Rural Pastimes

The hubby has long had a love of classic cars and on a Summer Sunday enjoys nothing more than a pootle around a classic car show. Having served in the Army in his younger days has also given him a passion for military vehicles. So imagine his joy when early in August we were free to visit the Rural Past Times weekend giving him a chance to indulge in both 😆

I can’t say I have the same passion but I don’t mind tagging along for a couple of hours, especially if he treats me to an ice cream 🍦. This year we enlisted our daughter and twin 1 to endure, I mean enjoy all things rural with us.

Before we left home, the hubby had retrieved some of his artefacts from the loft to see if he could interest any other ex REME guys to take them off his hands. As we filtered through the gate, we were immediately upon the military vehicles. And we lost him for about 20 minutes whilst he reminisced with other ex army.

Having retrieved him he then started to reminisce, with Twinnie about the vehicles he’d once driven and as a mechanic in the REME, the vehicles he’d worked on. They climbed aboard an armoured vehicle and investigated some of the trucks together.

There was so much more to see, so I dragged them away, passed the tractor ploughing displays, and a recovered Messerschmitt plane and towards a replica of a land army farm, where twin one completed a quiz to win a sticker.

We made our way towards the classic cars, through a display of old camper vans and buses, where twinnie tried out a cranking handle. He looked at us as if we were a bit mad when we told him that’s was how cars were originally started 😂😂😂

There weren’t as many classic cars as at some previous shows we’d attended, but we strolled up and down the lines, reminiscing about cars our parents had had and others from our distant youth.

We delved into the world of steam engines, some used for sawing wood, for milking cows, for pumping water and of course for electricity 💡. The wind made it quite smoky and a little bit fumey so we didn’t stop to admire the machines as long as we normally would.

Time for some crockery smashing and a look back at chocolates from a bygone age, before stopping for a refreshing drink. As we took a seat we were entertained by a drumming group.

The arena was now alive with military vehicles demonstrating what they could do. Right ahead of us was the guy the hubby had been chatting to. He waved when he saw the hubby straight in front of him 🤣. There were trucks used for transporting equipment and/or personnel and tracked vehicles. Perching on the hay bales, we partook of an ice cream as the trucks trundled passed. To the side, lumberjacks were giving a demonstration of how fast they could reach the top of the pole.

Four hours later and we were wending our way back through some of the classic vehicles, making way for a couple of shire horses heading to the arena and took one final look at the military vehicles now parked back near the exit