Fun in Leicester

Well, I've been in Leicester for about 10 months now, and while it is just a regular town and not too special, there is one thing it seems to do well...festivals.

Dancing! Its not a festival without dancing

Every second week there seems to be another festival: Caribbean, Gay Pride, music, comedy, beer, bonfires and fireworks, Diwali...the list goes on.

My idea of a festival may be a bit different to yours...

Admittedly Gemma and I have not got to many, BUT, we have made an effort to get to some of the more kooky ones.

 Picrtured: Kooky.

 The first cab of the rank is the Leicetser Sasuage and Cider festival. It was an awesome day in early summer, with a variety of sausages available to try and heaps of different types of cider. We pretty much just lazed in the sun all day. There was live music and it was held on a sporting field, so there was heaps of space for kiddies to run around and be annoying.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you realise you've stumbled across a winner!

Not soon after we found ourselves at the Leicester Riverside Festival. Pretty much a weekend of weird and wonderful activities in the castle gardens and Bede Park. After been thoroughly disappointed with the maypole dancing while sipping coconut juice from coconut husks we listened to a brass band that was floating up and down the canal on a boat.

Floating musicians.

The afternoon was made complete by watching a chainsaw sculptor ply his trade, a small rock garden put together by a local rock balancer, and small non-petting zoo. It was non-petting zoo as it had snakes, spiders, and other assorted reptiles.

Chainsaw sculptor at work.

The final, and by far the coolest, festival was a day trip Gemma and I spent on the local steam train during their 1940s wartime weekend.

The steam powered 40s.

The 40s were well and truly alive; people dressed up, there were mock battles from WWII, fly pasts of spitfires, live music, and lots and lots of war machines and weapons.

Sadly, this is one of the most romantic photos we have.

We bought a ticket on the steam train that went up and down the Grand Central Railway visiting the different stops.

All aboard! Next stop, WWII Germany.

Each stop was themed differently; notably there was one themed as Britain, one as Nazi Germany, and one as the US.

He does not look intimidated.

All in all it has been a fun year and I am looking forward to seeing what other festivals I can get to in the upcoming year.