I visited the festival on Saturday 1 October, I believe I was lucky in picking the right day for sunny weather, which was in abundance.

I had visited the event last year and enjoyed the joyous atmosphere, particularly the “Dad’s Army ” parade of a home guard squad, as did the onlookers.

This year was similar to last with interesting boats and their decorations, their owners obviously putting in a lot of work to lift the joyous atmosphere – all credit to them.

Unfortunately I felt a tad disappointed at not seeing a repeat of last years “Dad’s Army” act. The performance of the “9th Betallion 5 PLT” Northamptonshire Home Guard, no doubt accurately depicting the scene and mood of the war days, was too sullen and hence did not lift the crowd as the similar performance did last year. Judge for yorself from the photos.

Despite this disappointment the event was very enjoyable especially as many people had dressed in period costumes and recreated war time conditions.

It was impossible to download the program of the event on Friday and Saturday – an error was displayed of “download limit exceeded”. Perhaps the organisers should get a better deal from their website hosters for next year. So I arrived not knowing what would take place and at what time, so missed a lot of the action – not to mention advanced notification of the entrance fee er sorry donation, of £5 which was demanded of me  by an official, without explanantion that it was a charity donation, as I tried to enter one of the army display areas.

Anyway, it was a good canal event and worth a visit next year if you didn’t get to it this year.

I think I got some good photos of the boaters and characters in the free area. I hope you agree (you could post a comment , of course – please do.). Click on images for a larger view.