A new tent, fun, frolics & FOOD!

So last weekend we headed off to Ludlow for the annual Food Festival. A fabulous weekend of yumminess, is how it can best be described. Ludlow if often described as the Food capital of Britain, and it's a well deserved title as a wander around the town reveals heaps of independant butchers, bakers and small grocers as well as more specialist delis and the like. Oh, and not a McDonalds to be seen - hurrah!

First stop was the campsite - one of our favourites, and the place we've stayed on each of our visits. This time though we had a new tent to play with...

 ...thankfully being a larger version of our old one, pitching it was no problem and we were soon up and running, and ready for a trip into town to see what was going on, and collect food for our evening meal. So far as possible we try to buy food locally when we're away - it's incredibly damaging to the local area when people turn up for a weekend having brought a car full of food from their local M&S or Waitrose. Better by far to explore the local shops and put something back into the area.

Looking down onto Ludlow and its castle.

Parking in Ludlow itself is at a bit of a premium, so we've developed the habit of parking at the opposite side of the valley and walking down the hill and back up the other side - it all helps to work off some of the calories from a food-filled weekend, anyway!

A browse around the town netted some local sausages, some lovely fresh seasonal veg, and a loaf of lovely bread, which pretty much set us up for a sausage stew for tea, and toast for breakfast! The campsite is on a working farm, and they keep hens, so fresh eggs are always for sale,and when I saw "fresh" - I mean quite often they have to actually go and gather them for you!

After dinner, with no internet connection or TV to sit mindlessly in front of, we simply sat, and chatted, and read, and watched it get dark.....bliss!

The following morning dawned bright and cheerful - what a fabulous sky!

Look carefully though and you can see the heavy blanket of mist down in the valley...sure enough when we got to town the view from yesterday proved somewhat different...

There is a castle there somewhere...!

...as there was a little while to go before the gates of the festival opened we went and had an extremely lovely cup of tea in a very posh Tea room...

 Very generous was that teapot, and its accompanying pot of hot water! 

 As everyone knows, with tea should come cake, and just look at this beautiful array we found on one of the stalls....

Much scrumminess!

 ...Yes, of course we did - one of those delicious looking meringues from the far end!

So there you have it - a lovely weekend, with glorious weather, in a fantastic environment, and one or two friends along the way. (This is the beauty of these sorts of events - our involvement with CAMRA means that very often, and with no pre-planning, we stumble across people we know!)

We'll be back next year!

Robyn