Clumber Park Food and Drink Festival - Great Day Out For All

With a week off work, just by pure chance/luck, thanks to the GAP gods that are Charlie, Steph and Emma, this past week has been very productive and has involved a lot of “me” time before I start back at Uni this Wednesday to continue my studies doing my MA, and the real work starts again! I’ve done some designing and manufacturing for my upcoming personal design brand, it’s nothing big (not yet) but I’m just trying to add some variety to the Lingerie marketplace as such (go and check my design instagram page out @JessicaLPepperDesigns) and a lot of time spent over indulging with friends and family!

Now originally I was supposed to be going to the Pizza and Prosecco Festival in Manchester this weekend, but due to being at work early Sunday Morning, I unfortunately couldn’t make it, however my good friend Becca came to the rescue and we made something out of one of the seldom Saturdays I get off work and visited the Food and Wine Festival at Clumber Park which was just over a 40 minute drive away.

The Food and Drink Festival at Clumber Park has been going for the past 4 years now and is very popular, and I can understand why after visiting myself this weekend. Obviously the title of the festival speaks for itself and the event basically offers you a variety of different food and drink stores, as well as special guest celebrity chefs who do talks in the cookery theatre, along with book signings and live music from singers from the Voice and the X Factor (well this year anyway). The event runs across one weekend and starts at 10AM and finishes at 5PM with tickets costing £7 per adult which includes your general admission into Clumber Park, the festival and parking.

I The festival really does cater for everyone with stalls that sell everything from homemade pizza, to churros, to Greek cuisine in terms of food and cocktail bars, to prosecco pop ups, as well as real ale stands, situated in “vans” along the outside perimeter of the festival, with homemade brownies, fudge, sausage rolls and a variety of chesses along with wines, vodka’s and gin’s being on sale in the marquees of the festival.

For me, I’m not a massive foodie when it comes to standing and cooking (I’m not creative in that way at all), I’d rather have someone do it for me and when you have a mother like mine, who bakes award winning Caramel Shortbread, along with a mean Sheppard’s Pie, do you blame me for just wanting to sit it and eat it? So for me the food and drink festival was more of a social event, so I didn’t attend any of the cooking talks but instead drank and ate way too much whilst listening to the voices of Vince Freeman and Ant McAndrew in the live music tent, and I honestly had one of the best day’s I’ve had in a long time (promise it wasn’t anything to do with the alcohol!)

My favourite parts/stands from the Festival was the Prosecco (obviously) from Nelly’s, which was drank whilst struggling to get up on the cute hay barrels that surrounded the music tent in the form of extra seating, homemade pizza, which only cost £6 for a whole pizza not just a slice and could have easily been shared between 2 or a family of 4 as a small snack, the double decker red bus which doubled up as a bar and served the best Pimm’s and lemonade I’ve tasted and last but not least the Ninja Pig ice-cream stall which sold ice-cream rolled instead of in a cone/tub (they’re a new business so go and give them some love over on instagram @ninjapig_icecream).

Nelly' Portable Prosecco/Cocktail bar - available to rent & completely fabulous, follow them on instagram @nellysbar

Tick, Tock, it's Pimm's O'clock!

Ice Cream Roll's curtesy of @ninjapig_icecream

Overall I had a great Saturday off spent with one of my good friends at a festival that had great food, even better alcohol and an amazing atmosphere and I’ll 100% be going again next year. It really is one for everyone, friends, families, children and even dogs, so give it a go next time it comes to town, I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Jess xo