Yesterday I went to the Southampton Zine & Craft Fair. It’s a 2 day event, and I was supposed to be there for two days, but I came home last night in the end. The event was very small anyway, and the weather in Southampton was atrocious with torrential rainstorms and gale force winds, so there weren’t many people there. I felt pretty awful from being under the weather anyway, and staying up too late the night before cutting zines and baking panda cakes with Vicky, so the thought of sleeping on the organiser’s floor after battling through rain didn’t appeal at all.
L-R Ellie, Ed, Steve. Here’s our stall with the Brighton Zinefest stuff. Steve lives in So’ton, the rest of us came in Ed’s car, me, Ed, Ellie, Ed’s friend Elliott and Vicky. Vicky was the only one without a name beginning with E. I didn’t get a photo of her stall for some reason. Isy from Morgenmuffel was originally going to come with us, but she decided to just come for one day and get the train, so we took her box up in the car for her instead.
Here’s the place it was in. Upstairs at a vegetarian arts cafe. The cafe was really nice, although their leek and potato soup was a bit odd (and expensive). I got the feeling walking round So’ton town centre trying to find a chemist so I could get some more Feminax, that there wasn’t much to interest me in the town, it seems to be designed for cars rather than people. I guess Brighton has spoilt me.
Steve Larder had probably come the furthest of all (from Nottingham)
Tukru and Carl.
Madame T copying Steve L’s typical photo pose.
I got this pretty brooch made of recycled broken jewellery from one of the stallholders.
And this great fancy £2 coin celebrating DNA (it’s worth about $4 USD/ €3)
And the inscription! I also got one celebrating Isumbard Kingdom Brunel, but I forgot to take a picture of it before using it.
There was a vintage shop next door. Tukru found these ace glasses frames, I took the photo to show her what they looked like on, because of course she couldn’t see in the mirror without her glasses. I got Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine badges, and she got a Paul Calf one for Carl, because he looks a bit like Paul Calf with his natural blonde hair.
The rather great mask display in the shop. It was a bit odd, doubling as both a vintage clothes shop and a costume shop. All the vintage dresses seemed reasonable prices, until you realised that was the weekend hire price, and really they all cost £50, which seemed a bit much.
After the event, we all went to the pub and debated the merits of the Times’ top 100 albums of the decade (too much Coldplay). Then me, Vicky, Tukru and Carl went for a pizza before the train, getting drenched on the way. I had a great mushroom, garlic and smoked mozzarella pizza. T&C got the London train, and me & V met Isy and caught the Brighton train.
The train took 2 hours, stopping at every single possible stop (West Worthing, Worthing and East Worthing anyone? Worthing is a small town) and Isy managed to sleep through the horrendously drunk middle aged rugby fans who got on the train for about 20 mins and started stripping to try to get our attention. When we pretended to be reading intently/genuinely sleeping they got really disappointed and asked us if we were going to a goth convention (none of us were wearing black).
Sounds like you had a nice time.
The photos are lovely. Especially the ones of Tukru. She's so damn adorable!
& great badges score! Color me jealous.