All the fun of the fair!

Had a lovely day out with the family on Saturday to Heckington Show - the largest village show in England. The show is now in it's 144th year and I have visited many times over the years both with family and as an exhibitor.

Set in the heart of rural Lincolnshire, the site at Heckington is huge and has a vast array of stalls, exhibition tents, animal demonstrations, fields of vintage transport, food halls, fair rides and a long list of attractions in the main ring from athletic races and battle re-enactments to heavy horse parades and stunt bikes.

Each year we've visited seems to have been bathed in sunshine except one occasion when we were exhibiting - the rain came and stayed for both days of the event. The entire site turned into a mud bath and cars had to be pulled out by a tractor but the show went on regardless. It has grown so much over the years but still has the same 'village' show feel to it. My favourite tent  in the whole show has to be the 'competition' tent where all the entries are laid out having been judged by a select panel.

 Competitions include the usual village staples of longest carrot and largest cauliflower to the more bizarre categories such as best decorated welly and vegetable aliens. The whole tent is filled with wonderful creations...miniature gardens, rockets made from cardboard boxes and tubes, brightly painted crowns, floral arrangements and cakes.

We took our two boys along (Charlie at only 8 weeks couldn't quite appeciate his surroundings but was happy to have his milk 'al fresco')....

Alfie at 4 years old was in his element!
He's been obsessed with transport, cars in particular since he was tiny so wandering around the vintage cars, tractors and machinery was a real treat. Then of course there were the rides...funhouse, bumperboats, bouncy castle and bouncy slide were particular favourites. Add a sprinkling of ice cream and his day was complete!

Unfortunately, the boys are still a little young for us to stay for the firework display which takes place on the Saturday night and as we had to drive home, we weren't able to sample what the beer tent had to offer but overall we had a lovely time and will no doubt be back again next year.
"Heckington's GREAT!" shouts Alfie on the way home...big compliment from a hard-to-please 4 year old