Did you have a lovely weekend?
I did. Not really being a lover of the hippier side of outdoor Music I wasn’t at Glastonbury this weekend. Instead I headed off to the Plantation Gardens to spend a beautiful Summers evening listening to Big Band and Swing courtesy of The Pavilion Big Band.
The Plantation Garden is an amazing Victorian Garden with a stunning Gothic Fountain in the centre of Norwich. It’s wonderful for picnics and charges just £2 entry. It’s entirely run on donations so the purpose of the Big Band on Saturday was to raise funds to keep the gardens open.
On the 17th July there is another Jazz event, if you fancy it then you can get more details on the Norwich Events page.
Picnics were the order of the day, but as we’d planned to go out after the concert we restricted ourselves to an easily disposable 2 litre bottle of Pimms and a couple of bottles of Crabbies Ginger Beer, a Summer favourite of mine.
Others weren’t quite so restrained and I was quite jealous of the groaning picnic tables and popping champagne corks around me. I think the average age of the other concert goers was probably a little higher than that of those at Glastonbury, but it was far more civilised!
It was a wonderful evening, listening to Big Band sounds drifting gently over the garden whilst resting on the beautifully maintained lawn and sipping Pimms and lemonade. I really recommend the jazz evening in July. I’ll be at the Chap Olympics on that day, sadly, but it’s really worth a trip if you’re Norwich based. If you can’t make the concert the Plantation Gardens also offer afternoon tea on Sundays, or you could just pack up a picnic and head down any day.
I also found some gorgeous Spode plates and 50s shot glasses at a Boot Fair on Saturday, so all in all a wonderful day!
The rest of the weekend didn’t exactly live up to this amazing start.
