Limetree this year ticked pretty much all the boxes and then some.  Textbook festival fun. Having had a few pre festival jitters enhanced by last minute unknowns – within minutes of arriving, I’d discovered that some good friends had saved us an awesome plot for our van. I then discovered that I had a full compliment of fresh tickets and that a whole bunch of friends were there. After setting up camp, we headed into the arena.

The last time I went, there didn’t feel like there were quite enough people there – this years had a veritable bouillabaisse of people. Young and old, smart and bold, the ravers, the jazz heads, the beautiful people, the family guys. The Costume de rigueur, the visual uniter was mud. Everyone from at least the knee down was emblazoned with a tasteful portion of the afore mentioned. Another common accessory would be the smile. Happiness abound.

The site itself had grown – The choice of stage for a festival of its size was remarkable. In the eastern section of the site, a circus big top flanked by two large dome tents proved the main venues for dance / DJ based entertainment – a cracking sound system almost taunted DJ’s with ‘go on, lets have your best sub bass’. To be honest, I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in this area but from what I heard (we were camped just the other side), they had it XXL.

The main arena – a ‘proper’ main stage showcased some fantastic music and provided a focal point. I was blown away by Aradhana Arts on the Saturday afternoon. The sheer brilliance of Sanju Sahai – one of the best tabla players alive today – was incredible to watch at close quarters.

That was undoubtedly my musical highlight – so glad I caught that.  The arena field was satellited by stalls, stages, props and shops. One of these stages was The Bet Lynch stage – essentially a huge camp dressing up box of a stage showcasing some quirky, avant garde type affairs. We watched a duo in there called Hectic Egg – funny, beautiful, unique. They sang a song about wanting to be with mum for Christmas. Brought a lump to my throat.

The West field Next door was home to another big top and a fully fledged Jazz Club. A blacked out marquee that had a full bar at the back and around 30 tea lit, 4 chair tables. The blacked out walls were adorned with tastefully spot lit muso pics, the atmosphere – quite surreal. Kind of like when you go to a cinema during the day. At one point – around 5.30pm on Saturday afternoon, the heavens opened – quite a guilty pleasure being comfortable and warm in said venue.  Some friends of ours had been working on front row seats all afternoon and we were lucky enough to saunter in at the last minute and blag some in time to see The Scapegoat Kelly band who were sporting a fairly new line up.

I’ve always loved Scapegoat – since I saw their first ever gig at the legendary Harrogate Theatre Music Party (RIP) many moons ago. A great gig. Tight. A big Blues Bar contingency took ownership of most of the front of the venue, there was a dancing, and a singing, and a music.

Next door to the Jazz club was another big top. This had a bunch of great stuff in it, but the ones that did it for me in there would have to be Middleman. M’Good friend Allan and I caught the last bit of their set – big grin tastic. The energy was a bit like early Prodigy and the groove was akin to Rage Against The Machine. Bosh. Amazing. A band called Senser did a thing back in the 90′s where they fused crunchy guitar with hard and heavy dance noises – Middleman reminded me a bit of that.

Seeing Middleman was part of my proper party wander. After tea on the Saturday, I went deep into the no agenda festival fun zone. Eirene was fairly partied out as she’d had a look over at Leeds Festival on Friday night and was pooped. I wore full orange waterproofs – which always seems to do the trick of stopping the rain. After sticking my head into unknown stages and tents we settled down in one of the two silent disco’s. Light, upbeat funk / disco meets reggae was the DJ’s output whilst we hung out there on and off till 3am. The format of silent disco is superb – especially when it’s in a super snug big ol Papakata style double teepee. You can get into the music – in super hi fidelity stereo, or you can chat to the person next to you without the usual “Y’WHAT MATE?”

After that, I popped back into the Jazz Tent where the Governor, Shaun was pulling pints. I’d not met him before – lovely lovely chap. Had some great chattage with cast and crew who’d assembled for a late taste before heading back via some randoms party in one of the residential, set-up and ready-to-rock teepee’s (of which there were loads!). I got to see the sun rise before quietly trying to take off my big muddy boots and layer of orange plastic without waking anyone or falling over.

I wish it was still on. It would be ace if festivals could run all year and we could dip in for the odd couple of nights every now and then. I suppose on paper, ‘towns and cities’ offer some of the trappings – but it’s no where close.  If I could wave a magic wand to make any fest a perma-fest, I would do it with Limtree me thinks. The land and the crew need a well deserved rest though! Can’t wait till next year.

