2011 Beer Festival

There were lot of machinations earlier this week as to where to put this years Beer Festival - the weather forecast was indicating fairly poor conditions for Friday and showers, so should it be in the garden on the main building?  In the end the tent went up in the garden and so did the beer racks and the festival started out Friday at 3pm with showers, gradually improving through the weekend to Sunday when it was windy but warm.   Lots of people coming and going and some great beers --  "Miss Whiplash" (Batemans) and "Mad Goose" (Purity) bothered us ducks a bit, as did "Dr Morton's Hare Straightener" (Sheffield Beer Works) which sounded more like a medicine rather than a beer. The first beer to go was the "Natural Blonde" (Birds Brewery -- Bromsgrove) which probably tells a tale about our customers!

16 beers on the rack with 5 ciders

 We had plenty of entertainment in the garden -- lots to watch beside the customers

Jo Lucas busking on her violin  Saturday and Sunday  - She is one of Violin Maker  William Piper's Customers.

One Step Beyond danced between the showers on Saturday.

The Ragtime Jug Orchestra from The Forest of Dean

Saturday evening we had local guitar player Mick Quickfall and his friend playing and singing for us, this was followed by the Ragtime Jug orchestra (above), they entertained us with a mix of blues and folk - they had the customers joining in shaking pill pots, what a lark!

In the middle of all this we also had skittles being played and the arrival of the "Big Dog" (below) collecting funds for the Guide dogs for the blind.  Mark Treverton of Marksman Leisure also kindly loaned his laser blast game to raise some funds for charity during the festival -- we were glad that this was inside though, as it meant we were safe on the pond.  Talking of the pond.... timing being all, one of my duck friends took the festival as an invitation to introduce her new duckings to the world - 8 mallard ducklings that showed no fear at all!

"Big Dog"  danced on the car park!

Special visitors

We knew that there was something going on when we were woken up on Thursday morning with the clanging of pipes -- the courtyard marquee was going up, so we suspected a wedding for the weekend.  Lots of comings and goings later, the wedding party arrived on Saturday, just after a heavy down pour of rain that had everyone worried.  Fortunately, the sky cleared just as the Bride and Groom arrived and everyone was able to enjoy there welcome drink in the gardens while they took photographs.  The guests were all meandering back into the marquee for speeches when the second down pour arrived and we thought that we had seen the last of them, but it did cheer up again later and we had a lovely surprise when the Bride and Groom came and fed us -- you would have thought that they would have had too much to do to worry about us,  we were thrilled !

Matt and Rebekah made time for us on their special day, we think they will be very happy!

A quiet moment - Father of the Bride and Page

There were some cheeky pages at this wedding - we did have to keep our eyes on them!

The day after the wedding was atrocious, weather-wise - even for us ducks, however the restaurant looked pretty busy serving Sunday lunch -- probably comfort food!  We did not get of this and bread was scare -- it was just too wet.  There was a Wedding Fayre in the marquee all day Sunday and some very brave couples came along to see the 4 local wedding venues that were here.  We heard that it was a good show and lots of interested parties came -- despite the rain.  

Monday we had a dry day and lots of visitors - many with foreign accents. It turned out to be a "Twinning Visit" between Ross-on-Wye and Betzdorf, Germany.  They had a great visit to Avoncroft Museum in the morning and came to us for lunch and the afternoon. We got a good look at everyone, as spent a long time in the garden with the Falconry birds and were very complimentary about it -- can't see what all the fuss is about, the birds of prey are interesting but they don't chat like we do!

Just as we thought it was all over -- another group of special visitors arrived on Tuesday - The Redditch and Bromsgrove Carers Support Group had an open day with us and invited many of the hard working carers in the area, some lovely people and we were really pleased to see them and they seemed to have a good day out.

The Carers Carline used the Courtyard Marquee for their stands.

Now can I get some sleep?   Oh no...... it would appear not , the Beer Tent has just gone up for the annual beer festival which starts Friday!