All festivalled out



Home for the weekend



Well...Shrewsbury Folk Festival is now a distant memory, even though it was only 3 weeks ago. I had a good journey up to Shrewsbury and Roz met me at the entrance to the festival site. I was all sorted out with my tent, airbed and bedding within an hour of arrival. The weather outlook for the weekend was a bit iffy - the dreaded showers! You might get lucky and they all miss you, or everyone could come over and dump on you. We were pretty lucky and the few that did manage to drop on us were either night time, while we were snug in our tents, or came during concerts while we were in marquees.



June Tabor with Oysterband



The concert line up for the festival was fantastic and it was really hard to choose who to see. Unfortunately concert times did conflict so I did have to make difficult choices.

The whole weekend was brilliant musically and socially. Met up with the Bosley's from the Bounty Hounds and other friends. Came home on the Tuesday in moderate traffic. Got a huge greeting from Honey.

Jen had taken Honey to the vet on the Friday for me as the sores on her leg needed re-dressing. She made it clear to the vet we were not happy with Honey's treatment as the poor standard of dressing had given Honey sores she need not have suffered. It also prolonged her treatment by 3 weeks. Having her leg bound up the way it was meant she was not putting her leg down to the ground as it made her walk on tip toe, pushing her claws back into her paw. No wonder she was not walking on it! She now has the dressings off and has finished all the anti-biotics and is finally starting to use her paw.

Having had it bound up for so long has caused the tendons to tighten and shorten so now I am having to walk her very slowly to get her to use the leg and massaging her leg and paw to gently stretch the tendons at the back. She is making progress but it is slow.



John, Pete, & Alan - an off duty moment

 This last weekend was Swanage Folk Festival - the one I help organise. It was a hectic time and I found it physically hard. The festival seemed to be successful and enjoyed by all. The concerts were well attended and loads of people frequented the field and patronised the bar! The festival bar ran dry of beer Sunday afternoon - a good sign! The new festival bar we had in the Mowlem theatre ran out of beer during the interval of the Saturday night concert! Right now the treasurer is counting the pennies and pounds collected over the weekend. I am hoping for a nice little profit. It won't be anything like last year's but I do hope it will be well in the black.



Jenny - superstar!



I have had the pleasure of the company of my daughter Jenny for three days. We have been de-cluttering and clearing out. Roughly 20 sacks of old clothes and general rubbish have found their way to the recycling centre. I had a shock as they have moved it! I gaily drove to where it used to be only to find big signs up redirecting dumpers. It has only moved down the road a bit but now we have to climb stairs to drop things into high containers :-( It might be better for their management of things but it's knackering when you have dodgy knees! Clothing into charity skips, wood here, cardboard there, electrical goods over there, metal on the end, etc etc - back and forth with various stuff, up and down the steps to the different skips. Jen's legs got a good work out. I am so grateful to her for her help clearing out.

Love you Jen!

I have been a bit lax with the food of late, takeaway type meals for 2 weekends, and pub meals at odd times in between. I have tried to eat healthily at home in between and the scales say I have not put any weight back on, but I do need to cut down a bit to get that weight coming off again. *sigh*

Tonight is our folk club with Les Barker. He is an amazing comic poet so there will be large doses of laughter tonight - always good for the body and mind. Loads of tickets sold but not quite a sell out.  Just how I like it!

I hope you are in good health and have a fantastic weekend. xxx