Jubilant

So, what did everyone do over the long Jubilee weekend, eh?  Street parties?  Picnics in the park?  Champagne and strawberries under a glorious blue June sky?  Lining the streets of London to wave a flag and cheer at the Queen?

No, me neither.

I was in a field.  In Derbyshire.

Why oh why oh why was I in a field in Derbyshire?  You may well ask.  Well.  Mr WithaY's new chosen career is that of bushcraft instructor, and he had been asked to go along to the Bushcraft Show to help out with one of the trade stands - a company he has been training, and latterly working with.

He asked me if I'd like to come along, to meet his colleagues, look at all the other stands, and see what it was all about.  I said yes.  But only on the condition that I could book us into a local B&B, as I have decided that I am too old, too creaky, and in all likelihood too wheezy to camp much these days*.

I found a pub with rooms a few miles from the showground, booked us in for three nights, and off we went on Friday afternoon.  It was a hellish journey, inevitably.  A long Bank Holiday Weekend, plus the usual evening rush hour traffic meant that it took us probably two hours longer than we had expected, but we arrived eventually.  Mr WithaY rang his colleagues to find out if we were needed to go and help set things up, but they were only then leaving home, and weren't likely to arrive much before midnight, so we were free to go and grab some dinner and have an early night, ready for an early start on Saturday.

So.  Saturday morning - having left the pub too early to enjoy the included-in-the-room-cost breakfast chiz chiz chiz - we drove across to Elvaston Castle, and this is how the showground looked:

As you can probably tell, it was a bit damp.  I did like the giant three-point teepee though.  It had a big tv screen in it.

Saturday was successful, there were a lot of people wandering around, and there were many demonstrations of various skills going on.  Flint knapping proved very popular, and drew crowds every time the knapper started working.

See how he knaps.  I asked him what he does with all the broken bits of flint once he's finished, and apparently they all get placed in a special spoil heap at a university, to ensure that the archaeological record isn't polluted with 21st Century flint arrowheads.

There was also a lovely lady making willow baskets and things.  I watched her for ages.

It made me want to have another go, after the excellent day Mr WithaY and I had last Autumn in Somerset, basket weaving.

There was also a chap there who had made several canoes and kayaks.  He told us how he'd travelled to Canada, visited some Colonial re-enactment type place and asked them if he could learn to make a canoe in their workshop.  They considered it, finally told him he could, but only if he agreed to dress as a Voyageur while he did it, and talk to the public.  He spent three months dressed up, learning canoe-making, and said he loved every minute.

Unfortunately, all day on Sunday it pissed down.  The rain woke me in the night - did I mention we were staying in a pub, not a tent? - and it didn't let up for about 36 hours.  The numbers of people coming through the show were correspondingly low.  As I hadn't packed my wellies, by lunchtime my feet were soaked and I was cold and miserable.

I think this encapsulates the mood:

Hopelessly optimistic, offering strawberries and scones in a sea of mud and cold, cold rain.

I took myself off to the car and sat there in the dry, if not the warm, reading my book, playing Angry Birds and snoozing intermittently until it was time to leave.  One bright spot was a phone call from some lovely mates who live nearby, who were:

(a) miffed that we hadn't thought to ask them if we could stay at their house, and

(b) seeing if we'd like to meet them for dinner later.

That cheered me right up.  A wet, cold, grim day was thus lifted by a lively and good-humoured evening with our mates, and several large glasses of wine.  Mmmmm wine. These are the mates we went to Cornwall with a couple of years ago.  When Mr WithaY fell in the river. Yeah, you remember.

Monday was much better.  The sun shone, there were loads of people, and suddenly everything looked cheerful and interesting again, rather than just rain-sodden and squalid.

We left at about 6 in the evening, having helped to take down the tents and so on, and had an uneventful and much shorter journey home in the bright evening sunshine.

One other highlight of the trip was travelling over to Matlock to pick up my clock.  Remember I said I'd commissioned a clock as a "Congratulations on doing 23 Years in the Civil Service" present for myself?

It was ready for collection last weekend, so we went and collected it.  Readers, it is a thing of beauty, and I am completely thrilled with it.

Look, here it is in the box, about to be put up on the wall in pride of place.  The brush is for dusting it.

