Bored on a bank holiday?
ART
The City Festival has brought a tonne of activities to town for you to get creative, or just to admire some wonderful work that some other cheeky little creative soul has crafted. If you can get the kiddywinks to the city centre tomorrow (Wednesday 26th August) then stop by Jubilee Square and get knotted with Tangle. This is an awesome interactive art installation is a street project that’s been brought over from Australia and looked like a tremendous amount of fun when I passed by today.
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| Tangle |
If you’re looking for something a bit more unusual (than a load of people wrapping giant elastic bands around golden rods in the middle of the street) then you can follow the Sand Sculpture Trail, which I presume will have had some hastily constructed rain shelters built over them in this afternoon’s deluge. Both of these are detailed in the City Festival brochure.
Or perhaps you would prefer something a little more relaxed, and possibly inside? Running until the 31st August, a number of city centre venues are hosting the Summer Art Trail – art works selected by Silver Vine Arts. I love the pieces up at New Walk Museum and I’ve heard very good things about the installation at the Queen of Bradgate too so I’m going to make sure to check that out myself.
Look! She’s making Richard III! Out of sand! Such an unusual choice of subject for Leicester… (I jest, of course)
EAT
In case you didn’t know, it’s National Burger Day on Thursday. Why not celebrate by picking yourself up a ticket or two for the UK Burger Battle‘s foray into Leicester on Sunday? I have my tickets as I think that the best way to celebrate a national burger day is to save it up and have two burgers on the Sunday instead. One for me, and one for Jesus. It’s going to be a fun afternoon where local favourites Crafty and the Paget Arms will be pitted against each other in meaty mayhem, along with live music, a special welcome drink and a bespoke outdoor (but sheltered!) rum bar from sponsor’s Sailor Jerry. Held at local favourite, The Parcel Yard, you can get an exciting 15% off the ticket price if you use the code LE15 when you book tickets online.
And when the burgers have settled, on Monday you can take yourself down to Welland Park in Market Harborough for the MH Food Festival. It’s free to attend and will have its own 1920s Art Deco Airstream. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what that means, but I’m intrigued to find out! Anyway, there’ll be local producers, cookery demonstrations, live music and craft stalls, so what’s not to like?
If you don’t fancy heading out of the city, you can always crash down in Firebug for their Indie Food Festival. Free entry and some fabulous local offerings, including the ever-glamourous Bitsy’s Emporium of Awesome and the Deli in the Square, who I like so much I just nominated them as Best Deli in the Midlands for the BBC Good Food Awards – you can still nominate them online too! There will be music throughout the day and I’m sure a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. Decisions, decisions…
DO
Of course, this weekend will also see the return of my favourite annual cycling event, Leicester’s own Skyride through the streets from 10am, with the accompanying Ride Leicester Festival. Happily, there’ll be a bike park conviniently positioned by Braunstone Gate so you can also drop in to the face painting and bouncy castle, amongst all of the other music, stalls, food and drink happening at Westival. And of course on Bank Holiday Monday you’ll want to top it all off with Raucous Romans at Jewry Wall Museum, where you can dress up in Roman costume and show off in your very own fashion parade, and strike your own Roman coin to take home.
Phew! “Bored” you say?
