So, on Saturday morning I set off from Dish and Spoon's flat to the tube station to get to Kings Cross Station to catch the trip. I got to the station earlier than the train was meant to arrive, so grabbed myself some breakfast from the Café Nero takeaway in the station, ate it and then spent 5 minutes trying to find a rubbish bin. You know what? there aren't any. I guess its a security thing because someone could plant a bomb in one, but that wasn't very helpful to me at that point in time. I ended up leaving the rubbish on a table at another café that already had rubbish on it, and then wandered towards the platforms.
We sped through the countryside in the crisp morning, and I started to notice signs of a morning frost - it was cold like there had been a frost in London, but there had been no signs of one. The further out of London we went the heavier the frost seems to have been - we went through one station where there was a huge amount of ice on the parts of parked cars still in shadow, to an extent I have never seen before and very thick - noticeably so. Soon though the sun had got rid of any further traces of it and we passed through or by various villages and towns along the way, sometimes making stops to pick up people. This was my first real opportunity to see the English countryside - when we travelled to and from Liverpool it was dark, and the trip to Brighton was absolutely pouring with rain in one direction and dark in the other. I was struck by how stereotypical the lineside villages looked - very English houses, with a big church or cathedral dominating the town's skyline. By now the tea and coffee started coming around, and for morning tea we were served a large Danish - you could choose from custard, raspberry or raisin varieties.
The entrance to the fair was through the Castle walls, and once inside there were a lot of stalls but not nearly as many as I had thought. I should add that there was no "Castle" building as such within the walls - there were a few buildings which while old were clearly much newer than the castle wall, but most of the space inside the walls was field. There were all manner of things, a few of which caught my eye - some like a cheese stall looked promising but when I tasted the cheese it was rather bland, others were more promising and some Christmas shopping was done (but I can't say what!). After seeing all the stalls inside the walls, you were then directed out another entrance in the wall to the rest of the fairground with many more stalls and even amusement rides. Lots more food and trinkety items too, probably the food selection was better in this part (they even had Ostrich burgers on sale) but I wasn't wanting anymore food! The fair stalls gave way to shops on the streets, and once I'd felt I'd done all of it I started making my way down the hill through the main street Lincoln where there was more stalls again. By the time I had reached the station again, it was getting dark and almost time for the other steam train to leave so I went to the balcony I had been on when I'd arrived, claimed my spot at the corner of the railing (where I could rest my camera for a low-light shot since I didn't have a tripod) and waited for the 10-15mins it took for it to arrive into the station.
There were about 3 people already there with cameras and tripods when I arrived, and shortly after the balcony was packed out. I managed to get a few decent shots of "Rood Ashton Hall" and it's train leaving, before wandering back into the Main Street and soaking up the atmosphere and see all the festive street lights until it was time to queue up at the meeting point to reboard the train.