This Sunday I went to Forty Hall in Enfield, near where I live, to a musical event organised to raise funds for the planting of bee friendly plants and shrubs in the Walled Garden. We got there early, mindful that parking might be interesting later on…

Forty Hall is a 17th century manor house and estate in Enfield which since 1951 has been owned by the local council who use it as a museum and for events.

A variety of live music and surprise events took place through the afternoon. Essentially you could pick your location in the walled garden, and have a picnic while listening to the music.

I will confess I didn’t get to see all of the acts because on occasion I was eating, drinking or guarding our picnic while my partner and son went to have a look.

It was all great fun and the acts included:

Etcetera Morris Men:

Latymer (a string quartet):

Neil De Ville (Classical and Folk):

Edward Lappage (Pop Rock):

Kenopsia (Jazz, Folk, Funk):

Mostly (Funk, Folk, Acoustic):

Since I was driving I didn’t get to drink any Pimms, but it did look tempting!

In fairness, although it was mad, eclectic and random it was a lot of fun. There was local produce being sold, face painting and yoga going on around the garden. My impression was that all those who came along had fun!

I took along my Fujifilm X-Pro1 and X100S. I used the Fujifilm Xf 55-200mm and the XF 21mm lenses on the X-Pro1. The 55-200mm is perfect for this kind of thing (stage event when I’m there with the family) and is the principal reason I didn’t take my Nikon D800E along. It’s a large lens for the system but not relative to DSLR long zooms. It’s very sharp and although I prefer slightly more contrast in my results it’s easily added in post.

Finally it was time to leave, but I couldn’t sign off without including this lovely MG I saw in the car park…