This is an annual event. We went yesterday and it was a lovely atmosphere. It is held on actual…read moreallotments. Very reminiscent of country fetes that used to be held in someone's (huge) village garden. Was worth being stuck in traffic forever on our 1 1/2 hour journey there. Huw Lloyd-Langton (formerly of Hawkwind) kindly donated his time again, and this was who we went to see really. The Assassins of Science also did a 40 min set with Huw joining them in some numbers. The Elder Stubbs Festival is a highlight of the Cowley calendar, bringing together allotment holders, members of the Elder Stubbs Garden Group, artists, musicians craftspeople and the public at large from all over the local area in a celebration of work and talents. Two stages allow for musical and poetic expression, and many stalls throughout the site represent local organisations involved in social and environmental work. Fresh vegetables, plants and homemade jams and pickles are available if you get there fast enough, and refreshments are also sold on site. Book stalls, plants, face painting, organic produce amongst others. Hot veggie food and meat stuff. Families. Twisted tree sculptures. Arts, crafts, poetry. The Elder Stubbs Festival began as a small event (2000+ visitors each year now) thirteen years ago as a joint venture between Elder Stubbs and RESTORE as an attempt to generate community support for projects. This proved a great success, and the large amounts of publicity generated have meant it has become a fixture in local life, raising money for RESTORE and the profile of both organisations. There is now strong competition to play on both stages! One of a funniest highlights was the fly past by The RED BARROWS! Team members running round the site in a line pushing red wheelbarrows. Elder Stubbs Festival is special: animals for petting, magicians, belly dancers, bagpipers, weavers, martial artists, poets and rock stars standing shoulder to shoulder amongst flowers, sculptures and vegetables. Set on the Elder Stubbs allotment site, there was a diverse array of attractions from performing arts and workshops to stalls, speakers, children's activities and the vegetable show, as well as a wide choice of foods. Around 50 different stallholders use the festival as a forum to share information about local groups and organisations, sell home-made goods, run an activity or vend an assortment of world cuisines. All proceeds are to charity (£1 entrance fee. Bit of info/history: Elder Stubbs Charity is the proud owner and manager of Elder Stubbs Allotments, at Rymers Lane in Cowley, Oxford. The site is a leading example of the successful reinvention of allotment management, and provides a working model for the involvement of disparate members of the local community in city land use. It provides over 100 allotments for local residents. In addition it has diversified by letting tenancies to other charities with similar aims to itself. Notable amongst these are The Porch Steppin' Stone project which cultivates an area of land to grow the organic vegetables used at its day-centre to provide meals for the long-term unemployed, and the Elder Stubbs Garden Group, part of RESTORE, which cultivates 2 acres as an organic market-garden and orchard run as an horticultural therapy project for people recovering from mental illness. Elder Stubbs Allotments were an award to the poor of Cowley under the Inclosure Act of 1852 in compensation for the enclosure and subsequent loss of their Common on Shotover. 150 years later the charity still provides over 100 allotments for local residents. In addition it has diversified by letting tenancies to other charities with similar aims to itself. Really worth a look next year for something different.

I wish Id known about this earlier definately would have gone,will check it out for next year,thanxread more

For two days in early September, after the summer tourists have gone home and before the students…read moreget back, the people of Oxford celebrate. I'm not quite sure what we celebrate but it is great fun. I no longer go on rides that swing you high in the air or turn you upside down but if you are young enough to enjoy that sort of thing then there is something special about catching glimpses of secret court-yards, quadrangles and lawns behind the yellow walls of the colleges just before you are flung upside down again or hurled towards the ground. For the more sedentary of us there are more traditional rides such as the wonderful merry-go-round and helter skelter. Or you can just wander around enjoying the sights, sounds (and it can be very noisy), smells and tastes (sugar cane as well as candy floss last year) Rumour has it that the rides are longer in the afternoon before it gets busy. If you aren't going to the fair then be warned that all the buses that normally go along St Giles are diverted for 2 days and the road is closed to traffic.

