At the Cycle festival I was fortunate to meet with Alec Wagstaff, a coventrian cycling into his 90's. The first thing I noticed was his lovely bike a Tommy Godwin
He took the time to tell me about his life with bikes, cycling in the army during WW2 as as a part of the Buckshee wheelers and then returning and continuing to cycle on the bike that he had with him on the day.
The Godiva festival was a whole other experience, i'm not sure what i thought it was going to be like, but it was more overwhelming than I remember it being. There were certainly lots of people which I guess is a measure of success. Thankfully amoungst the swarm of determined teenage drinkers, there was a small oasis in the Greenspace tent. Oddly though this (along with the childrens tent and the life and times tent) was on the periphery of the main site on the main thoroughfare forming part of the bottleneck into the festival proper.
Here there was a small taster of the green ingenuity going on in Coventry. It was fantastic that we were able to watch as Pip the thatcher demonstrated how to thatch and the beekeepers showed off their bee's in their see-through hive and get the chance to speak with the guys from warwickshire wildlife trust.
I even spotted one of the guys from Gardening Together arriving with a tree and bits of his stall on his old Moulton
Obviously there is a balance between producing a commercially attractive event and including elements such as the green tent whilst maintaining (particularly during the day) a family friendly feel, i'm not sure it achieved it this year.
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