Jane Austen Festival 2012: Part 1

I am slowly but surely catching up on my blogging! Next for your perusal is my report on the Jane Austen Festival 2012. Sadly this year, as I predicted, I wasn't allowed to take time off work, so I missed out on the events during the week. But at least I got to go to a few on the weekends. 

Well of course the first event of the week was the promenade, the grand opening, where everyone shows off their smartest daywear. :)

Aurora wearing her gorgeous new pelisse and hat. Me serious want!,

Waiting in Queens Square for the promenade to start.

The promenade begins...

Walking past the Jane Austen Centre.

An adorable dog that turned around just as I was taking its picture. :(

A traffic jam in Milsom street. 

Priscilla and Claire looking ever so elegant! 

A lady wearing a beautiful open robe.

Admiring the soldiers in Parade Gardens (where the promenade ended). 

The dancers of Steps in Time performing in the gardens.

Two girls wearing beautiful spencers!

Promenaders watching the dancing.

Aurora, I and Jeanette

Shopping at the local village shop :)

That evening we went to see a Georgian play at the Guildhall. Apparently it was originally written for the actor David Garrick.

I have to admit that the first half was rather hard to follow (a mixture of strong scottish accents and georgian language) but the second half was much better.

Here are a few photos of the actors:

Next post: 2nd Promenade and embroidery. 

Hat Boxes

I have been in need of a hat box for quite some time. My bonnets have been getting crushed in the back of a wardrobe for far too long. My dream would be to have a beautiful old fashioned leather one with my initials emblazoned on the top *dreamy sigh*. However hat boxes are not an item you see in shops very often these days, and leather ones seem to be non-existent except for antique ones (which I wouldn't want to use for fear of damaging them). I am sure, if one was willing to spend thousands, then some company such as Louis Vuitton would make one. Oh well one can dream :). Anyway I decided to look into buying the only ones that seem to be on offer these days, which are made out of cardboard. After checking the regular places such as Amazon, I came across The Holding Company, who stock pretty storage boxes and the like. They sell, what looked like sturdy, and rather pretty hat boxes which are made out of recycled fibreboard. I decided to order a lovely pink one with a white ribbon that ties over the lid. However, when it arrived I realised that recycled fibreboard is far from strong and sturdy, and that the box would never survive the train journey to Bath for the JA Festival, or journeys to reenactments. Despite this major flaw its beauty won me over and I decided to keep it and use it just for storage, and buy another one for travelling. :)

Birds-eye view of box from The Holding Company

Side View

It turned out that actually it wasn't big enough to store all my bonnets in, so I needed another one for storage anyway. When doing my research on hat boxes, I cam across a few that were being sold at the local haberdashery shop. Since they were cardboard I thought they wouldn't be good enough, so I went to look for different ones. However, after my first box arrived, I went back to see the ones in the shop and realised that they were actually rather sturdy and each had a very useful handle, which was positioned for easy carrying. There were three, all with the same decoration but different sizes. I bought the biggest one hoping that it would fit all my bonnets in, and it does. So now I have two very pretty hat boxes, and no longer have to wear misshapen bonnets. :)

Side of second box - it has a few lovely images of women in 30's outfits.

Top

Close up of the images

another close up