Evolved from a 17th-century parish wake, St Giles fair is a yearly spectacle in the centre of…read moreOxford. Every September excitement grows as bigger and better rides are added to the substantial collection of fairground attractions. Our Oxford teams love this annual event.

great people and parking close by as is the pup afterwards or a restaurant takeaway, whatever takes…read moreyour fancy Sadly the bus service is crap if you needed it.

Before the advent of dreary out-of-town multiplexes, every high street boasted a cinema like The…read moreRegal. Most are now sad and hollowed out relics, home to carpet warehouses and luxury flats, so the Regal is a cherishable oddity - and a lovely reminder of a largely lost era. Does it have the biggest screen? The loudest sound system? The biggest buckets of pop corn? Nein. However, does it have architectural merit, charm and - above all - atmosphere. Now, admittedly, this atmosphere is generated in part by the kind of seating arrangement that predates the obesity crisis - and you might struggle for elbow room if you are bigger than, say, Danny Devito, but this kind of cheek-by-jowel feel is the perfect way to see a big summer Event Movie. We took in the last Harry Potter film here and the combination of steeply angled seating, old style uplighting and physical closeness to our fellow viewers helped to create a genuine sense of sharing the experience with other people. As mentioned, this comes at a cost: if you're a tubster, or suffer from deep-vein thrombosis, or if you are one of the people we seem to have bred of late who don't like being in proximity to other people, then you'd probably be better off seeking a dreary, out-of-town multiplex. Otherwise, to see how we kicked it back in the old skool, there probably aren't many better examples left in the country.

Amazing small festival near Market Harborough. They don't give out the address so I can't be…read morespecific about where it is but be sure to look it up. A bit like Glastonbury only on a tiny scale. I reckon there was about 5000 people there, it was only £90 and everything is a lot lot easier than Glastonbury. The weather was beautiful which obviously helped but would have been good anywhere and there were loads of tents where you could shelter. There was a good selection of smaller artists, good DJ's and other acts. There was a massive 'Rio style' carnival Saturday night which paraded around the campsite and everyone got dressed up. I will definitely go back. 100% next year and think you should go too!

Hi ya, The place you are talking about is called Kelmarsh. I live nearby and wasn't sure what it…read morewas, but now I do. Sounds like it was fun, however, there was a lot of cars that were vandalised that were parked in the lanes over the 2 days, so worth bearing that in mind. Jo

Not advertising but this is tomorrow. Strawberry fair is a…read morefree festival in the center of Cambridge, UK. This years fair is on Saturday June 7th, 2008. It has music on several stages, stalls, food, art, crafts, kids entertainment, performers, participation and of course a beer tent. I went for the day last year and it was a hot day (rain tomorrow). If you can't get to this one put it in your diary for next year because it is good and it is free! After the event. A crowd of us went. Kings Cross to Cambridge and we got on enroute..like a rolling snowball..it had picked up other friends enroute. The trains were packed and the queueing and police presence at Cambridge station seemed a bit OTT. The festival itself was packed but the music, beer and food were good as were the selection of stalls. I got a rainstick for £1. As this is free one wonders how much longer it can run but if it is on next year then go!

Adjoining the town library is the gallery dedicated to Alfred East, holding important collections…read moredonated by Sir Alfred East and Thomas Cooper Gotch, both born in Kettering. A nice, compact gallery to spent an hour or two, exhibitions, concerts, talks, plenty to do, check out the web site :)

The Alfred East Art Gallery combines being the home to a national collection of works by Sir Alfred…read moreEast, and local artists T C Gotch and W B Gash, with contemporary exhibitions of interest to visitors and residents. You can get some idea of the main collections by downloading the Hidden Treasures exhibition catalogue from the local authority's website http://www.kettering.gov.uk/downloads/file/5049/hidden_treasures_catalogue Frequently changing temporary exhibitions mean there is often something new, and lunchtime visits can be rewarding. There is an active group of Friends you can join to support the work of the Gallery and Museum Photo link: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Sqnxl01KSpA/T-h5dBZ1igI/AAAAAAAAACw/N55qaSE_1rQ/s1600/Sign+goes+Live.jpg

Really nice botanical garden. Well kept and clean and lots of open spaces to move around. I like…read morethe wooden vantage point where you can get a good view of the center area. Most of the garden is outdoors, there are some garden glass houses where the humidity is quite tropical. There is a cafe on site and a nice gift shop. 6£ to enter is reasonable given the space and variety in plants and trees. You can see most of it on 90 minutes. You can learn some interesting facts along the walk. For example, did you know that Cambridge has the least rain in all of Britain? Even less than Barcelona!

