After several long
months in the wilderness, we both decided on Thursday last week that we really
fancied doing a show. We put it to our
Facebook followers and had several suggestions, but one in particular caught our
eye: Avoncroft Aircooled – a one day show taking place at Avoncroft Museum of
Historic Buildings.
I had vague
recollections of going there as a kid; notably being frightened to death by one
of the costumed staff warning me that “The whiter your bread, the sooner you’re
dead,” when teaching us about the flour milling process. To this day, I have residual guilt whenever
I choose white over brown.
Still, all I could really remember of the place was the windmill, so the prospect of being able to
explore everything the museum had to offer in between trading, seemed like a
fine plan. A quick glance at the
forecast suggested warm, dry weather until 8 pm, so plenty of time for us to
pack up and head home before the rain.
Gaz made the call and we were booked in and ready to go.
Typically, we can’t
go anywhere without producing a souvenir sticker and so here’s the first ever
show sticker produced for Avoncroft Aircooled.
Note the FLAT 4 number plate – a little nod to the organisers.
After a relatively
dry Eurovision party on Saturday night (early start), we awoke to glorious
sunshine.
On arrival, we
were greeted by friendly staff and directed to an idyllic setting in amongst
the trees, just in front of the Mission Church, a Victorian “tin chapel”
rescued from Bringsty, Herefordshire.
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| The Mission Church and Wedding Bus |
The whole vibe was
low key and chilled out. We took limited stock and downsized for the day. After an initial downpour, the sun returned and the
numerous green spaces were awash with picnics and ball games.
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| The Voodoo Street Stand |
In readiness for
this year’s Star Wars themed Vdubs in the Valley, we took along some flyers to
help promote the show and our Steampunk Boba Fett helmet, which I could have
sold several times over! Coincidentally
our neighbour was trading under the name OB1.
Trade was steady
and we were the sole provider of music, courtesy of our BruteBox. I recently replaced my phone and stupidly
omitted to download the vast majority of my music to enable me to play it
offline. The one album I had remembered
to download was the new Blondie album, Pollinator, so apologies to any visitors
who can’t stand Blondie (can’t imagine there are many), but it’s all I had!!
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| The Privy |
During one of our
trading lulls, Cal and I discovered this 3 seater privy. It was probably up there with some of the
nicer festival toilets!
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| Ye Olde Festival Toilet |
A must was a visit
to the iconic post mill windmill, perched at the edge of the site, overlooking
a sea of campervans. Visitors to the museum and VDubbers mingled in the sunshine. One elderly museum visitor made the priceless comment on a rat look split screen: "There's one that they're going to do up!"
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| View from the Windmill |
The
19th century post mill
– one of only three surviving examples in
the Midlands – was rescued
from Danzey Green near Tanworth-in-
Arden in 1969 and reconstructed at
Avoncroft.
Having
undergone an extensive programme of structural repairs over
many years,
disaster struck the windmill in January 2012 when high
winds brought down one
of the sails and damaged the supporting round
house. The sail was broken
beyond repair and a new one had to be
manufactured to replace it.
However, by October 2013 the work was
completed and the windmill was restored
to full working order.
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| Splitscreens were out in force |
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| Spot the little rat skeleton on the roof rack! |
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| One of the first to grab a show sticker was the owner of this cool rat look bus. |
The
day flew by and punctuated by a little Mobile BeerBuz cider
(thanks Gaz and
Hayley), left us with a rosy glow and a desire to do it
all again next year –
a perfect start to the outdoor show season.
