Folk music, film tunes and hundreds of collectables head for the Shepton area

This article is sponsored by the Bath & West Showground, home to some of Somerset's biggest events, shows and days out.

The Shepton Mallet area has music and collecting covered this weekend, with RNLI Mendip Folk Concert: Harbottle & Jonas and Shepton Mallet Big Band presents an evening of movie and show tunes both in the Saturday diary. Sunday then brings the Toy & Train Collectors Fair to the Bath & West Showground, with more than 300 stalls for collectors to work their way through.

Thursday, 8 October starts in Glastonbury with Walk Towards Your Own Horizon at Glastonbury Town Hall. Ursula Franklin will speak about Mission Penguin, her quest to see and photograph every species of penguin in its natural habitat, at a meeting of Glastonbury Women's Friendship Group from 2.30pm. It is not every Thursday afternoon that the conversation can legitimately involve that many penguins.

Friday, 9 October brings Opening the Word: Tyndale, Translation and Transformation to Wells Cathedral. The symposium marks 500 years since William Tyndale's 1526 New Testament and will feature seven scholars working across Bible translation, textual criticism, Reformation history and theology. It runs from 9am until 5pm, followed by an invitation to a Tyndale-themed Evensong from 5.15pm until 6.30pm. Five centuries of translation is quite a lot to get through before tea, but the programme has wisely allowed the full day.

Also on Friday, Free Kitchen Garden Open Day in the Mendip Hills runs from 10am to 4pm at Asterion & Co., The Old Vicarage in Leigh-on-Mendip. The free event, held with Pennard Plants, gives visitors the chance to explore a working kitchen garden containing open beds, a glasshouse, polytunnel, orchard and ornamental borders. Chris Smith will offer horticultural advice and Mike Milligan will provide guidance on heritage seeds. Plants, seeds, antiques and gardenalia will also be available to browse, while tea, coffee and homemade cakes can be bought. There is no on-site parking, and organisers advise visitors not to rely on the postcode for navigation. Anyone whose courgettes have staged a complete surrender this year may wish to take notes.

The Veda Coda Community meetup also falls on Friday, with the group meeting in Somerton and Dundon from 10am until noon on the second Friday of each month. It is aimed at practitioners who would like conversation, mutual support, referrals and potential collaborations without forced introductions or the traditional exchange of business cards destined to live forever in a drawer. Networking, but with considerably less ceremony around the stationery.

Street gets its turn on Friday evening with the Country & Western Evening at The Victoria Club. Doors open at 6pm and music begins at 7pm. Entry is free, country outfits, boots and Stetsons are optional, and burger and chips will be available from McKinven's Kitchen. Somerset does not insist on a Stetson very often, so enthusiasts may as well enjoy the opportunity.

Families in Shepton Mallet can meanwhile head to Little Seedlings Parent & Toddler Group, which meets on Friday mornings from 10am to 11.30am during term time. Run with a forest school ethos, sessions include outdoor exploration, nature activities, arts and crafts, pond dipping and play in a mud kitchen. Parents, grandparents and other family members are welcome. Sessions cost £8, with an additional toddler charged at £3. Mud kitchens rarely require Michelin inspectors, which is probably for the best.

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Saturday, 10 October sees Wells Art Contemporary open at Wells Cathedral, where it will continue until 7 November. This year's exhibition takes the theme "For what is time?", inspired by St Augustine, and includes 20 installations around the Cathedral as well as 100 artworks in the Cloisters by international artists and local community groups. Published opening hours are 9am to 4.30pm from Monday to Saturday and 11am to 3pm on Sundays, although visitors are advised to check for variations. Free admission is available to residents of the Bath and Wells diocese. A month-long exhibition about time does at least seem committed to the theme.

Further afield on Saturday, RNLI Mendip Folk Concert: Harbottle & Jonas takes place at St James' Church Centre in Winscombe. Doors open at 7.15pm ahead of an 8pm performance by the Devon duo, whose music uses concertina, harmonium, banjo, stomp box, acoustic guitar and cittern alongside close vocal harmonies. Tickets cost £13.50, and there will be a bar and a raffle raising money for the RNLI. With that many instruments between two people, nobody can accuse them of travelling light.

Saturday, 10 October also brings Shepton Mallet Big Band presents an evening of movie and show tunes to Binegar Memorial Hall. Tickets are £10, with doors opening at 7.30pm, and there will be a bar, tables and room for dancing. The performance is the band's final outing for its Movies and Shows-themed sets this year, so anyone who likes their big-band music with a touch of the silver screen has a fairly straightforward Saturday-night decision to make.

Sunday, 11 October brings one of the larger events of the weekend as Wells Food Festival returns to the city centre from 10.30am until 4.30pm. Entry is free and more than 200 producers and street-food sellers are due to take part in the Artisan Market. This year's programme includes Big Nath's Fire Stage, food-related discussions and question-and-answer sessions in the Food for Thought area, English wine at Swan Green and free children's cookery workshops with Little Joe's Kitchen. Going for "a quick look" at 200 food stalls remains an admirably optimistic plan.

At the Bath & West Showground on Sunday, the Toy & Train Collectors Fair will bring more than 300 stalls together for collectors. The listing includes everything from Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox models to Hornby, Meccano, Scalextric, dolls, teddies and science-fiction collectables. Anyone going in search of one particular model should perhaps prepare for the possibility of leaving with several things that were absolutely not on the original list.

Also continuing through the weekend is Moments of Light at Dorothy House Hospice Care in Winsley. Bruce Munro's large-scale installation runs from 1 October until 31 December as part of the hospice's 50th anniversary year, transforming its grounds with thousands of illuminated forms. The installation is intended as a place for reflection, connection and remembrance. Tickets are free, with visitors invited to make a donation to support Dorothy House.

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