St Richards Festival, Droitwich 2018

St Richards Festival, Droitwich

May 2018

Phew, the 2018 Droitwich festival was a hot one!

As the festival approached the weather forecast got better and better, and when the weekend finally arrived we were treated to three days of wall to wall sunshine. Each day was hotter than the last and at the risk of stating the obvious, the success of canal festivals is very weather dependent.

Droitwich, or St Richards Festival to give its its proper name, is far more than a canal festival. It represents a significant event in the town's calendar and as such is able to attract massive numbers of visitors. The crowds flocked in and rather than sheltering from rain they sat around in the shade, eating drinking and generally making merry. Our customers turned out in force and we enjoyed our best ever Droitwich from a sales perspective, running out of some lines which is a bit of a shock for the first event of the year!

Given the unrelenting demand I never got to see any of the event beyond Vines Park, but that was ok. All day long people sat around outside the beer tent, listening to the bands till late in the evening. With a regular shuttle of beer deliveries arriving there was a steady supply of Bumblehole, our favourite beer and its sharp refreshing taste kept us going through the heat of the afternoons.

I lost count of the number of friends who came to the event and say hello. If you came and I barely saw you I do apologise!

Droitwich isn't really a big boaters event, and there was not a lot in the shape of historic boat interest this year. That said, Hadar was in the basin and Scorpio arrived bearing a cargo of salt which was used in the construction of a sculpture commemorating the salt making history of the town.

With the festival over we moved the boats to the basin and went home for a night, attending to various chores, completing several loads of washing and making a jam delivery to The Fairlawns hotel before returning to the boats and our nomadic summer existence. All in all a cracking start to the season and in one event made up for the fact that we have fewer trading days booked this year as we to a tour of the north.