3 weeks in, 8 assignments and a food festival.

Hello!

Well like the title suggests, we're now 3 weeks into the new year, when we were first given our assignments I felt a little daunted, like there was way too much to do in the time we've been given. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking that, but I feel more confident as I take each step towards completing the work.

I'm happy to have already completed one of the film projects and have taken steps in most of the other assignments.

For the past few nights, Conwy castle has been lit up in purple and green and it turns out it was all part of Blinc, a festival of the digital arts that was running alongside the Conwy food festival. I've never had the chance to visit one of these festivals but I've been told on good authority that it's well worth a visit.

It was a little rainy yesterday (Sunday) but I headed down into the medieval town and arrived at the festival just as the final stalls were setting up and only a handful of people were milling around.

I photographed the main street while it was quiet, the bunting looked a little sad with no one around to enjoy it, but it did make a good picture.

There were lots of smells in the air as the day wore on, everything from stonebaked pizza, to champagne and oysters were on sale. Chocolate fountains, ice cream, Welsh oggies, chilli, crepes and caviare were just some of the treats on offer at the various stalls and chefs were doing live demonstrations and answering cooking questions in numerous tents across the town.

Not all the smells were pleasant though, there was a barrell outside one of the tents, a Victorian butter churn, and even though the day was overcast it looked and smelled rather gross as the day wore on, not to mention thai curry, ew.

Surprisingly, I ate very little at the festival. A crepe and some icecream was about the whole of it, there was just too much choice and after trying to decide what to eat for a good hour I gave up and headed home.
I brought some brownies home for Chris, he loves them, but even though I am also a chocolate lover, I'm not a huge fan of them. I find them too heavy, and these smelled amazing but were just too sickly!

I brought home a couple of toffee yoghurts, toffee ones from Llaeth Y Llan (village dairy).

Apart from food, the festival had music and poetry on different stages across the town, a beer tent, actors dressed in medieval costume acting at random, birds of prey and giant bubbles!

As I mentioned before, the digital arts festival Blinc was also on around Conwy, one of the strangest was two screens set up in the courtyard of Plas Mawr, they were displaying still images with loud sound effects of the sounds that might go along with the still. It was eerie, but designed to bring Plas Mawr back to life, as it would have been in the past.

Another display was in one of the towers of the castle walls, a projector was showing microscopic images taken of the unseen places of the castle. It was strange, and looked otherworldly.

Blinc had lots on offer over the weekend, the main event being an actual lights show displayed on the side of the castle walls using several projectors. This was on Saturday night, which I unfortunately missed but have been told it was spectacular. It also meant the bridge out of Conwy was closed for a while, and getting back into town was quite difficult that night!
I had a great day wandering around the stalls, listening to music and generally found Conwy had a lively and excited atmosphere. It was a little expensive to get in (£7 for access to all the tent areas) but it was still a really enjoyable day.