It's a lovely place for a stroll and includes charming lawns to stroll around, as well as…read moregreenhouses to see flora from different climates. If it was free to visit, it's the kind of place I'd love to come all the time. For the fee, though, it's a bit small. Worth a visit at least once, though.

Just like all cinemas really,has steps up to it (-1),has the food court were you also get tickets…read moreand has toilets.

I find that the Odeon is slightly over priced for seats, food and drinks etc but then most cinemas…read morethese days are! There is a good selection of sweets, Ben and Jerry's ice cream drinks etc so if you do want snacks then you shouldn't be disappointed! There are also lots of restaurants situated around the cinema if you want to have a meal before/ after the film. The cinema is clean and tidy with lots of clean toilets so no worries about getting stuck in a queue before the film starts! The Odeon website is good, easy to use and you can check times and order tickets pretty easily.

Yes! I love planetariums! The night sky is a damn beautiful thing, and planetariums are a great…read moreplace to learn a little more. Pay £1.50 for the privilege for adults, I'm not sure how much for children, sorry, and queue up on the third floor. The seats are comfy, filling from the middle where the best view is. The show isn't too long, and gives you an idea of the night sky on the night that you watch the show, visible planets, constellations and where to look for them, with the zodiacs marked in red. The voice is clear, but there are a couple of stumbles that they were too lazy to re-record, come on, think tank! There's also a nice section on the ISS with Tim peak too. Two things: One, there are a couple of dizzy bits, not too bad, but something to think about if you suffer badly. Two, please, for everyone's sake, control your kids, it's not fair if they're kicking off, running around and talking, and you will get ejected for it.

Many of us I'm sure remember visits to the Planetariums of yester-year where a big ball of light in…read morethe centre shone a pattern of stars above and all around. Well things have certainly moved on, as my recent visits to the Thinktank Planetarium or, 'Fulldome' (to use the up-to-date name) have confirmed. The old star-ball that I remember being in the middle of Planetarium domes has disappeared and been replaced with state-of-the-art digital projectors and computers. So instead of sitting and watching a fixed pattern of stars in the night sky I held onto my seat as I orbited the moon, flew past constellations, across entire galaxies and was still back home for tea time! Gone seem to be the days when all you would see at a Planetarium were Astronomy and Space films, as a quick visit to the Thinktank's Planetarium web site told me. I found the best place to check out all the latest events was the Thinktank Planetarium's own Facebook page. With interesting and buzzing contributions from over 3,000 followers I found it well worth visiting and re-visiting. When night time comes the Thinktank Planetarium are throwing open their doors open to put on shows featuring a new breed of Fulldome films now being made by creative people locally and world-wide. I have now been to a couple of these night time shows and can say without a doubt they are something special. The hosts are likeable and enthusiastic with a passion for what they are doing and this really adds to the experience. In the interval we had a drink in the IMAX, 'I-Bar'. The Millennium point complex also houses a full-on giant screen IMAX cinema which made me think of combining a visit to the Planetarium Fulldome with an IMAX visit to see the latest 3D blockbuster like Pirates 4! The experience of watching these new films I found quite difficult to explain to my freinds. Whether it's the music of Pink Floyd set to amazing visuals or any of the other prize-winning Fulldome films now being shown, I was transported somewhere new and exiting. The experience can be very immersive and that's why after my first visit to a Thinktank Fulldome show I never quite viewed a normal cinema film screening in the same way - not even the IMAX! As Morpheus said to Neo in the Martix, " No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself" The same can be said about the Thinktank Planetarium Fulldome. So why not, "Take the red pill" and give it a try, you won't be disappointed!