Cheltenham Food and Drink Festival ::

This weekend sees our favourite of the Cheltenham festivals come to town; The Food and Drink Festival.  I don't think we've missed one year since we first moved here.  We're big food lovers in our house and every year we go armed with many shopping bags/rucksacks/coolbags to hunt out fabulous local and not so local, wonders and treats.

I particularly love taking Milo, as he's such an adventurous eater and loves working his way round trying every sample on offer (minus the booze of course, though he would if we let him!).  I strongly believe that baby led weaning had a lot to do with this openness to new foods, I love seeing the surprised look on vendors faces when he tucks into super strong cheeses, spicy sauces or exotic meats.  It always makes me sad though to hear people quickly say 'oh he won't like that', if you tell children they won't like foods, then they're likely to believe you and until they've actually tried something for themselves how can they possibly have an opinion on it.  Anyway that's quite enough of my baby led weaning praise-they'll be much of that in a few months when the newest one finds her way there.

If you're in the area or not far from Cheltenham and have any interest in food and drink, I really do recommend it for a weekend day trip.  In the past we've always attended on Friday, which I imagine is probably a lot quieter than the rest of the weekend (the entry price is cheaper too), but now that Milo's at school we'll be going up on Saturday this year.  I was super lucky and won a pair of tickets from Garden Events on twitter for this years event.  Be warned though if you do attend, you may end up spending quite a lot of money, I know we usually do.

Last year we gave Milo his own money to spend and let him choose a few items of his own to buy.  I'm looking forward to doing this again this year, but fear now he's a little older his shopping bag will mostly consist of sweets and chocolate!

The event takes place at Montpellier Gardens in Cheltenham and is on from Friday 13th June - Sunday 15th June, tickets are available online or on the door.