As many of you know, the highlight of my year is the vintage social event that is Twinwood. This vintage festival has been going for many years now, however this would be my fourth year.

The main difference this time was that I had managed to persuade several family members and friends that it was so great that they all decided to join me. No pressure then!

With a larger group of us going, we certainly didn’t want to be camping but the lovely owner of the farm we stay on has self contained apartments to rent, including a 20 person bunk house with a huge kitchen, bar and wet room and shower room.

The cost of the barn was really reasonable – £900 for Friday to Monday evening and could sleep up to 20 people. As it was, there was a maximum of 8 of us at any one time, so there was lots of room and it was still reasonably priced for a 4 day stay, at around £130 each person.

The Barn Bunk House

To be honest though, although it would have been cheaper having more people in there, because there was less the hosts only put enough beds in for the amount of people staying. This meant we could have a large circular table and 8 chairs in there as well as a massive L shaped sofa and extra tables.

Enough space for all!

So finally the big day arrived and my Sister, Angela had travelled up from Hampshire to join us. We piled into her mini and drove to the farm with the bare essentials as the hubby was bringing them all later that evening.

Also in the car was Little Chick who was home from University and coming for the whole weekend. I was also expecting my blogger wifey Boo later that night. Rounding off the pack were two great friends Maxine and Gary who were driving down from Yorkshire.

Plenty of bed space

We arrived around and met up with a great vintage pal, Beverley and her daughter Elisha who were staying in a smaller apartment on the same farm. Beverley and I had camped at the farm for the previous two years and were looking forward to having a good catch up.

Another vintage friend, Lucy arrived around the same time as us so of course out came the Sparkling wine and we gave a toast to an amazing weekend planned.

I had been in touch with a couple of other amazing friends, Dickie and Jenny who I had the honour of meeting at Twinwood a couple of years ago and had booked a table for 13 of us at a local (ish) pub The Fordham Arms, that evening.

There were even Chandeliers!

We sat chilling out until we heard from Dickie and Jenny who were walking across the fields to the farm and were not sure where they were going. Angela and I walked the 20 minutes up to meet them and then walked back to the farm with them. Thankfully half way there Alexa appeared in her mini and gave Jenny and Angela a lift back whilst Dickie and I walked along the farm track.

Not too long after the hubby and mother in law arrived. Although they were coming for the meal, they were not staying over until Saturday night as he had to go to work all day Saturday. The plan was to drop off all the luggage, go and eat and then get home as early as possible.

The only other problem we faced was Maxine and Gary. They had left Yorkshire at lunchtime for the 4ish hour journey. However they had got caught up in the Leeds Festival traffic and were seriously overdue. I called the pub to put the table back to 8pm as I knew we were not going to make it.

The Barn leading into the Bar

Thankfully they arrived around 730pm and we piled into three cars to travel to the pub around 7 miles away.

The pub was lovely and welcoming and they had made a huge table for us which meant everyone was together. We ordered our meals and this is when things went a little downhill………

Lets just call it ‘MASHGATE’

Bit Blurry… the hubby took it!

Several of our party had expressed a love for mash potato and had chosen their meals with this in mind. The lovely waiter (who was severely rushed off his feet) came and told us that there would be a delay with our meals due to needing to make extra mash potato for all those who ordered it.

Well, this pleased the table extremely as they had all gone for things like pork sausages with onion gravy and mash etc.

Then the meals started to come out.

Seated areas and heavily laden grapevines

This is when the dissatisfaction hit. Each of the plates had a small tablespoon quenelle of mash potato with the other items placed on top. To be fair it was great mash, just not that much of it. Probably around four forkfuls and it was gone.

Well, the diners were in uproar!

Thankfully I had gone for Steak with chips, mushrooms and onions rings which I have to report was delicious.

Chill Out Area

To be honest, I am kind of doing the restaurant a disservice. Every meal we had was absolutely delicious. Fresh, well cooked and beautifully presented. It was just that the mash fiends didn’t get enough mash! Must be a Northern thing 😉

We eventually left the pub to return to the farm where we all congregated. Chatting, sharing clothing tips and general drinking ensued. Much fun was had by all and eventually we all settled down and tried to get to sleep.

To be fair, the beds were really comfortable and to my surprise the barn was really dark which helped.

Industrial Kitchen

Sadly I woke up around 5am and the anxiety monster took a huge hold of me and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I started to fret over the event. Would my family and friends like it? Would they think they wasted their money on an event they weren’t enjoying? The weather forecast had taken a turn for the worst. Were we going to get soaked?

All of these things I really couldn’t influence. But my demons wouldn’t let it drop.

I eventually got up at 730am started getting ready for the full day ahead……

See the next installment to find out what happened

Till next time

SPSG xx