Twice a year;

- the first weekend in December and the first weekend in June, Rochester holds its biannual Dickens Festival, when everyone dresses up as their favourite Dickens character, generally with a liberal dusting of SteamPunk thrown in because surely, that is what the Victorian age is all about, really.

But the MayDay Bank Holiday weekend is Rochester's Sweeps Festival – any number of Morris dancing troupes whooping it up all along the cobbled High Street, as well as the ubiquitous fun fair in the castle grounds. And a whole load of SteamPunk thrown into the mix.

This year it also happens to coincide with Star Wars Day (May the Fourth etc) but Stormtroopers hopelessly overshadowed by every other attraction under the sun, especially the extraordinarily large chap with pale blue skin, bless them.

Today I have discovered that Rochester's Sweeps Festival is the closest proximity to Glossa's Carnival that I am ever likely to find in Britain.