Back at the end of July my wife and I visited The Great British Food Festival at Hardwicke Hall in Derbyshire. Although the event took place in the grounds at the rear of the hall, there was no entry to the building itself, so maybe I’ll make another visit to see that sometime.

But it was the food festival that we were attending, to which my wife had bought tickets months earlier. It’s not something we’ve done before, so I didn’t know quite what to expect, but it was essentially a whole range of stalls selling all manner of produce, including meats, pastries, ice cream, biscuits, alcoholic beverages, crisps – loads of stuff. In addition to this there were a bunch of food vendors selling pizzas, burgers, gyros, jerk chicken, hot dogs and a variety of other walkaround foods. There were also live cooking demonstrations on a number of topics throughout the day, and also live music and children’s entertainments.

The weather on the day was forecast to be a mixture of sunshine and cloud, but around lunchtime we were also paid a visit by a short-lived but sqally rain shower, necessitating me eating my lunch beneath an umbrella kindly held over my head by my better half (she’d already eaten her pizza while I was waiting for my jerk chicken to be served).

The rain came down pretty heavily during the shower, forcing people to seek shelter wherever they could find it, including, amusingly, beneath some oversized deckchairs, which I managed to photograph. The wind became quite gusty too, at one point blowing a free-standing flag out of the ground and depositing it atop a tressle table where some people were determinedly trying to eat their food in the rain!

After the rain passed, the sun soon reappeared and the rest of the day was bright, warm, and pleasant, although you can still see the slowly retreating rain clouds in some of the pictures.

After lunch, we spent some time watching a barbeque cook-off in one of the marquee tents in the centre of the field, the format based on the TV show Ready, Steady, Cook – each chef given a selection of ingredients and then making something from them. One of the chefs made skewers of chorizo and vegetables which was very nice (we all got so sample a small piece), the other a marinated pork dish which, while also nice, didn’t pack the same flavour punch as the Spanish sausage.

On the whole, apart from the spell of rain, it was a nice day out. We spent quite a lot on produce from the stalls, including some delicious Portugese custard tarts. I suppose you might as well spoil yourself if you’re going to attend these things, hadn’t you? 🙂

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro

Taken 29 July2023.