And here it is in situ:

It is keeping excellent time so far, but my genius clock-making mate assures me it will need to be adjusted sooner or later.  In the meantime, I am enjoying the look of it, and the rather reassuring tick-tock it makes.

It's joined my Rickenbacker on the list of Things I Will Save In A Fire.








*Although if we get one of those funky circular tents you can fit a wood-burner in, I might reconsider

Festival time

There is a low, loud droning, groaning noise coming up the stairs from the sitting room.  Mr WithaY has bought a didgeridoo.

It's amazing what you can find to buy at a festival.  We came home with a selection of hemp clothing, some geckoes made of copper wire, a couple of CDs and a didge.  All the cool kids call them that. 

 
Indeed, I am sitting here wearing my new hempen t-shirt as I type.  I feel like a proper counter-culture heroine.  It's only 26 years since I went to my first festival*, and finally I feel like I''ve got the hang of it. Yay me.
 
We saw sooooo many bands.  Here, let me list them and make you go "oooh, they sound interesting".

 

There were several venues.  The Garden Stage is the big outdoor "main" stage, where we sat in the glorious sunshine and watched Mumford and Sons, then Loney Dear, a bonkers Scandinavian chap.   
 

 
 
Then there was the Tipi Tent.  This was a huge wooden and canvas venue, made up of about three big tents all linked together.  There was a bar selling cocktails (and cider) as you walked in, and lots of cushions and padded boxes and things scattered on the floor in front of the stage.  It was decorated with hundreds of strings of lights wrapped around the poles, and was really rather lovely. 
 

 
 

 

The cocktails were splendid.  They were offering a Hedgerow Something Or Other, which we decided to try.  I  asked the bar girl what was in it.  "Mostly gin," she replied, grinning widely.  Mmmmmm gin.

And raspberries.  And some sort of fruit liqueuer.  So probably at least one of the recommended five-a-day fruits and vegetables. 

We sat on the squishy cushions, drinking cocktails and watching an artiste called The Sliding Rule.  He was a youngish skinny guy with a mop of black hair, who played an acoustic guitar.  Well, eventually.  First he spent ages using what looked like a long twig, or possibly a feather, as a bow, then an actual violin bow to make loops of ethereal sounds, before playing his song over the top. It was interesting to begin with, but when he decided that he wanted to get off the stage to "be among the people" we looked at one another and decided to go and find another band. 

 We checked out the Big Top Stage, a huge marquee with a great light show, and saw The Tenebrous Liar, then later the Duke and the King, who were superb.  In fact, we ran into them later on, and had a quick chat, when they told us they were doing a "secret show" in the Tipi.  We went back there at about 10.30 pm and sat and chilled till they appeared, then watched them play again.

Apart from the horribly, noisily, clumsily drunk Australian girl who managed to spill drinks all over the place (including on me) it was pleasant and laid back.  Mr WithaY got chatting to a couple sat on the floor beside him, who had driven up from Plymouth, breaking down and getting lost many times en route.

 

They seemed pretty cheerful about it, and as the conversation progressed, the reason for their frame of mind was made clear to us.  It's amazing what people will tell you when they have absolutely no idea who you are.  They explained to us all about how they had grown their own dope, dried it, minced it up and turned it into festival-going fags.  For all they knew we could have been off-duty drugs squad officers.  We aren't, as it happens, but they had no way of knowing that.  Seems you get less clever the more stoned you are.  Who'd have thought it, eh?

Anyway, the Big Top tent.  We saw a young American band called Motel Motel who were superb, and then Beth Jeans Houghton, who stepped in to cover for a band who had cancelled. She and her band were excellent, and I will definitely go and see them again if I get the opportunity. 

I took some pictures of the tent itself, because I thought it was rather well done, and a very blurry picture of Beth Jeans Houghton which I like, despite the blurriness. 

The final venue was called The Local, and was a mouse-eaten marquee with a stage at the far end, nothing grand at all.  We saw Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo in there, an all-girl band who were lovely.  Again, definitely worth a look if you see them playing anywhere.