Photos by me | More over yonder»

Just before any big adventure, I get jittery. Especially when it’s a last minute thing. On Wednesday evening an email from www.notitlemagazine.com casually informed me that I’d won a pair of tickets for Limetree Festival, via a ‘in 30 words or less’ competition. I did my excited face.

Eirene, is convinced that the more I flap, procrastinate or object to the up-and-coming adventure, the better it is. It’s not so bad towards the back end of summer – when I’ve had several outings to prep. Charge batteries. Find that.  Do I take this one or that one? Shall I see about getting one of them? Do I need one of them? Etcetera.

The plus side to this hyper-tension is that it keeps me busy. If I stopped to think about the festival too much, the wind would change and I’d be stuck with my excited face on. An incredible collection of artists has been assembled – well done to the musical director types involved – just short of 170 confirmed acts from techno to afro, celtic to punk,  ska to funk, folk to rock and a bunch of those kinds of acts who flatly refuse to conform to a genre label.  Dare I say, something for everyone – although – one thing that all the acts do have in common is that most appear to be distinctly off the mainstream path. I like that.

I’ve not been to Limetree Farm for a couple of years. I’m done Limetree Festival before – we took FIRE up there for a night. Loved it. Loved the site.  I’d done all the Thornboroughs – a festival that used the farm prior to the Limetree festivals presence. Peter, the farmer is a top bloke. I had the pleasure of going for a walk with him around the outer grounds of his farm once – around the outside perimeters of the festival site. There’s a whole bunch of nature out there and he’s passionate about it.  There’s a badger reserve. There’s a magical overhanging tree where he’s got an ace story about seeing a wild white rabbit there once (quite a rare thing, attributed to a fair portion of folklore). The site itself has the standing stones and some incredible nooks and crannies. A lot of character – reminds me of a small Glastonbury festival site.

Anyway – I’m hoping that the pre festival up-in-the-air factors iron themselves out soon. I’m going to try blogging from the field again I think – as per this post from the 2008 festival.

I’ve been to a vast array of festivals from the biggest to the smallest and met pretty much all walks of festival life. My first festival was Reading ’94 and from then, I’ve probably done at least one festival per year – ranging from ones I’ve played hard at, ones I’ve worked hard at and ones I’ve chilled soft at. Glastonbury ’98 saw me drunk in a 40lb Save The Rhino suit backstage terrorising celebrities. DragonGate, Limetree, Thornboroughs (all), Glade & Deershed 1 saw me working in one way shape or form, ones like Phoenix and Thimbleberry  had me there in observer status. Tribal Gathering & Big Beach Boutique II had the full power, no shower, 48 hour version of me. Womad, Lindley Woodstock & Northern Didge were more of the chilled side of festivalising that I’ve grown to love. Many more festivals came and went with happy memories for lots of different reasons. How does Deershed match up?

A friend who was working the festival retold a conversation he had with a random;

Random “I’ve never been to a proper music festival before”
Friend “You still haven’t”

Whilst I think this a little harsh, he did have a point. I’ve never seen anyone sit at the front of a gig in an arm chair reading a fresh newspaper during day 3 of a festival at an electro set before. So many brand new, top of the range tents and hunter welly boots. There was non of the hedonism, non of the dark, dirty rug music, non of the clattered lost it brigade. Often when you immerge from a festival you feel a bit blown away by the cleanliness of normality and reality. If felt a bit like that side of life was camped out with us at Deershed. Music festivals are ‘typically’ a mecca for ravers, hippies, artists and hedonists wanting to ‘let go’ for a few days, and all the beautiful party people (either part time of full time) seemed to be the minority rather than the mainstream. Whilst some of this I can quite easily live without, I did miss the inspiration and excitement you get from one of these type of events. But did my kids? I’m not so sure they missed anything. Good time of the highest order. All three of them are quite festival savvy. They have been going to parties and festivals since birth – all experienced a festival in their first year. Whilst it’s often hard work, it’s been an eye opener for them and I’m sure has enriched their characters and life skills as a result. They, and all the other 10 or so kids that were part of our tribe did have a fantastic time.

