The Hoppings – fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe

The Hoppings~June 2017~Part 5

July 5, 2017July 5, 2017Posted in Adventures, Event, Fuji, fujiXT1, people, photography, uncategorisedTagged Adventures, British Army, Event, fraggle, Fuji XT-1, Newcastle Upon Tyne, photography, The Hoppings, UK26 Comments

Part 1 HERE Part 2 Here Part 3 HERE part 4 HERE

The last part of The Hoppings series concludes with a battle, or rather a display by the army. Actually I wasn’t quite sure what they were meant to be doing, but lots of army chaps charging about in vehicles, shooting and running about. All good fun. 🙂

Apparently this rocket launcher thingy can launch a rocket from Newcastle and precisely hit the football stadium in Middlesborough. No need to shoot that far I thought, the Stadium of Shite in Sunderland would be a much worthier target. 🙂

Field gun

A Warrior APC (armoured personel carrier)

Halleluja!

You’ll never get on Facebook with that!

Soldierette

inside the rocket launcher thingy

So that’s that, a great day out and on the way home I saw this and liked it 🙂

The Hoppings~Part 4~June 2017

July 2, 2017July 2, 2017Posted in Event, Fuji, fujiXT1, photography, uncategorisedTagged fraggle, Fuji XT-1, Newcastle Upon Tyne, photography, Police Dogs, The Hoppings, UK21 Comments

Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE, Part 3 HERE

After the parachute display, the arena got ready for the police dog demonstration. These are all working police dogs, except one which is still in training, and they are all German Shepherds.

Agility Training

After the agility round it was catch a bad man time

One of the officers dressed up as a ninja turtle (not sure why) and ‘stole’ a briefcase from a planted crowd member

You can see the doggy raring to go!

Of course the dog got him

but then wouldn’t let go..

nope..not letting go

I don’t care what you say, this turtle is mine

In the end the turtle had to release the padded arm protector and the doggy ran off happy as Larry, and everyone enjoyed the fun.

Was lovely to watch the dogs in action, and I sure wouldn’t want to be chased by one!

Stay tooned for the final episode of the Hoppings, when the Army does it’s display. 🙂

The Hoppings~June 2017~part 3

June 28, 2017June 29, 2017Posted in Adventures, Event, Fuji, fujiXT1, people, photography, uncategorisedTagged aerial display, British Army, fair, fraggle, Fuji XT-1, Newcastle Upon Tyne, parachutists, photography, The Hoppings, UK32 Comments

Part 1 HERE. Part 2 HERE.

Eventually, after a horrid lunch of side stall burger and fries (the majority of which ended up in a bin) we got to the area where the military show was. Lots of side shows of equipment,

medivac demos,

helicopters,

climbing walls

recruiting booths and a fenced of arena for the ‘shows’.

First off we had a parachute display

They all landed so easy, like a walk in the park

After this, we had a police dog show, but that’s another post, so stay tooned 🙂

(as an aside… it was 30 degrees 2 weeks ago at the end of June, when I took these, and its now 13 degrees and has rained solid for 2 days. Totally Bonkers. )

The Hoppings~June 2017~Part 2

June 25, 2017Posted in Adventures, Event, Fuji, fujiXT1, people, photography, uncategorisedTagged fair, fraggle, Fuji XT-1, Newcastle Upon Tyne, people, photography, The Hoppings, UK32 Comments

Part 1 HERE

The Hoppings fair was very well attended, so I thought it would be rude of me not to photograph some of the people I saw 🙂

and my absolute fave

Still more to come from The Hoppings so stay tooned!

Fraggle Report~The Hoppings ~ June 2017~Part 1

June 24, 2017Posted in Adventures, colours, Event, Fuji, fujiXT1, people, photography, uncategorised, urbanTagged fair, fraggle, Fuji XT-1, June2017, Newcastle Upon Tyne, The Hoppings, UK29 Comments

The Hoppings is is an annual travelling funfair held on the Town Moor in Newcastle upon Tyne, during the last week in June and is one of Europe’s largest travelling funfairs. The origin of the name is uncertain but could be that “hopping”, means a dance in Middle English (Old fairs included dancing), or from the clothing which the travellers used to wear; that being of old, sack-like tops and pants. Clothing often became infested with fleas from the animals that travelled with the fair. People were often seen “jumping” or “hopping” about itching from the bites which they received, or the name may derive from the Anglo-Saxon word “hoppen” meaning funfair. The last makes more sense to me but who knows? The fair began as a Temperance Fair in 1882, and has been on every year since then with a couple of exceptions. This year they had a Military Show at the far end of the grounds so Phil and I got on the metro and off we went. It was a mad hot day with temperatures around 30degrees but we had hats on and water with us. Although the funfair part wasn’t our thing it was great for colours and photographs so I took a fair few on the way through to the military bit.