Christmas Fayre with the Yorkshire 2018 Committee

We'd offered to help out at the Yorkshire 2018 Christmas Fayre today so we made our way across the Pennines to Halifax.  It's only about an hour away from where we live so we were soon there.

M62 summit in glorious sunshine

Arriving in the fog

We arrived at 9.30am and got stuck in straight away helping to set up.  I got the children’s craft corner ready and we were given the task of blowing up nearly 200 balloons.  I’m pretty hopeless at balloon blowing, Mark used to play the trumpet in his youth so has the technique just right and along with Big Fish they blew up all the balloons between them, along with some really keen little 'helpers' .  I’m better suited to tying the balloons so that was my job..... I never want to see another balloon!

The room was soon starting to take shape and before we knew it 11.00 came round and the doors were opened.

To paraphrase Meat Loaf...
I'll buy anything purple but I won't buy that!

This is more like it!

I then moved into the kitchen to help prepare bacon butties with the rest of the kitchen team.

Who was responsible??!

The bacon butties were a massive hit and went down really well, it was lovely when people came back to say how much they’d enjoyed them, well worth the effort and a good fundraiser too.

Also another great success was that you could by a mega mug for £6 and have free refills of tea or coffee all day – this was hugely popular.

Santa put in an appearance later on but it would seem I was on the naughty list so didn't get to sit on his knee!

Regional hampers

The best one (Lancashire)

Another good idea for a fundraiser was the hamper raffle.  Cachers from different counties could contribute to a hamper to raffle off at the fayre.  A few of us got together in Lancashire and put together a fab hamper – it was hard coming up with original ideas but I contributed some Uncle Joe’s treacle caramels, Lancashire Sauce and a book of Lancashire recipes.  There were hampers from Scotland, Essex, Warwickshire … oh and Yorkshire of course

Purple is my favourite colour so I didn’t take much persuading to buy lots of mega merch.

On Friday evening I got in from work about 7pm and just about had time to decorate the cakes ready for the buffet.  There was a lovely spread of food that cachers had generously donated.

The event was so much fun, we enjoyed every minute of it, we made lots of new friends and it was great to catch up with some old friends too.

As much as I don’t want 2018 to roll around too fast I really can’t wait for the 2018 Mega event.

SUNDAY

We stayed overnight in our camper van and on our way home from Halifax we’d planned to take a detour to do Soldier’s Lump virtual.  On the way we stopped off to do Xanthic Rock in Beaumont Park an earthcache in an amazing Victorian Park.

Beaumont Park was Huddersfield's first public park and was opened in 1879, this was such an amazing place and great to explore.

Now

Then

Unfortunately all the old buildings have been demolished.  The council decided that due to the cost of renovating the buildings it was best to demolish them.

This was definitely another one of those ‘if it weren’t for caching’ places.

Then next stop, Soldier's Lump Virtual.

Thoroughly enjoyed the walk to Soldiers Lump virtual across the moors.  The route took you along a short section of the Pennine Way and was paved most of the way but the flagstones were quite slippery in places.   There were large patches of snow on the route which were left over from a downfall earlier in the week.

Another fun weekend in the campervan….. we’re hoping next week to get back up to the lakes weather permitting.