The highlight of the weekend for me, other than the Fleet Foxes, was the Saturday lunchtime session by The Leisure Society.  I've heard their stuff on the radio** before, and they were simply breathtaking live.  It was the session that everyone was talking about over the rest of the weekend, they are clearly superb musians and were just lovely to listen to.  The chat between them and the audience was good too, self-deprecating and cheerful, and most entertaining.  We bought their CD, and I am listening to it as we speak. 

Other bands we saw, or heard as we sat drinking tea, included Wildbirds and Peacedrums (very loud and clearly insane), the Dirty Projectors, Explosions In The Sky (hugely loud even with earplugs in), Alela Diane (sweet easy listening stuff), The Week That Was (not sure about them, we were drinking cider at the time).  And the Fleet Foxes, obviously.

We were right at the back, so the sound quality was excellent, but it did make taking a photo of the band well-nigh impossible. 

One of my favourite spots was the Tea Stop, a double decker bus cleverly converted into a tea room, with a garden outside.  We sat on their comfy double deckchair and enjoyed tea in the sunshine on more than one occasion.  Very civilised.

One visit was enlivened by the sight of a young man with extravagent Wolverine-stylee facial hair sitting on the top deck, having a cream tea. 

Me:  Look!  Up there!  It's Wolverine, having his tea!

Mr WithaY:  Where?

Me:  Up there...at the end of the bus!  In the window!  Look...he's pouring tea from the teapot.

Mr WithaY:  But his mighty metal adamantium claws will shear off the spout!  How will he grip the teacup?

Me:  But, looking on the bright side, he can use them to spread butter and jam on his scones.

We tried taking a photo but it was too far away and we were trying to be discreet, so you'll just have to imagine it. 

We met some amusing people, particularly the two chaps sitting on a bench in the woods, admiring a beautifully lit tree.  We stopped to admire it too, and then took some pictures.  They were hugely impressed.  "We've been trying to photograph it for ages," they told us mournfully.  "It keeps being blurry."  I think that may have been their eyes, not the tree.  

....although, now I look at it again....

The woods had been decorated with lights, which I am a sucker for, and we spent a long time walking through admiring the sylvan loveliness.  

I was taken by the woodland library, but particularly by their selection of books.  Struck me as incongruous, given the setting and all. 

They had set up a few funky little installations around the site.  This one was being utilised by some musicians for an impromptu session. 

 

This one wasn't.

A nice time.  Just what we needed, I think.   

 

 
*A very lovely folk festival at Goodwood Racecourse in 1983.  Donovan was headlining.  Happy days.  In fact it was the Sussex Folk Jamboree, August the 6th, thank you Internet. 

**  http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/3wgb The Leisure Society review by the BBC

Rain. Again.

Well, it's pissing down again. So, that'll be summer over and done with then. A week and a half of sun, in between 5 months of Weather From Hell.

Driving to work earlier, there were big chunks of the road surface washing away on the roads across Salisbury Plain.

I'm betting we'll have flash flooding over the next 24 hours if it keeps raining, as the drains are all overflowing.

In the village there were huge pools of standing water around each drain, and there was a new stream running down from the fields into the road.

All a bit worrying.

Things at work are pretty slow at the moment. It's summer holiday season, so loads of people are out of the office, but even so things seem to have all but stopped in their tracks. Not quite sure why, so have spent the morning deploying my finest and sturdiest poking stick to get things moving again. We shall see.

Found out last week that the party we're going to on Friday has my lovely guitar teacher's band playing. Excellent.

And we had an invite to another mate's party in September. A weekend of camping, eating, drinking, singing and playing the fool (I expect). Really looking forward to it. I might chicken out and see if we can book a B&B though, if it keeps bloody raining.

Many years ago, whilst camping with a huge load of mates, one of said mates rather over-refreshed himself. He was carefully put in the recovery position, outside his tent (it was a warm night), and left to sleep it off. Much later, after everyone had gone to bed, he woke up, realised he was going to be sick, grabbed the zip of the tent door, opened it, stuck his head inside and threw up lavishly.

Heh.

Bands, bikes, tents

Reading Badgerdaddy's post about his old band getting back together has made me think hard about doing something similar. Again.

Trouble is, I know a few decent musicians but thay all live bloody miles away. Colin, move to Wiltshire, you selfish git. Heh.

