Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Got milk?
Well, Saturday morning we slithered out of bed at 7, and were on the road down to Portsmouth by 8.The drive down started off badly, with an early morning traffic jam on the M25 (gasp! Shock! Horror! Surely not!) caused by some eejit having an accident.
Eventually we escaped via junction 10 and hurtled off along the A3; we took the turnoff and were suddenly in the countryside proper, driving along leafy, winding roads with cows and stuff in the distance.
On arriving at the Gardens, we were quite surprised by how busy it was already – the field being used as a prking lot was filling up fast. Once inside the event it was busy, but not crushingly so; there was a nice friendly buzz and no one we came across was overly pushy shovey, so for once we didn’t have to kick shins and claw our way through the mob.
Most of the people were simply clustered in front of the various stalls.
I have to admit it wasn’t quite what I expected – I was expecting a US style chilli cook-off type of event, with people bringing in their homemeade chillis for tasting and so on. Still, it was good. I got to taste various sauces, relishes, jellies –even ice cream- all of which had chillis as the main ingredient.
Very illuminating! I seem to have a mid-range tolerance for the little buggers.
The ice cream was quite an experience- cold and sweet, but with a cumulatively hotter aftertaste. Very nice.
For lunch I had a simply luscious sausage from the O’Hagan’s grillers, a handmade Argentinian Chilli Chorizo. Damn that was one good sausage!
We made our way to the exits after about 3 hours of lazy browsing; it was also getting a bit crowded.
As we waited to rejoin the main road, there was a long line of cars queuing to get in…. so next year, we’ll be up & at it even earlier.
Hey..
Got a light?
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