Saturday 3rd September 2022
I woke up to rain and lay watching it bounce on the neighbours roof while contemplating life, dreams and the day ahead.
As the day aged, the rain moved away and we decided to go to the event that I canceled a book festival in the Isle of Arran for. (It was a children's book festival and I don't plan to write children's book, so...)
We drove about 40 minutes to the outskirts of Darlington to attend the Tees Cottage Steampunk event. Two interests in one go. My sister had loaned me a 'mad hatters hat' and I brought my Steampunk leggings from SA so sort of dressed up. Bernadette declined respectively although she gets brownie points for walking around with me, haha.
On parking up, a regular Steampunker drove in beside us and we chatted a little. I was curious to his story which had 5 years of attending events and the Steampunk 'scene' and he explained what it is to Bernadette - a kind of Victorian Science Fiction. The fair was interesting in some ways, not many vendors as such but there was a variation of Morris dancers doing a display and I was very surprised at how many people had really dressed up in character. It was great fun to watch and I got a few compliments on my modified hat.
The real pull was the pump house though, because I'd seen some pictures online and it was one of those 'better to see it in person' moments. The Cottage has open weekends with volunteers manning the machinery but it's not always a Steampunk event. Built in 1848 as a means to pump water from the Tees River for the use of the town, I was amazed to see these huge machines work. It's noisy and greasy and fascinating and dirty from the coal in the air. But I was very impressed by how pretty they made the insides of this large building. The volunteers are passionate about it and gladly share the workings and details about it and it's great to see.
We then drove to the nearby town of Yarm which had a lovely busy small high street. We were helped out with a Pound coin for the parking by some lovely ladies as neither of us had cash. We had a delightful lunch at a pavement Cafe because the weather was a lot warmer than at the coast side. I hadn't realised how hungry I was until our food arrived. I never even stopped to take a photo, I just gulped it down. We strolled down the road taking in the sights and then headed back happy.
My niece and her lovely boys arrived and I managed to get a photo with the younger one. I'm going to miss all of this when I set off on my travels again on Monday. I've been here for a month and it's been fabulous.
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