Mr WithaY has a harmonica, but is a bit limited in his repertoire. He can play the bohdran too but that gets a little wearing after a while, frankly. It also lacks the pinpoint accuracy of AC/DC's rhythm section, which is the sound I aspire to.

I love live music. One of the very few downsides to living here is that there are limited opportunities to see bands. There's the Cheese and Grain in Frome, I suppose.

The best band venue location I've lived in (in retrospect) was Chichester.

We went to see loads of small local bands in various pubs and clubs in the area. There was also Chichester Rock Society, a bi-weekly rock disco with a live band every month. Loads of mates would get down there, the girls tending to dance all night and the blokes congregating in the bar to talk about their bikes.

The blokes would usually join us on the dancefloor later, either because their respective girlfriends had made them feel guilty for not dancing, or because they could see the end of the evening looming and were planning a desperate last-minute chat-up. Heh. I used to like that, always so entertaining.

We could also go to the Wedgewood Rooms and the Guildhall in Portsmouth, the Southampton Guildhall (now Mayflower), and the Brighton Centre for the really big bands. I look back now and think "Why did I not take more advantage of this?"

And then I remember. I had no money and couldn't drive. And the boyfriends I had at the time were either not keen on the same bands as me, or had no money either. Sigh.

Having said that, I got to see Rush, Whitesnake, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Bon Jovi (supporting Kiss, bloody brilliant), Jethro Tull, Magnum, as well as all the smaller bands like Spider, Dumpy's Rusty Nuts (still touring I believe), the Hampsters (likewise), and all the 3-gigs-before-splitting-up local bands.

Ah, happy days. Nothing is quite as much fun as turning up to a heavy rock gig on the back of a huge sexy bike, with a gang of mates also on huge sexy bikes, posing wildly before going in to dance like maniacs for two hours.

Well, nothing that I can think of offhand, anyway.

And of course there was The Years in Brighton. I loved that place. A heavy rock nightclub, now a bloody wine bar. Gah.

I can't remember the last time I went to see a big band. We've done a fair few festivals though, which seems to be a more West Country thing. Not huge ones like Glastonbury. Smaller ones like the Trowbridge Village Pump and the Larmer Tree Gardens. Not this summer, however. Too bloody wet.

We went to one in Donnington (not the big one, a smaller folky one) a few years back. About 8 of us went, taking two big canvas tents to sleep in. We got there and discovered we had no groundsheets. Bugger. We compromised by putting one tent up (using a rock as a mallet because we'd left that behind as well) and using the other tent as the groundsheet.

The spirit of invention was strong in us that weekend.

Obviously there wasn't enough room for us all in the one tent, so a couple of the guys elected to sleep in their van. Hurrah! Off we went to party, first setting up three large double airbeds in the tent so we could all crash out when we got back. Much partying and Jack Daniels later, bedtime came around.

So, me and Mr WithaY took one airbed, at the back of the tent. Two large male friends were sharing* the next double airbed, and another, smaller pair of male mates were on the double airbed nearest the door. Perfect.

Everyone settled down for a peaceful night's sleep.

Well, as peaceful as it could be with six people all crashed out after having been drinking heavily, laughing immoderately and dancing till everyone else had fallen by the wayside. It sounded like a Serengeti watering hole, all the grunts, snorts and other noises** that went on continuously.

Come the dawn, I woke up and looked down the tent to see if there was any way I could get out to go to the loo without waking everyone else up.

Mr WithaY was snuggled right next to me, I was wrapped around the tentpole (oo-er), and one of the large male friends had migrated across onto our airbed. Mr WithaY still has flashbacks about waking up with him snuffling in his ear in his sleep.

Other large male mate was spreadeagled across the entire middle airbed like a huge snoring starfish. The third airbed only had one occupant too....where was our smaller mate?

I picked my way carefully*** down to the door, and there he was - outside in the rain, fast asleep, wrapped in his sleeping bag like a little beardie angel.

He complained about that for YEARS afterwards. "Remember that night I got shoved out under the tent flap into the rain." Yes, we remember. Heh.

Ahhh happy days.

*as in sharing the space ONLY, they were very insistent on this point

**farting. Ugh

***treading on everyone as I went. I was careful in that I didn't stamp on them