Victorian Festival - Friday

It's been sad and grey and wet here for weeks, and though it fined up today, the garden party in the garden below us was moved to a hall and the have-a-go-at-croquet event was cancelled because there were floods on Wednesday and the ground is too soggy and wet. There's another garden party tomorrow in a different location and that still looks to be going ahead.

As the theme is "Medicine in the Victorian Era" I dressed as one of the Three Men in a Boat, the hypochondriac one, armed with two of Greg's Victorian bottles he dug out of the Avon River mud as a kid, one labelled "Doctor Brooke's Solar Elixir" and the other "Bonnington's Irish Moss for Coughs and Colds".

The icon BTW is as close as I can get to Victorian though it's actually me dressed as a Roman woman.

Elevenses with Mrs Beeton in the Early Settlers Hall


This wonderful gentleman was there. That was an excellent event: $5 for a selection of savouries and cakes including Madeira cake, a cup of tea, and a glass of Madeira - I can imagine this charmer as the singer of Flanders and Swann's "Have some Madeira m'dear". Plus you could try your hand at Victorian parlour games.

( More photos )

Apothecary Tea Party at the Sanatorium AKA the Opera House


A woman and her son in the Opera House. I just noticed that there's a nurse carrying a severed foot behind her. :-P Also in the background is the entrance to the Hysteria Room.

( More photos including a couple possibly NSFW )