Brighton Veg Fest

It's almost Brighton Veg Fest time again! It's this weekend at Hove Town Hall. If you're a regular reader you'll know that I attend every year and then blog about it afterwards ( 2012, 2011) but this time around I'm blogging about it beforehand too. Why? Because this year's extra special! I have my first ever Operation Icing stall on Saturday.

It's not just the first ever Operation Icing stall at Veg Fest either, it's the first Operation Icing stall anywhere, ever! It's been a crazy week of crafting banners and signs, working out what I want my table to look like and finalising my to-bake list. All that's left to do now is, well, bake!

My Speculoos Caramel cupcakes will be making an appearance as will these Raspberry Doughnut cupcakes.

There will also be plenty of other flavours to choose from as well as brownies and gluten free options. Operation Icing are at stall 136 on Saturday only.

This weekend falls into the donation month for Raystede Animal Sanctuary so all profits from sales of Operation Icing's cupcakes at Veg Fest will be going straight to them. 

Incase you've never heard of Raystede they're located in Ringmer, about 30 miles outside Brighton and they rescue, rehome and provide sanctuary for more than 1500 animals each year. I really, really love it there. I always manage to visit at least twice a year either with Nick or with friends and on our last trip we got to do something extra special. We took part in an Animal Carer for a Day experience. 

We started out in the cattery helping to socialise the cats. I hadn't really thought about it properly before but cats can get sad and angry if they're not getting any human cuddle time and it really helps them to be receptive to possible adoptees if they can spend a little time socialising with humans each day.

This is Albi who is currently looking for a forever home.

The next stop was the Cavy house where we helped to muck out and stroke some guinea pigs and a couple of friendly rabbits who were lolloping about.

The next part of the day had to be the highlight for me. Weighing hedgehogs.

They can't let many people into this part of the centre because wildlife shouldn't get too accustomed to human contact but the hedgehogs need weighing every day so that the carers know when to release them and we were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

Next up was some pony grooming, unsurprisingly I picked this ridiculously adorable little one to groom! Holley was in charge of the fringe.

We also got to walk and play with some lovely dogs. Both mine and Nick's have since been re-homed, yay!

Our last caring duty was bathing the tortoises. I'd never held a tortoise before and it was pretty cute, you got to dry them by wrapping them in a fluffy towel!

It was such a wonderful day, this was the first time Raystede had ever done a day like this for adults and you certainly couldn't tell. They had the whole day planned out so that we could spend time caring for as many different animals as possible and it was a truly brilliant experience. Raystede currently have two more Adult Animal Carer For a Day experiences scheduled for this year and you can split the cost between three or four people if you wish.

If you love the look of what Raystede do and you'll be at Brighton Veg Fest this weekend swing by the Operation Icing stall to grab a cupcake (or four!) to help support their work.

One last exciting announcement is that this little blog has been nominated for a Best Blogger of the Year award in the Veg Fest UK awards. Wow! I would love it if you'd consider voting for me, I'm totally not expecting to win as I'm up against some pretty stiff competition but you should totally vote for me anyway so that I don't get zero votes and feel like a loser!!

Hopefully I'll see some of you over the weekend, please come & say hi at stall 136!