Bedford River Festival

During the monsoon journey to my brothers graduation yesterday, I worked on my Aine Cardi. This is a Colinette pattern I found in one of those free knitting calendars given away in a magazine at the end of last year. You know the sort, 12 semi-sucky patterns that you're never going to wear. Well, I quite liked Aine, so I decided to whip one up. The pattern calls for ribbon yarn though which I couldn't find in a colour that I liked (for a price I liked) and as you remember, I scored this novelty yarn last week for 49p a ball which quite frankly m'dears, is a complete and utter bargain! I may yet regret the choice of yarn, I may feel like a Muppet in the resulting garment, but at the moment, it appeals to my inner magpie, it's so soft and sparkly and I'll probably love it at Christmas time! Hell, who am I kidding? I knitted (well, crocheted to be exact!) Short n Sweet in a bright pink yarn plyed with silver and I wear that all the time *lol* Anyway, I digress, I've now finished the back and have started on one of the front panels, so we'll see how it turns out.

So Saturday M, Joe and I went to the Bedford River Festival which is a free festival based along the banks of the river, with a carnival, a decorated boat parade along the river, stalls, music, and loads of entertainment going on. Joe has to wear his Halti to these events because he gets over excited and tends to pull on his lead alot, especially as he's not used to wearing his lead. The Halti is a gentle way of giving you the edge and not allowing him to pull with all his considerable strength. It's not a muzzle or anything and he can still pant and drink, and snaffle stuff from the floor. As always, he got lots of attention from passers by, especially little kids who seem to think he's a big teddy bear and want to cuddle him. Luckily Joe loves kids (although he couldn't eat a whole one...) and loves attention, so he had a great day.

M treats every excursion as a grazing opportunity and tried out a wild boar burger, an Aberdeen Angus burger and a Swiss chocolate ice-cream. He is enjoying the burger here, despite the look on his face which is more because of the camera I think.

The highlight of my day was watching the decorated river boat procession (Joe watched through the bridge)

This part of the bridge wasn't as crowded as the banks of the river a bit further down so we had a good view.

Lots of people had gone to town on their boats; there were two different pirate ships...

A vampy Dracula boat...

Nessie showed her face...

And the highlight for M was being buzzed by a Spitfire and a Hurricane (WWII bomber planes) which were flying overhead.

As Bedford is an old Roman settlement, there was a re-enactment Roman village with it's very own legion of soldiers marching around.

It was a good day, even if the weather was a little unpredictable. One minute the sun was shining, and the next moment it was like this:

We got a little wet, but on the whole, it was a fun day out, It only runs every other year, but we always go. I try to keep an eye out for the free festivals and events; it's a great way of having fun without spending too much money. Mind you, we went to one today on the Harley, and when we got there, there wasn't anything on, so we went for a burn round the countryside and ended up at this great looking country pub; I had a glass of wine, M had a beer and a packet of crisps and they charged us £10.50! Can you believe that? What a rip off!

Do you want to know something really weird? M and I were sitting in the hobbies room last night; he was on the computer and I was painting and he put 'Toby' into the browser because he was looking for information about a bike rider and my blog came up on the browser page. Not top or anything, but about fourth. Well, that just blew his mind! I don't think he's ever read my blog, but he knows that I write one. He thought it was such a coincidence and wished he'd bought a lottery ticket *lol*

Anyway, hope your weekend has been a fun one...Peace, out!