Wetherby priests, pints, pansies and prams

I had to insert this snippet of a early July summer weekend in Wetherby... July 4-5 happened to be a great couple of weather days. Heck, let me think.... there have been quite a few nice days lately, I think we must be having one of the summers our neighbours have told us about.... Our last two Yorkshire summers were relentlessly dreary and we had thought this was to be our globally warmed lot. But no. The famed English summer has provided us with a number of mainly fine 25 degree sunny days, all in a row, sort of... But I digress.
Pastors and Pints This weekend was special because it heralded Wetherby's first ever Beer Festival. You may recall the Thorner Beer Festival we went to last year(?), with the Morris dancers etc.... The unlikely cause for this Wetherby beer event was the St James Anglican Church. It has been trying to raise 130,000 pounds to restore it's bell tower. I will quote from the Rev'd Canon of Wetherby... In 1839 the foundation stone for the church was laid by Quintin Rhodes the local brewer who "assisted greatly raising funds for building the church" Some 170 years later the current Vicar Mike Cross thought it only right to honour the event by having a fundraising beer festival to repair the ravages of 170 years of Yorkshire weather. The bouncy castles were set up on the lawn behind the church and the senior parish members sold celebratory beer tumblers for 5 quid which got you a glass, half a pint and access. The souvenir glass is suitably emblazoned with the Wetherby Beer Festival 2009 logo suspended over two hands, one pointing to London 200 miles and the other to Edinburgh 200 miles. All rather quaint but I was a bit put off by the sponsor name on the rear of the glass, G Hartley Funeral Services. A cautionary hint to the drivers on the day perhaps.... There were outside tables at the back of the hall, fences and tables around the bandstand and a selection of 23 ales, one Perry (oak fermented perry pears, vat matured) and a powerful but gorgeous apple cider at 6%abv). As I am interested in both ale research and dogs I chummed up with some ale drinking dog owners leaning against a fence under a spreading churchyard oak tree, a bit away from the raucous amplified music. We chatted on about dogs and the various selected ales being consumed, ale tips were observed, comparisons made, extra samples purchased and life issues examined.... A great bonding experience with them all and I became great friends with Meg &, Rusty from Collingham and Gemma and Rex from Linton.......but I can't recall their owners names to save my life....

The crowd was well behaved, jolly and well entertained by a local Jazz singer, a small Traditional Yorkshire brass band, DJ Adam Woods and a rather good singer/(pop) guitarist who was, and I quote, "It's Martin, "Marts" .. fresh from Australian Pubs and Clubs!" I think that was meant to be a good thing. All of the performers were excellent and the crowd responded accordingly, either joining in the singing, not so good, or with ale-rounded applause.

Local caterers provided good bistro style and Indian vegitarian food and to their credit the parish also manned a passable BBQ but the concept of anything resembling salad on a burger is foreign to Yorkshire, you pay a premium for a slice of cheese.. Their sausage and onion rolls were ok.

I took note of a couple of worthwhile T shirt captions on the day. " I'm the designated passenger" and "instant genius, just add ale" both worn by blokes who looked like they have followed beer festival events around the country for some time.
Pansies Primulas and petunias

It is Wetherby in Bloom time and I thought a couple of shots of town would give you an idea of what the volunteers do to win the best in Bloom awards Wetherby has become somewhat well known for. So they say.

PRAMS www.pramrace.org

Every year the local Lions club runs the Wetherby Pram Race which does a lap around town, past our front door and down the Scaur Bank (the permanent photo at the top of our Blog). This year again the traffic was stopped, the Ings carpark converted to party zone and the crowds attracted.

The runners are families having fun, work colleagues, the local cops, kids and some very serious and athletic front runners all of whom took part to various levels of competitiveness and commitment. The group of Grandmums in Tutus followed by Mid aged mums in bustiers french maid outfits were best not photographed unless sensitivities be offended

cops kids

The crowds grew through the day but these shots are before the start as the bands did sound checks, the fun fair pumped itself up and the stallholders laid out their tempting morsels and knick knacks.

I would have taken more pictures as the day progressed, especially of the rock band who were fantastic, playing the great rock classics, and generally of the crowds of folk who turned up. But Gail had the new camera in her bag, she was away for 5 days, and the old Sony finally gave up all pretence of wanting to convert light to digits. Hope you get a sense of the weekend though. This really real summer we are experiencing certainly makes our Wetherby adventure just that much more enjoyable. (2007 and 2008 didn't have a summer)

On my stroll away from the pram race festivities I headed off down the river bank, over the stone bridge and into town to do some shopping and heard a big band in brass crescendo blasting up from the bandstand in the Wilderness Park under the bridge.... I glanced over and saw even more folk lounging and laying around on the grass on the river banks or wading in the river listening to the somewhat calmer music and eating ice cream cones. How idyllic.

A Yorkshire summer weekend to be locked into memory.......