It’s the perfect winter celebration: outdoor sports; a tour of stained glass windows, a brunch crawl, and a pancake breakfast; concerts and art shows; kids’ activities, tours, and open houses, ice carving, tea tasting, a look at the stars, and much more will be featured during Norfolk’s Second WINter Weekend, Saturday and Sunday, February 24 and 25. What’s even better, most of the events are free.
Event Highlights
Music and art will be strongly represented. The Doobie Others Band will perform at Infinity Hall Saturday night at 8 p.m. and, early birds take note, Will Evans of Barefoot Truth will be at Infinity on Friday evening. For classical music lovers, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival is sponsoring a free performance, Music among Friends, with composer Krists Auznieks and the Yale School of Music Piano Quintet in the library on Saturday afternoon from 2 to 3:30 p.m. And the library plans fun entertainment for the whole family by hosting the Traveling Lantern Theater Puppet Show on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., free of charge.
As for art, there is a show by painter Victor Leger at the library on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. The Norfolk Artisans Guild is hosting a variety of artisan demonstrations and an art show by watercolorist Pamela Harnois from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Norfolk Historical Society will be open with a fabulous display of work by 19th-century photographer Marie Kendall on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. New this year at the Norfolk Hub in the center of town, will be video showings of Haystack Book Talks on Saturday at 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 2 p.m.; the videos will run again on Sunday at 12 noon and 1:30 p.m. Another highlight offered at the Hub is a demonstration on how to make handmade art journals by Leslie Watkins on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Revelers won’t go hungry. Don’t miss out on all the goodies at the indoor Farmers Market, inside Town Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Norfolk volunteer ambulance squad will serve up hot cider and donuts free of charge on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Great Mountain Forest will open its sugar shack on Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon to 4 p.m., Mother Nature permitting. The restaurants in Norfolk have organized a brunch crawl, the Manor House Inn will host a Murder Mystery on Sunday evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Mountain View Green Retreat will offer visitors tea, food tastings and mini spa services on Sunday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The Immaculate Conception Church will host a free pancake breakfast on Sunday. And, of course, sit-down meals will be readily available at almost any time of day.
A perennial favorite of WINter Weekend are the tours offered by the Norfolk Curling Club that will have an open House on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you like stained glass, don’t miss the stained glass window tours of Church of Christ on Saturday and Sunday. The tours of these beautiful stained glass windows by Tiffany and Armstrong begin on Saturday and run on the hour from 10 am to 3 pm and on Sunday from 12 noon to 3 p.m. Immaculate Conception Church will also have docents on hand each day to talk about its own gorgeous stained glass.
Interested in sports? There will be plenty—skating on the town ice rink with lessons on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., there is all day cross-country skiing, hiking and snowshoeing on one of Norfolk’s many trails including the beautiful North Brook Trail and sledding for all ages on the hill behind the Congregational Church on the green (bring your own sled). There will be an owl prowl from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. and then a wildlife walk on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, both at Aton Forest. New this year is the Astronomy Night on Saturday from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. for a look at the winter constellations, complete with a bonfire and hot chocolate to take the chill out of the air. To round things out, the Norfolk Land Trust is hosting a slide talk on wolf trees by Michael Gaige at the Norfolk Library from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
To see a full schedule of events and times, go to weekendinnorfolk call 860-542-5829. For updates, follow Weekend in Norfolk on Facebook. And save the date: the annual Weekend in Norfolk is coming up August 2, 3 and 4, 2019, for three days of summer fun.
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