Buskers, Bubbles and Beauties

 Wanganui Vintage and Classic Cars weekend began with an extra special River Traders Market - the market is on in our town every Saturday morning, this one being a little larger than usual and boasting many more buskers and stalls than we are accustomed to.

These two ladies (one on the guitar, the other on the dessert spoons) entertained passers by with their renditions of old favourites like Swanee River and Country Roads!
Other buskers included a south american named 'Julio' on the panpipes (with a pretty good backtrack) and a very grubby looking guitarist who played with immense passion and kind of ignored the other half of his act - a bohemian lady on the violin. Certainly different. We thought these two colourful ladies warranted a photograph - especially given their advanced age!

There was a huge gap in the market though - this spot is always where the South African Boerewors Stall happens - glaringly absent! Junè has been on an extended visit with family back in the 'old country' and so the spot was allocated to a chappie selling soap bubble 'stick and string' contraptions - which he demonstrated and which seem to work really well - with the right knack I suspect! The lassie in the picture had loads of fun leaping about and 'catching' the bubbles as they emerged - some of which were truly spectacular!

Later on in the day the main street was closed off at one end and a stage set up for a rock band to entertain for a couple of hours. We spent some time enjoying the old favourites and although it was only a three piece band - (guitar, bass and drums) the variety and quality of the music was pretty good. Some of the more adventurous in the crowd got up and danced in front of the stage - the usual one ballroom dancing school couple doing their best to show off all their moves while the other more ordinary dancers had to do their best to avoid them on the floor (or in this case the tarmac).There was a particularly furiously-out-of -time lass who wiggled her tail and tugged mercilessly at her miniskirt all the while making wafting motions with her lily white arms - it was hard to watch anyone else! I guess she was having fun - God bless her!
In the end though it was really all about the cars which graced our streets, parking beside all the modern ones and looking simply fabulous in preparation for the big show which was held all day on Sunday at the racecourse.

As you can see, we took this picture from across the street - co-incidentally, once we put the pictures up on the screen, we noticed that the chappie in the striped shirt walking along over there happens to be our friend Andrè!

We live in a very small town!!

This beautiful old lady was parked outside one of the coffee shops for a while

 Big 7 was parked in the high street and is fairly dwarfed by the luxurious red number beside her. Everywhere we looked, there were fabulous old cars being oohed and aahed over by passers by. Needless to say, quite a few had notices on them asking folks not to touch them! A few had owners who were dressed up in the fashions of the day - depending on the vintage of their car - so although it was a scorcher of a day, there were ladies in full length gowns with hats and feather boas and the like ambling down the high street on a Saturday morning! 

Wanganui looked just as gorgeous and the feedback has been marvellous - Dis al!