Dreadnought Holiday

@dreadships.bsky.social

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Snarky history. Hideous French battleships. Nautical nonsense. Always check the alt text.

A selection of vintage Raleigh Choppers at the village fete.
A Polly Pocket cruise ship. It's significantly less cartoonish than some of the monstrosities clogging up the world's ports.
My garden in the rain, with accompanying kitchen clattering
My phone's lock screen - a black square with "CRASH PANEL" stenciled on it and a rich wood surround. At the bottom is a brass ventilation grill.
The youngest working away happily on their dazzle design, carving the lino
Two hand-printed linocut dazzle ships stylised in blue and red, printed on paper and framed
A crocheted long eared bat. It looks exactly like the description.
Vessel Finder track for a pleasure craft called Odysseus, currently berthed anywhere but Ithaca. A warship, as Odysseus' vessel surely was, would have a red icon.
Kellogg's MEGA variety pack. Eight slightly too small boxes of cereal. One's not enough, two are... two are pretty good actually but my sensory needs mean I can't combine varieties. Damn you, Kellogg's!
The Johan, with its track turned on. The yellow vessel icon has it's head turned toward the anchor, and has been lazily describing an arc around it since it arrived
Vessel Finder right now. Purple dots and arrowheads show sailing vessels near the coast at anchor or under way; yellow, orange and green dots are cargo, bulker or passenger ships streaming between them in two lanes. Light blue fishing vessels, blue working vessels and bright red naval or search and rescue craft complete the picture.
An extremely rare aircraft in the SkyCards game
A duck in a cage underneath a sign saying "Call Duck"
One of the many categories for young handlers, with four teenies and their sheep. The kids are wearing the same white lab coats as their parents. The sheep are still in woolly jumpers. There was a lot of love in the crowd for this little lot, and in a couple of decades some will be collecting winners rosettes here again with their own kids in attendance.
The rather ad hoc auction ring. Don't even try to work out who was bidding - I was there and didn't see anybody so much as flicker. It's a tight community, everybody knew who was in the market, and I suspect it was nothing more than an eyebrow that moved.
The moment the judge taps the winning sheep wth his crook to anoint the champion of champions - a Blue Texel, I think?
A prize cow with its champion sash being paraded in the ring.
A dreadlocked Lincoln Longwool sheep throwing a tantrum. Wool is flying everywhere - it basically looks like a very angry mop.
The judge copping a good feel of a sheep during the inter-breed final. As Scornflake noted, he didn't even buy her dinner first...
G Robinson's pens for their Hampshire Downs, with a huge number of rosettes lined up in celebration
The cattle tent had a big sign reading "Cattle Handlers Only" and you needed a special wristband.
A cow apparently drawn by Thelwell, with an enormous pair of horns going out exactly sideways. I've no idea how it gets through a door.
I can't remember which class this was (sorry! And doubly sorry if any of the entrants read this because I love you guys!) but first prize is just being awarded here to the woman with the prettiest cow.
A stuffed chicken toy with bulging eyes that had been placed into one of the display cages. The chicken gang were either brilliantly light hearted or deadly serious, and it was impossible to know who was who until you cracked a joke and got treated like you'd just stepped on their favourite egg. I've no idea how the two factions managed to share a tent for the day.
The full range of decorated eggs. Several Minions, a pink parrot, something curly monstrous and a sexy unicorn
A row of tables covered in the egg classes. I've said this before but... imagine being qualified to have an opinion on eggs?
A Transylvanian Naked Neck Bantam. I'm not taking the piss - this is genuinely what the label said and it's exactly what you'd get if you bred a chicken and a vulture.
Cattle being judged. I have no idea what badges a good cow, bit happily I don't have to.
The Lincolnshire Fire Brigade Band in full kit, lined up very neatly. I'm obviously being hideously unfair in my comments and it was perfectly musical (and I can't actually see the drummer, so my apologies if I've misgendered somebody!)
The Australian lunatic wth a quad bike that has a circular roll cage to allow roly-polys. In the red and yellow colour scheme it looks a little like one of those Little Tykes cars.
Australian with a broken arm - honestly - jumping over a car on his quad bike in front of the grandstand
A lad in red balancing a quad bike on its side. You can see the banking of the cycle track here.
