A FUN-FILLED couple of days was enjoyed by the thousands of people who attended the Royal Welsh Spring Festival in Llanelwedd at the weekend.
A celebration of rural life, the Spring Festival is a firm favourite for many visitors to Powys during the show season.
With an emphasis on smallholding farming, the festival offered knowledge-hungry festival goers the opportunity to benefit from a huge array of free workshops, talks, question-and-answer sessions, demonstrations and displays.
It didn’t matter if it was growing vegetables, shearing, treating and vaccinating pigs, keeping chickens, managing woodlands, or many other topics and skills, there were opportunities for everyone to learn something.
"We are thrilled with how much everyone enjoyed the first Royal Welsh event of 2017," said Kay Spencer, the Spring Festival’s director. "The visitors have come out in force, and fully embraced this celebration of smallholding and rural life. With tradestands reporting a brisk trade and visitors revelling in the wonderful friendly festival atmosphere, the weekend has been one to remember."
This year saw the return of the Royal Welsh Trail Running Festival, which attracted over 1,000 runners.
For the third time the festival also featured the famous Sheep Show. Set on its own stage, the 30-minute show which ran four times on each day included a shearing demonstration and dancing sheep.
The festival also saw the launch of a scheme by Dyfed-Powys police to put special constables on horse back.