Posts

Festival Weather - hoping for the best but planning for the worst

-
Image
Anyone that goes to a festival in the UK knows to take wellies. Wellingtons have become a staple item in the wardrobe of the festival fan because whether it rains or not there will be damp bits. Often these damp bits will be near the showers, or the water points, or the toilets...we shall not dwell here. Wellies have come a long way from the days where green was fancy and black was normal. Now there are glitter wellies, fancy patterned wellies, wellies that look like shoes or regular books, wellies that have jewels and probably even bells. But wellies are not the only prep you need for a UK festival. The very first festival I ever attended was Eastern Haze in Suffolk. IT rained. It rained for days. The field become a swamp. The lorries to empty the toilets became stuck in the mud, the toilets over flowed, the car park was a lake. Oh and my tent pole broke. As you can imagine, surviving this was the best fun ever and I was then hooked on festivals for ever! As was my then seven ye...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pitch your tent properly, advice for festival goers young and old.

-
Image
I've written before about hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Watching tents at Creamfields and Leeds festivals this weekend made me think about this again. Lots of young people go to festivals and they might have no camping experience, or only have experience of camping as a family holiday, where mum and dad pitched the tent and then every day was a sunny adventure until home-time. So I guess this is for those people, and for you if you don't camp much.  First things first, pop up tents are great. They are super easy to erect and they feel like an instant pitch. but do not be fooled. The fact the tent popped into shape does not mean you do not need to peg it down, nor does it mean you do not need any guy ropes. Bigger tents with flexible poles often give you and your mates lots of space and plenty of room for luggage and clobber, but again, you need to peg them down, all the guy ropes, all the time. People with pyramid style and bell tents will already be familia...
Read The Previous Post
Post a Comment
Read more

Boomtown Chapter Three : Revolution of the Imagination

-
Image
 I adore Boomtown. It's the one festival I just can't miss and I have just returned from an exhausting but blissful few days in a field in Hampshire.   I never manager to actually get involved in the story no matter how much I have good intentions to do this and this year was no exception. Despite that I have a wonderful time. I wander the fields, I talk to strangers, I dance, I chill, I walk up and down hills. I climb the steps ( lordy those steps!)   This year it rained on the first full day of the festival, making it a deadly mudslide in many areas leading to some people falling and even breaking bones! I remained intact. I also decided to do the festival sober this year. I don't  take any drugs anyway, but this year I also didn't have any alcohol either, maybe that helped me stay upright!  Walking boots were the show of choice in the mud, but that soon dried on Friday allowing me to move into my crocs and continue my relaxed lounging lifestyle. Food was grea...
Read The Previous Post
Post a Comment
Read more

Boomtown Festival 2022

-
Image
It's been a long time. Boomtown , my favourite festival, an interactive time of mayhem and unexpected delights interspersed with music and dancing. Unexpected discoveries, weird costumes, lovely people. Drugs, drink, dangerous living and yet filled with joy and love and calm.  For two years no Boomtown. No dancing under the stars, no trying to sleep while a huge festival city breathes around me.  And then, Chaper One, the gathering , and so it begins, again. The festival was smaller this year, it had to be, two years of next to no income and so many unexpected stops and starts. But the city was reimagined, all the districts, usually spread over acres and acres of national park were all together in the main natural bowl, natures amphitheatre.  I chose to upgrade my camping for 2020 and I had rolled the tickets over so I had a glorious bell tent with real beds waiting for me and I'm glad I did! Much like the lucky year I chose to take a camper van to Camp Bestival and then...
Read The Previous Post
Post a Comment
Read more

It's been a while

-
Image
No blog posts for 2 years.  COVID hit me hard, a lack of festivals which had always been my happy place, my reset button for real life when I needed them the most was really difficult to cope with. I did manage a small bit of camping, but of course I was in the same lethargic funk that the rest of the world was in, caught up in lockdowns that should have made us productive (and given us time to blog!) but in reality just cast us into a no mans land of 'what next' just treading water waiting...  Initially I was hopeful the lockdowns would work in a few weeks, (how naïve!) I even had a mini festival in the back garden, camping out with my daughter, holding our own silent disco and watching movies late on the iPad. We had bunting and cider and music but of course it wasn't the same. The last festival I'd been to was in 2019. The mini garden festival was in April 2020 And there were camping trips I did manage to make! First I managed a trip away in a brief gap between lock...
Read The Previous Post
Post a Comment
Read more

Night night, sleep tight - Camping sleep mats review

-
Image
For a long time I have searched for the perfect comfy night's sleep when camping. As I'm in my 50s the simple thin foam mat favoured by my teen is just not enough for my older bones. So while a yoga mat may do for the young, for the more discerning sleeper something comfier is required. I have tried camp beds like these but found them to actually feel quite hard and uncomfortable. Then I moved on to the old staple, the supermarket inflatable . For years that's what I have used. I soon learned that sharing a double with someone is a nightmare - the heavier person will bounce the lighter around at every movement! So if you use them, use singles. The plus points are that they are deep and comfy. The negatives are that they are bulky, need a pump to inflate, and once you get a slow leak, each night is a slow descent to the ground.    After my trusty inflatable finally gave up, I searched around for other options. Lately at festivals I've been travelling light ...
Read The Previous Post
Post a Comment
Read more