a bank holiday.  Lovely.

But dear Lord: please, please send sunshine just one year.