THOUSANDS of visitors headed to Narberth at the weekend for a flavour of some of the best of Welsh live music and food.

Day one of the crowd-drawing foodie festival on Saturday was a busy one with car parks filling up quickly by the afternoon. The festival’s park and ride scheme helped visitors get to the site with overspill parking also at Bloomfield.

While tricky windy weather forced a few of the outside street food stalls to close early on Sunday, the large marquees ensured festival goers willing to risk the weather were able to enjoy their time undercover.

Music acts included the Swingin Nettles, festival circuit favourites BoxSet, rockabilly dynamo John Lewis and rousing Tenby-based band Ella Guru, Abbie Jebbers, Rosey Cale, Cadence, Omega Two, Follically Challenged, Desert Life and Tomos Newman.

In the festival kitchen, Owen Prosser of Pembrokeshire Chilli Farm and Craig Reeves of Reeves BBQ talked about how chillies are produced in the county and what to do with them.

Josh Freeman outlined how Kilgetty firm Salt and Smoke produces their much-loved smoked salmon, while Matthew Rees revealed how his family’s famous Carmarthen Ham came about.

Chefs offering up top tips and recipe ideas included Dougie Balish, of The Grove, Narberth; Karl Jones-Hughes, of Stopio, Narberth; and Gerwyn Jones, of Lan y Môr, Saundersfoot. Ludo Dieumegard, of The Harbourmaster, Aberaeron, delighted his audience with a number of ways to use cauliflower, including a simple but tasty cauliflower soup.

With festival patron Angela Gray forced to withdraw at the last minute, Polly Baldwin joined her colleague author Simon Wright from the Cegin y Bobl - The People’s Kitchen project, to demonstrate some of the recipes they use to inspire children to eat more healthily and generate enthusiasm for home cooking with nutritious ingredients in a fun way.

Groups volunteering at the festival this year included the Grace Church community team who ran children’s activities on Saturday, Narberth Guides who also helped out on Saturday, and Narberth and Whitland Rotary who once again ensured the park and ride scheme ran smoothly.

Holly Robinson, of the food festival committee, said: “The committee would like to thank all of the volunteers, businesses and local organisations who helped make the festival possible again this year, including Bloomfield for the use of their car park not only over the weekend but also during the week when the marquees went up.”