Nourish Festival at Bovey Tracey September 2016

I think this Nourish Food and Art fair, Bovey Tracey was popular for a couple of reasons - the main one being that the craft fair held in the town in June is really high quality, and this is hosted by the same organisers.  So it was a good indicator of a high standard, plus the event would be well organised and fun to attend.

It was really busy - the main street had all the food and drink stalls and the art/craft was in the methodist hall.

Considering the weather was showery and looked a bit damp and grey, there were as many members of the public there as I would have expected on a sunny day.  It was actually quite difficult to get at many of the stalls as there were so many people looking (and hopefully buying) the attractive wares on offer.

I bought my Vietnamese Pho lunch from the lovely people at The Teign Canteen:

 I ate it quickly when I got home - it was delicious - nice and umami with a fresh lime wedge.  Plenty of chicken, noodles and broth - all served in an eco-friendly recyclable pot.

 I also bought a lemon-scented geranium - a Pelargonium Cy's Sunburst (pictured above - the yellowy one on the far left.) from the nice man from Laurel Farm Herbs (Whiddon Down).  This has yellow, crinkly, variegated leaves and can be used in salads.  Sounds good.

 Outside the Methodist Hall, where the crafts were, Hay Mambo coffee stall seemed to be getting in a few orders!

 I spent over an hour at the festival (at least 40 minutes admiring the food, 20 minutes at the Methodist Hall looking at the crafts).  Plus a quick 20 minute visit to Devon Guild to see their latest exhibition. I would have spent longer at the festival if the sun was shining.  A band was playing which added to the atmosphere, but I didn't linger.

Bristol Trip

We stayed at the Bristol Hotel which was good.  A little bit impersonal, but we knew that's what we were getting.

A good price via one of the price comparison websites too.  We didn't have the hotel breakfast as it wasn't included and the rumour was that the Crepe and Coffee Cabin just down the road in Prince Street did excellent coffees with great 'latte art'.  It's tiny in there, but there's no arguing with the quality of the service or the quality of the coffee.

We munched for lunch at Friska - this is the ground floor of the great record (and books, T shirts, posters etc) shop, Rise on Queen's Rd.  This was exceptionally good.  I can highly recommend it - good value, home cooked and damn tasty.  And then we got to spend a fortune upstairs on CDs, books and presents!

Contemporary Craft Fair, Bovey Tracey, June 2011

Today I spent the morning at Bovey Tracey Contemporary Craft Fair thanks to a generously donated free ticket from jeweller extraordinaire, Christine Kaltoft.  (Sorry, Christine, I didn't find you there today; I shall look for you on Saturday.)

General view of fair:

Here are some of the craft stands that particularly piqued my interest.  This was my first love-at-first-sight - wonderfully quirky jewellery by Helen Noakes - (great website too, Helen!)  mini plastic figures inside perspex with silver fixings.  Very tempted to get some mini swimmer cufflinks made for N, but probably won't be able to find £100 to do so!

I was struck by the beautiful and subtly different blue glazes created by Taja (based in Moretonhampstead).  What a nice man!  I would really like some of these tea mugs:

Anya Keeley won the 'Best Stall' prize for 2011 - beautiful trinkets and animals made from recycled materials, books, maps.

And I admire the pzazz of Alison from Dr Beans Bags (Isle of Wight) who bring along customised handmade bags just for the denizens of Bovey Tracey!  (Does she do this for every village?  Clever lady!)

I attended a printmaking workshop for two hours and discovered the instant and random joys of monotype printing with Brian Norman:

My 'Sunset over Manhattan' looked better on the perspex block than on the paper afterwards!

At lunchtime, the rain arrived (therefore no photo of my shared al fresco lunch with L and two charming men who held up an umbrella to shelter the poor shivering ladies-who-lunched!) but I feasted on a homemade crab quiche alongside a scrummy chocolate and vanilla cupcake from the Devon Guild Cafe stand.

The overall quality of the wares on offer is top notch.  A totally brilliant place to buy all the presents you need for all your female friends and rellies.  The workshop was great fun (and very cheap) and the food was excellent.  The fair is on this weekend, Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 June 2011.  Get yourself over to Bovey for an inspiring day out!

Click here to see more of my experiences from the fair in 2010.

Contemporary Craft Fair, Bovey Tracey 11-13 June

Just want to advertise the fact that the Contemporary Craft Fair is coming soon to Bovey Tracey, Devon.  Having visited it for the last two years and made several purchases, I can vouch that it is amazing collection of really innovative, interesting and high quality artefacts with artists and crafts people all present to chat to.

The workshops are good value and useful - I did the 'Making Jewellery' one and the local, homemade food is pretty good too.  Slices of cake were far too small though! There are also craft demos, live music and Punch and Judy.

This year, I would like one of these (silver and wood jewellery by Christine Kaltoft) please:

and I'll also have one of these:

This artist's work (Jennifer Collier), was one of my favourites last year, everything painstakingly crafted from paper:

This year I'm volunteering at the Kids' Craft Tent which I'm really looking forward to.

Entry is £6 adults and free for children.  Oh, and you can park on site for free.  I'm going to have a couple of free tickets due to my helping in the craft tent, so if you're local to me, get in touch and I'll give them to you!  Put it in your diary.

The Craft Fair has a target of reaching 800 Facebook fans and only has two weeks left, please join here if you can, then you get all the updates and loads of great photos of their artists' works:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Bovey-Tracey-United-Kingdom/The-Contemporary-Craft-Fair/10942196351?ajaxpipe=1&__a=13