Morris dancers, fire-eaters, musicians, the local regiment of the army including their gorgeous and huge Irish Wolfhound mascot, some rescue owls and loads of stalls selling various wares made the fayre a great spectacle. Stall holders and some of the visitors were dressed in medieval clothing, adding to the theme of the day. Our local town is steeped in so much history, it was interesting to learn more about an event that dates back to the 1400's.
Freddy really enjoyed having a go at embossing his name into a piece of leather using a wooden hammer to bang the letter stamps. He did a great job and got to take home his very own handmade leather keyring. He was also quite delighted with the fancy dress stall that sold weaponry and armour and picked out a red and gold shield for himself. He spent quite a lot of the weekend challenging his grandad to sword fights!
It was nice to get out into the fresh air, after a week of being poorly, and enjoy a wander around our local market town. It is nice to support the community and lovely to see such a great turn out for an event. The day was bustling and we enjoyed popping into the local shops. The wholefood shop was a great place to stock up on vegan goodies, now that my eldest daughter has become a fully fledged dairy-free vegetarian. I really enjoyed revisiting some of the products I used to buy when I was vegan and I discovered a few new ones too. Megan's enthusiasm for her new way of eating is really rubbing off on us all!
Sainsbury's were there demonstrating some recipes and I sampled Vegetable Quesadillas and Shrosphire Blue Cheese Potatoes. Both were very nice but as they contained cheese, Megan couldn't try them so we stocked up on some fruit from one of the stalls. Sadly, they didn't actually sell damsons so we made do with donut peaches and bananas. We watched a blacksmith making things in the way they would have done back in medieval times, but my girls were more interested in watching a very, very handsome community police officer instead!
I'm glad we made the effort to pop along and Freddy loved his leather stamping activity...anything that involves hitting things with hammers is high on his list of things that are fun!
Here is a video made by our local Drayton Crier, in case anyone is interested in finding out more about the history of the Damson Fayre and seeing what went on in our local community this weekend.