Bolton Fair

I LOVE agricultural fairs! Horses, cows, toffee (candy) apples, fairy floss (cotton candy), fried food . . . What could be better? It takes me back to the days of the Royal Easter Show at the old Sydney showground. Of course nothing could ever be quite that good, but I'm all for trying to re-create those days, so for the past few years we've been taking first Max, then Immy and Max, to New England fairs at the end of summer. Last year we had a great time at the Bolton Fair. It was a gorgeous day and Max rode the little rides and climbed up on tractors and we all ate too much and said hello to plenty of animals. So this year I was dying to do it again. I scoped out the date of the fair and was looking forward to it for months. But just before the fair, which was to take place on the weekend of Sept. 27-28, a giant rainstorm hit. It pelted down for a couple of days and we wondered whether we would be able to go. The day before, I insisted that we go out and equip everyone with gumboots (rainboots) and raincoats, and when we found out that it would be clearing slightly throughout the day, we decided to brave it.

Because of the rain, they couldn't use the field across the road for parking, so we had to park at a local high school and ride to the fairground on a school bus. It was quite a long wait, and as we stood there, we were engulfed in a cloud of mosquitoes. Needless to say, it was highly unpleasant and we couldn't wait to get out of there and get to the fairground. We were horrifed when we got there and realized that the mosquitoes weren't just in one place--they were everywhere, due to the standing water all over the place. It was unbelievable! I couldn't focus on anything because I kept seeing mosquitoes zeroing in on my kids' succulent little faces, necks and hands. Ugh! Also, the entire fairground was a sea of churned mud. They had put straw down on the pathways in an attempt to mop up the mud. We had brought the stroller just in case Immy needed it (and also to carry things in) and muddy straw completely clogged the wheels and Rob ended up having to carry it. We bravely went around and met some animals, constantly terrified that someone was going to slip in the mud. It was awful! Finally, when we had had enough, we had to wait for ages by the road in yet another cloud of mosquitoes for another bus to take us back to the car. Who knows if we'll get our idealism back for another fair next year . . .