19-Sep-2026
We spent several hours at this awesome festival today.
It was very well organized: Big butch tents built to withstand our Manx winds; plenty of music and dance to help along the atmosphere; obviously good advertising, as loads of people were rolling up all the time we were there; plenty of opportunities to sample and buy great Manx produce; an informative talks programme; and quality toilets (you may mock, but this is the kind of thing that makes or breaks a festival).
The site was Noble's Park, just behind the Grandstand
These guys are always great. We saw them on Tynwald Day, too
Plenty of drinks on offer
We tried two from Kaneen's, a little brewery just down the hill from us. Mine was the golden (pleasantly flowery) and Nigel's the black (like a dark lager)
Food for thought...
We lunched on lobster baps. GBP 8 for a generous quantity of juicy lobster, with salad, mayo, and a seedy bun
We went to one of the talks, which discussed the Island's food over the last 10,000 years:
Panellists Sue King, Marie Weale, and Allison Fox
This was really interesting. We learnt, for example, that:
-- Our early ancestors (9th millennium BC-type early) ate loads of hazelnuts. Seriously? We now spend a fortune buying hazelnuts from Turkey. If we grew hazelnuts back then, can we not grow them again??
-- We often pity those ancient folks for having to scratch a meagre living from their surroundings. Actually, their diet was quite rich and varied.
-- Manx women had a reputation for having good complexions, possibly because the habit of cooking everything very, very slowly, and eating the whole of the animal, meant they were ingesting plenty of collagen. It was interesting to hear that things like pigs' trotters and tripe are no longer available here. Whether that's to do with demand or with health and safety regulations I don't know. Needless to say, both foods are still great staples in Southeast Asia...
-- The Vikings brought more sophisticated maritime technology, expanding the range of fish that could be caught.
-- The Vikings also ate hedgehogs... Oh noooo... Just when we were starting to think the Vikings were nice...
-- It was the Italians who brought chips and ice cream to the Island. Including hokey pokey... Now, I thought this was a New Zealand thing, but the name is thought to derive from "ecco un poco", meaning "here's just a little" -- there's more on all that here).
Aside from the camp toilets, which I've already lauded, Noble's Park has these splendid permanent structures, all wonderfully art deco
Apart from the lobster baps and beer (already covered), our on-site indulgences consisted of a coffee (in aid of Hospice) and a Davison's ice cream. But we also sampled a few other things, and took away a Christmas pudding from Berries; some bikkies from Lush Bakes; and some Sicilian Lemon deliciousness from Chocolates of Man
After that, nicely rotund, we walked down the hill to town, to buy some pyjamas. Yes, pyjamas...
Except on the way we discovered that the Festival of Motoring that's currently happening on the Island was staging a seafront display of literally hundreds of old cars. So we had to take a stroll past that:
Just one of many, many, many
And then I bought pyjamas. Yes, pyjamas. Because it's autumn, and a Tern needs pyjamas.