Taste of Trafford: Altrincham Food and Drink Festival

Anyone who has chanced across this blog before may be aware that I am partial to the following things:

1. Food, in any guise, but ideally including cheese, cupcakes, olives and other essential food groups

2. Drink, again in any guise, but generally wine-based beverages due to their natural affinity with the food groups mentioned above

3. Shopping, particularly if I can put my purchases in a cloth bag and walk around radiating smug "environmentally friendly" vibes

4. Going out in the car, preferably to places that are near enough that my husband is happy to drive, and doesn't start spouting nonsense about wanting a "drive credit" to spend on some future (always inconvenient) occasion

5. Any kind of Sunday activity that displaces thoughts of the giant pile of marking and prep work lurking threateningly on the kitchen worktop - it won't do itself, you know, and yet there's ALWAYS hope...

So imagine the joy of discovering something that combines all of these wholesome interests in one easily attainable package: such is the annual "Taste of Trafford" Festival, a celebration of local restaurants and food producers held today in Altrincham, which does incidentally satisfy point number 4 as listed above. They'd even thoughtfully arranged for the sun to be shining.

On arrival we dutifully purchased our "Tesetas", the festival currency. By a huge stroke of fortune, the conversion rate turned out to be one Teseta to the pound, meaning that even people who had sampled heartily at the Oddbins table could shop with confidence. With our Tesetas, we bought the following:

1 x hog roast barm from The Fat Loaf stall (minus some crackling, stolen by passing husband)

2 x glasses of wine - one Malbec, one Sauvignon Blanc - from Oddbins, who were selling 125ml measures at the frankly ludicrous prices of between 1 and 2 Tesetas per glass. I can recommend both the wines I tried, so I will: Dona Paula Malbec (£10.99 a bottle) and Baile Out Sauvignon (£9.99)

6 x cupcakes from Teacups and Fairycakes (I do actually feel slightly disloyal to lovely Airy Fairy Cupcakes, as if I have been physically unfaithful, but what can I say? I was weak)

1 x pack lovely fat sausages from Cheadle Farm, who can more or less tell you the name and trotter size of the pig(s) who nobly gave of their flesh

1 x pack chilli chocolate from Cacao & Co (although this has gone into husband's coat pocket and not been seen since)

1 x chocolate and banana crepe from Pitta Crepe

1 x potato pasty from Taste of Anatolia (you can take the boy out of Wigan, etc etc)

By now, the stalls were starting to look distinctly picked-clean, despite it only being just after 1pm; apologies if you turned up later and found the cupboard was bare due to the greed of previous shoppers. Luckily, I was wearing my new FitFlop boots for the walk around the festival, so I'm pretty sure this will negate the items listed above. An ideal Sunday? Yes. Although, now home, I see the cat has failed to make a start on the marking. Once again.