Feeling Thrifty and oh so Vintage

 Last weekend I was blabbering on about all my exciting plans to visit the York Vintage Fair and the Thrift Festival in Darlington. Well I have had a fabulous time at both of them so my weekends were very enjoyable!

I spent the day in York with Ryan last Sunday and we popped along to the Vintage fair to check out what they had to offer. There were all sorts of retro clothing but I spent most of my time eyeing up Levis shorts and some jumpers for Sam's birthday. I did get myself some lovely new shorts and chose a cute knitted jumper for Sam that she seemed to be happy with this morning. We spent the rest of the afternoon casually strolling through York and had lunch at Pitcher and Piano. I was very cheeky on Sunday and also went out for a carvery with Sofia, but shhhh it's the weekend!

This weekend I spent time in Yarm as it was Sam's birthday today. We went out for a lovely meal where I had a cauldron of Thai Green curry (which everyone at the table stared at) before heading to Yarm High Street for a few drinks. Yarm is always an experience, lets just put it that way!! Then this morning, after re-fuelling with tea and croissants, we drove to Darlington for the Thrift Festival. It was free entry and sooooo worth it! We spent ages walking around and looking at all the cute things the stalls had to offer.

There were loads of different crafty type stalls selling their goods; even a woman who made jewellery out of spoons! I learnt all about brownie box cameras from the guy on the camera stall, might have got caught by the Look North camera man, drooled over fresh bread and yummy cakes, got all geeky about Harry Potter quote necklaces and was very excited about all the hula-hooping and hippy vans.

 

For lunch there was a lot of choice. You could book a table to dine in a themed hippy van (bizarre but really cool) or grab something from the street food stalls or cafe. We opted for a Moroccan style falafel flatbread with chopped salad and hummus, YUM!

It's a shame that Ryan couldn't come with us as he would have enjoyed all of the upcycling goodness and would have definitely stuck around for the talks. I also spied a veg box scheme and some 'help yourself' veg plots that would have made him really happy :) I know he had a nice day at the York Food Festival though so I don't feel too guilty.

 I have really enjoyed spending my time shopping in these alternative places. It was so refreshing to experience something different to High Street shops. Please let me know if you hear of future events that are similar because I will definitely want to go! :)

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future

Yesterday I had a fantastic day at the YUMI community street festival, despite my ridiculously early start. YUMI is a multicultural initiative with a community garden that Ryan volunteers for, he is a keen gardener so it's totally his kind of thing. You can find out more about the work they do from their website, http://www.yumiyork.org/ 

"YUMI links people with different beliefs, lifestyles and cultural roots: we share our skills and talents, support each other, celebrate our traditions and achievements, and lead public events."

So how do I come into all of this? Ryan asked if I would help out with the festival as there were a few children's activities (my specialty) but I strangely enjoyed getting mucky with the bunching onions before tucking into some delicious food from India, Hungary and Harrogate's Bettys (a little closer to home of course).

The success of the festival was of course down to all the hard work that went into the organisation and the growing of all the produce. My tiny contribution is nothing in comparison to all the people that religiously gave up their time to make sure everything stayed on track. I did visit the allotment a few times and I was definitely the only one who didn't know a pak choi from a tomatillo.

On the day all of the plants got transported by van to Parliament Street in York (where all the best festivals and markets happen) at 6am!! Yes that meant a very very very early start for us. Once we got stuck in and started mulching (I picked up gardening words, go me!) the time soon flew by and before we knew it we had a beautiful little garden in the city centre. The little touches such as painted wooden signs and facts about the plants made it even more interesting and colourful to look at. 

One of my favourite parts was what I have nicknamed the cute produce stand. The ceramic pots, painted wooden labels and mucky bags gave it a real authentic garden feel and I loved reading where the seeds had come from. Hungary, Japan, and Poland are a few that I can remember. I don't know whose idea the wellies were but I think they looked awesome!

As well as the beautiful garden, there were also stalls where chefs from around the world had cooked some native dishes using ingredients that were being grown on the allotment. There were also some children's activities that enhanced their understanding of both the cultures and where the food comes from. I was amazed to see food from so many countries all being sold in one place. I also learnt where some dishes originate from that I didn't know before.

 After perusing all of the yummy goodies that the chefs had to offer, we settled for the Indian Chickpea Curry. It is something I have tried before which defeats the purpose BUT it was delicious! Plus it came with some type of fried bread that I had never heard of. I got a little more adventurous with pudding and sampled a Hungarian poppyseed cake with raspberry sauce before going chocolate testing at the Betty's tent. The lady was lovely and so interesting! I never knew that so many processes went into making chocolate from cocoa beans. Betty's had mixed new flavours of chocolate specially for the festival. I was brave a tried a 'rosemary and olive oil' as well as a 'wasabi' flavoured one rather than playing it safe with ginger caramels. They were weird but strangely yummy too!

Thank you YUMI and Ryan for letting me be part of such a fun and interesting day!! Now I just need plenty of sleep ready to start my first year of teaching on Monday...... and you guys thought I wasn't going to mention it :P hahaha good luck to all you NQTs out there! Just remember that you are fabulous teachers and there is more to life than your work <3