Devon County Show

Yesterday was a day we have been looking for for many months now: The Devon County Show. We had bagged press passes but we’re not quite swish enough for anything other than public transport yet, so we donned our special gold medallions and boarded the bus.

Unfortunately, it turned out the entirety of the rest of the world was also heading to the show, so after sitting on a ridiculously hot and ridiculously stationary bus for an hour, we made the decision to get off and walk the rest of the 2 mile trip. Nobody says we aren’t dedicated.

Anyway, we finally arrived, and first up we met our new favourite animals in the world: alpacas!

Aren’t they ridiculously adorable? These two were my favourites – look at them posing!

There was SO much to see and do, but we largely concentrated on the various farm animals. There was a tent for every type of farm animals you could find, and I photographed all my favourite specimens.

We even met a pig that was for sale…WITH MY NAME!

 

Obviously, the trip wouldn’t have been complete without a trip to the Food & Drink Pavilion, which we stupidly almost missed out altogether because none of us can read a map. We sampled various baked goods, chutneys and so on – sadly it didn’t quite match up to the Food Fest – and then decided on ice cream, for most of the girls, or ice cream AND a burger/bacon sandwich, for Kate and I. I was hungry – whatever.

On our way out, we stumbled across a tent that was home to some stupidly cute baby animals such as this sheep, which kept sticking his head out of the pen and nudging my leg. I think he wanted a picture.

And we also met these guys, two baby goats and a mummy goat. We thought they were pretty cute but when the one little one jumped aboard his mum we fell completely in love!

Overall, the DCS was such a fun day out and we were so lucky with the weather, which was gorgeous! It was also VERY busy and we were all absolutely exhausted by the end, so there was loads more we could have seen but we decided to call it a day with the baby animals and headed home to watch Eurovision and eat prawn crackers. Did anyone else really, really want Belarus to win?! (And on that note, does anyone want to buy me an alpaca?)

Exeter Food Festival

Today was THE best day! When we got up this morning the sun was shining (actually a regular occurrence now, FINALLY), so Nicole, Daryl and I decided to head into town for the South West Festival of Food and Drink. It was held in the grounds of Exeter Castle and the surrounding Northernhay Gardens, which somehow I’ve never been to before, but what a gorgeous setting! It had views all over Exeter and the hills around it, which, on a gorgeous day like today, are absolutely stunning.

Our first port of call – and the place we spent most of the day – were the Food and Drink Pavilions. Nothing could have prepared us for the sheer size of these tents: there were two, absolutely stuffed with stands from various local food and drink vendors. Naturally, we kicked things off with some sparkling cider champagne, from Ashridge (conveniently placed right by the first entrance). We sampled both kinds, regular apple and apple and blackberry, and settled for apple and blackberry. At £2.50 a glass it was a right bargain!

Then it was time for the real exploring to begin. We sensibly decided on a system of working allllll the way up one side and then alllll the way down the other, and made our way through each tent sampling everything we could get our hands on. As well as a whole lot of chutneys and a surprising amount of chillis (we tried one chilli paste/dip thing that was so hot it made our noses run) there were some seriously impressive cakes, macarons and fudge to be had:

These were from the fabulous Frandie Macaron, at the beginning of the day. I bought a bag of “Maca-wrongs” (broken shells) and vowed to come back later to buy some. When we did, a couple of hours later, almost all the flavours were gone (boooo!), but I bought a ginger, white chocolate and cardamom one that I just polished off and which was DELICIOUS.

LOOK AT THAT CAKE! This one was the Get Cupcaked stand, and again, when we came back in the afternoon, almost everything had sold out!

Truly Treats

Olivers Bakery, based in Crediton – can’t find a website for them!

I can’t remember the name of this fudge shop which is so sad because it was fab! SO many flavours (including marmite…what?!). I tried the banana crunch and it was fab, I expected it to be vanilla fudge just with banana in it but the whole thing actually tasted like banana – yum!

This was Cakeadoodledoo, and this, the lovely lady told us, is a concoction made of pink wafers, chocolate, syrup, butter “and all that good stuff.” She also told us they have a shop opening in Exeter very soon (next week I think) so I’ll definitely be checking that out!

Having sampled as much as we possibly could, we decided to grab another drink and something proper to eat. Nicole had had her eye on a particular burger stand, where she got a lamb burger with mint sauce, and Daryl went for the traditional beef. I decided to get all adventurous and got a duck burger, with plum sauce, from the stand next door. I didn’t take a picture as it didn’t look all that glam, but we took our food, got some good old Devon cider from the festival bar, and went and sat in the sun. There was live music and a fab atmosphere and it was just so lovely!

After lunch was perhaps the best part of the whole day: THE PIGS! Hidden right at the back of the festival was a little pigpen filled with one enormous mummy pig and about ten ridiculously adorable piglets. We fought some kids out the way (not really) to get some pictures:

After all that piggy fun, it was time for another quick trip around the pavilions and then we headed up through the castle grounds to the other bit of the festival, which to be honest we only found by accident – we nearly found ourselves in a queue to go back the way we had come! But anyway, in the castle courtyard was more fab food, a hog roast, more live music, and the bit I had been most looking forward to: the Cookery Theatre!

We stood at the back for a bit with another half a cider (oops – this time strawberry for me, and it was yum) and watched Darrin Hosegrove and Rob Dawe from the Ashburton Cookery School, alongside Mr Michael Caines himself (note – not Michael Caine, who is v different). They were really really funny, it was like watching a live Ready, Steady Cook and made me want to become a chef!

By this point it was late afternoon, so there was just time for another glass of cider champagne and another little wander. By this point we were pros at zigzagging between all our fave stalls! I took a cheeky selfie – had to document my Food Festival presence – and some  more pictures of the gorgeous scenery before we headed home!

Overall this was SUCH a good day and, at just £7.50 for an adult day pass, I would highly recommend the Food Fest to anyone with any vague interest in eating or Devon! I am almost tempted to go back tomorrow except my stomach probably can’t handle any more brownie, fudge or cupcake samples…