Bright orange vintage tractor with bungee cords acting against the suspension spring of the saddle (I hesitate to call it a seat).
Tractors lined up - I'm not exaggerating - on the grid before the (mostly) tractor parade. My suggestion that they have a Le Mans style start, with entrants running from the beer tent to their vehicles, will no doubt be received wth raised eyebrows by the committee.
You can't see the burger in this bun, buried as it is beneath cheese, tons of lamb bacon - a new but successful experience, and overloaded because I made the server laugh - and all the other stuff. It was a glorious mess to try and fit into your mouth.
Bella the boa constrictor still hanging out in the upper reaches of the marquee on Sunday. I don't think any livestock or toddlers had been reported missing so I think we got away with the experiment in free range serpentry.
A stack of hobby horses with a couple of tiny jumps behind them for children to play with. I'm not sure what the real horses were supposed to make of their apparently decapitated brethren, although I dare say it encouraged them to jump a bit better just in case.
The sign confirms the display is off potato related tools. The tool in question looks more like a lemon reamer for somebody who hates citrus. It's a four foot long butt plug with a spade handle, and those spuds are damn well going to stay planted.
Bumper boats - basically dodgems but boats. The adults were standing back a lot further once they realised the kids had onboard water pistols. I've blanked out faces because kids
Model boats whizzing around on all sorts of crazy courses. These ones are a lot simpler and more robust than David's creations
HMS Director, a Director-class paddle tug of the 1950s. David assures me it needs more work. I assure you it doesn't.
Boston Model Boat Club and their pop up pond
Sign saying "sorry, the ducklings need a rest."
French submarines in a book of postcards of early 20th century Calais. French submarines were as finely honed and aesthetically pleasing as anybody else's hastily contrived underwater tubes of death - ie not very. Celia is kindly holding it open for me.
A postcard from a series called "Jack Ashore" with naval ratings learning to lay a gun. I'm sure somebody will pop up with the location.
Postcard of HMS Terrible with "living letters" - if you zoom in you'll see the tars have been shoved over the side and forced to make the words "God save the king"
Great War re-enactors sitting behind a great big Saltire. I sadly didn't get a chance to catch up properly with them.
A MASSIVE modern John Deere tractor in the traditional green and yellow. It's about to crush two rebellious buckets of flowers as an example to the others. Sure beats talking to your plants.
Gaffers curios and tat, it says on the sign. What he mostly has is a huge camera on which he was making cyanotypes.
The 14th century lot. To be honest the canvas tent never really went out of fashion, so pretty much everybody looked identical apart from the clothes.
A small child, yes, throwing an axe. It's all fun and games until the fingers come off.
A man working a pole lathe to turn a baseball bat to send to the Pope, or something round at least
Three grey heavy horse tethered underneath a picture of themselves on the side of a van. Amongst the many reasons I married Scornflake is she encourages my nonsense.
A woman holding a massive Clydesdale that's pulling a link harrow. The brass on the harness GLEAMS. It was a genuine joy listening to her quiet commands to the horse whilst the commentator was expounding on the kit.
The marvellous St John Ambulance, whose volunteers were seen across the fairground. Yeah, I'm biased, but the number of young cadets providing genuine treatment to people was inspiring - if you've got a young person looking at any sort of medical career it's a great way to get proper hands-on experience that you can't get anywhere else.
Another horse taking off. It's actually not a great ring for photography as the background is always pretty busy with tents etc
The eldest watching a horse approach a jump.
A grey jumping over a fence decorated with ladybirds. For some reason there's a paddling pool underneath it. Bloody dangerous place for kids to play if you ask me.
A horse about to throw itself over a jump, in what I'm told is the approved manner. The odd refusal that catapults the rider over the fence, whilst surely achieving the rider's intentions, is regarded as rather bad form.
In the music tent, the Sleaford Concert Band and a choir are leading everybody in a jolly singsong about how we're all going to die. Marvellous thing, religion. (I'm genuinely happy they do this for those that want to attend, and the chaplain seems like a decent bloke)