Newbury Ablaze.

I'm genuinely relishing in doing absolutely nothing this weekend - except maybe making a den and cooking some pizza from scratch. I've been so busy this week that Newbury Ablaze feels like months ago rather than just last Friday - crazy! Anyway, on a whim, and because I'd heard about it on the *incredible* Newbury.net when looking for what was on, we took a lazy walk along the canal towards Victoria Park for the Newbury Ablaze fire festival.

It seemed that we were about as wise to the event as some of the more 'established locals', what exactly is a fire festival? In all honesty, I'm still not sure, all I know is that to celebrate 20 years of Newbury's Corn Exchange they created a showcase of sculptures and displays all down the canal, I swear Newbury is one of the weirdest towns...


It's such a shame that it's been a little too wet recently to do a bit more walking once work is over, especially as the days are getting shorter as it is.


Pretty set-up in the park.



Spinning fire sculpture.



Dotted around the edge of the canal with the fire sculptures were a few performers, this guy had a pretty wicked-sounding whistle.

It was a little bit culty, but it was quite pretty all lit up once the sun went down, there's something a bit hypnotic about fire sometimes and it was quite nice to be part of the community even if most of doing that involved quite a lot of queuing.
I posted a couple of videos that kind of demonstrate it a little better but I'd be interested to know if it's actually a 'thing' and if any other towns do it too? Other than bonfire nights, I've never really seen anything quite like it.