The Hampshire Water Festival in July was, as usual,
marked by some steady Hampshire rain. The site
at Staunton Country Park, West Leigh, Havant was
already waterlogged by the Friday, so our displays
had to be carried to and from the car park and on
Saturday the ground became even muddier, even though
the organisers had put down matting inside the
marquee. Parts of the marquee were leaking so
tarpaulins had been draped over the roof; the
humidity was very unpleasant, even when the weather
improved on Sunday.
Apart from our Hampshire Mills Group displays we
were selling Eling Tide Mill stone ground flour and
our own books and cards, and, offering free cake
made from wholemeal flour. At the end of the
weekend, the display all had to be cleaned and the
yellow frilled slugs which had got into everything
had to be sacrificed to the blackbirds.
Once again we are very grateful to Mick, Andy, Peter
Mobbs, John Christmas & Carol O’Shaughnessy, plus
John & Margaret Silman for their hard work. There
were smaller numbers of visitors to the Festival
than in earlier years and we all felt that the
Festival has become more an arts and crafts fair and
most of the water element has gone, so we will
recommend that we don’t do this Festival again.
