Friday at Waltz on the Wye

[vampyresheep]

Tickets collected and bearings found, we headed back to our "hotel" to get changed for the evening.  We'd already had numerous comments on our attire (thankfully complimentary!) and that was just wearing our usual daywear! :-)

 

My Friday outfit was a bit of a jumble of styles.  Couldn't really decide what to wear that I hadn't worn before and also wanted lots of layers as I knew we'd be outdoors for much of the evening - slightly failed on the warmth front (too bloody vain to just put a proper coat on!) but pretty pleased with the overall effect of chaotic, clashing, aristocrat-fallen-on-hard-times sort of look!
The location of the Riverside Gardens was just perfect for camera-tart moments. :-)

 


Started off at the Bridge Inn for the welcome barbeque and meet-up.  Still too full up to partake of barbeque, I started on the pub's rather lovely range of Welsh ciders instead.  I can particularly recommend Dog Dancer, which was my beverage of choice for the rest of the weekend - cider that tastes like German mead!

     

 

Soon it was time to head over to the bandstand for the first act, Ellethia.  Beautiful folky guitarist/singer, it was perfect to mellow out in the park with the sun setting, whilst enjoying the wares of the delicious Strumpets with Crumpets  stall.

   

     
 

Next we all headed to the Drill Hall for the Magic Lantern performance.  Gratefulness for a moment of warmth indoors aside, it was one of the highlights of the weekend.  An hour's performance of a stunning collection of Victorian slides, accompanies by music, humour and sound effects.  It truly felt like we'd gone back in time.


Back outdoors to the bandstand to see Pocketwatch, a side project of the fantastic Clockwork Quartet.  A more pared down version of the Clockwork Quarted (and thereby more practical for touring) consisting of a guitar, cello and banjo.  So beautiful to listen to out in the gardens, with the bandstand all lit up with fairy lights.  Not sure how they managed to keep playing in the cold though!  They played some of their own stuff along with a few pieces from the CQ - including of course the Watchmakers Apprentice :-)
And the great news is - Pocketwatch are now also playing at the Asylum!! Rob's being all smug now, saying that it was he who suggested it to them!



We wanted to delay our return to the hotel/chav infested bar for as long as possible, so we headed back to the Bridge Inn with some lovely people we got chatting to earlier on.  Soon more people joined us, with quite a little crowd around our table.  Probably the ultimate highlight of the weekend was how friendly everyone was, it truly made the event.

Eventually we were turfed out of the pub and we made the way back up the hill to our hotel, with company most of the way, as one couple lived a couple of doors down. 
And then for a moment of pure hell - the top end of Chepstow is chav-central, drunk people staggering around, girls wearing the tiniest dresses I've ever seen!  We had to show our key to the bouncer on the door to be let in; plans to make a dash for the stairs failed as the place was so crowded we had to push past people to get in.  Fortunately they were mostly too drunk to be aware of the "wierdos" in their midst!
Ran up the stairs to the safety of our hotel corridor and to our room, where mercifully the double glazing was good enough to block out the noise.

So just one little downside to an otherwise perfect 1st day, shame it left a bit of a cloud looming over the next day - how the hell was I going to manage that chav-expedition whilst wearing a floor length ballgown!

Comments

[ruby-loveblood.livejournal.com]

Your outfit looks really good and very well put-together!

[vampyresheep.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I did have a fur cape with it too - somehow omitted to get any decent photos wearing it - which made the overall look even more bonkers!
Having ideas to adapt on it even more for WGT. :-)