Emma and Darcy

Emma and Darcy
My new dogs

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Festival Season

It's summer - well some days are summery now and again - so it's festival time!

I've been away to a wonderful weekend in Oxfordshire at Fairport's Cropredy Convention. We were very lucky to get some of the warm, dry, sunny days in August.
The festival was fabulous! Even better in the sunshine :) everyone was happy and smiling.


 

 It was the 45th anniversary of Fairport Convention and I think bigger numbers were expected, but a crowd well over 22,000 came and had a ball! I certainly did.
Lovely meeting old friends and meeting a few new ones too.
The whole festival is outdoors so dry weather is a big help, but they are very well organised and have huge heavy duty tracks laid for traffic in and out of the site and at gates, so even if it turns wet, the ground is protected and we do not have to trudge through mud.
It is camping - but not much time is spent at the tent so we travel and camp fairly lightly. This is our base with Polly on guard.
 She behaved so well over the weekend and loved all the attention she got. She was very popular with children as she is fairly small and very friendly. The family sitting next to us were delighted to play with her at times. Polly was sensible enough to stay in the shade most of the time.
She just tucked in behind our chairs out of the sun and slept.
It was hot in the sun and hats were very useful. Just for once I actually remembered to take mine! It did help a lot but I managed to miss an area of my back with the SPF 30 spray and had a rather sunburned area :(
I also used a small umbrella to keep the sun off my feet and legs so I stayed cool.

We are coming up to the next festival - Shrewsbury. It is a longer stay so it's heavy camping gear and as many home comforts as we can manage to get in the cars. John and Roz are bringing their two young grandsons this year, without their mum and dad. I hope they really enjoy the weekend and still let us have a good time too!
I have done all the washing and now I'm packing the odds and sods bag with all the 'bits' mug, lamps, lighter, snacks, water, pain killers, suntan lotion and leave space for make up and hair brush etc. I've not really studied the line up for the festival but it's looking good with only one clash of concerts I can see. There are 3 main concert marquees and all within an easy walk of where we camp. It's all on the flat and securely enclosed so a pretty safe place to stay. I just hope we don't get noisy neighbours! We are camping in a quiet area so we should be ok, but we are next to family camping and some babies and toddlers can get upset and create a fuss. I hope the grandsons are good :)
Look out for a blog when we get back!
Hope you have a great weekend yourself. xx