I’d put Deershed into a different class. A new type of festival. A niche. A super safe fest. If we divide festivals into two main camps – kid friendly and non kid friendly, Deershed defiantly holds the crown as being the best of the best when it comes to a kid friendly example as I’ve seen. In total contrast to something like say Glade – a fantastic festival but far too messy for kids. I’m glad I didn’t take mine to Glade and felt sorry for the parents that did. Children seemed to be DSF’s real focus. Every decision seemed to be made putting the kids first. Their mantra is “ Kids are not second class citizens” and I can wholeheartedly report that they stuck to those watchwords to the letter. There was so much for kids to do, ranging from a huge ‘Sports Field’ filled with space hoppers, swing balls, cricket sets and more kids entertainment in the big top than you could shake a stick at. Top class children’s stage acts – I particularly enjoyed the Ivana Blastoff and her mission to Space show. Her beatbox friend wowed the crowed with his beatbox workshop. There were workshops inviting kids to try them, do this, make that. Eureka presented “2011: A Space Oddessy” and a bunch of folk did a marvellous graffiti demo one two cars parked in the main arena.

All in all – for a festival of it’s size – so much to see and do during the day for the bin lids. I particularly liked the mini-cinema. A tiny pink caravan converted into a bicycle powered cinema. I also enjoyed the fact that the beer was quality, locally sourced and reasonably priced.

The music

The headline act was I Am Kloot. Given all the above about it being a family festival, I’d say this was the only black mark. Quality band, don’t get me wrong – excellent production and songsmithery – just not quite right for a Saturday night closer. One of the songs was introduced as something to do with the feeling of mental instability you get mid week. Hmm.. Slow, waltz tempo numbers overlaid with gritty lyrical concepts. Something a bit more lively, happy and unifying would have done the trick in that spot better, in my humble opinion. It DID have the logistical bonus of making everyone shuffle out of the arena post gig with no bother at all though – perhaps that was it’s design. The equivalent of putting the big light on and getting the hoover out.

The GO Team! (who perhaps could have worked better as headline) rocked – although late afternoon peoples minds were on food rather than party time perhaps. I bumped into The Glendale Family (again – hung out with them last year, drank rum and played night frisby till the wee hours) did a great aftershow party in the bar on Saturday night as well as (so I’m told) a good Sunday set on the main stage.

Echasketch was my personal highlight. I had a very sedentary chilled out couple of hours immersing myself from a sofa into their sublime audio and visual output. I also loved Digitonal – a sublime stripped down minimalist approach to what it says on the tin. Only crit for these acts was that it could have been a bit louder though.

I saw a few other bits of acts along the way. All quite safe and accessible – just like the festival itself!

In summary, I ♥ Deershed. My family and the families that made up our tribe loved it. I’d defiantly recommend it to anyone with kids and I’d particularly recommend it to anyone who likes the idea of festivals but is put off by those messy ‘full-on’ type of affairs.

More photos» 

Deershed festival official site»

Had a fantastic weekend at Deershed. A very slick production indeed – Loads going on and they really did cater for the family. Stacks of quality entertainment for us, for the kids for everyone. Sold Out – I think about 1600 or so – a good number. Not too big, certainly not too small. Perhaps too much going on to squeeze into one day really – would have been good if it was an all weekeneder perhaps but no complaints – if I’d been relying on the beer tent there may have been – they ran out of beer mid/late afternoon! Can only take this as a sign of success.

The video here is a timelapse of The Art Wall (click here for the longer, bigger version) organized by www.artists.ltd.uk. A fantastic idea that loads of people seemed to enjoy! Art for everyone / Everyone IS an artist.. officially!

A few more snaps from the weekend here>>

Harrogate Fringe Festival ‘Grand Finale’. We’ve been asked to chuck another log on it for the official after party to the Harrogate Fringe Festival. There’s the ‘Crawl’ day on the 31st featuring shed loads of bands across umpteen venues in Harrogate and we’ll be wrapping up the show with double dose of  party at Rehab, downtown Harrogate.

“It’s gonna be a belter”. We’re taking on the mighty Bottom of the Bottle =- we’ll do one floor, they’ll do the other (TBD which way round..) Wrist band holders from any of the day event means FREE ENTRANCE / priority clearance (subject to capacity).

I was lucky enough to do a lot of my favourite activities over the past 5 days or so.
Thursday – went to watch the cricket at Headingley with a lovely bunch of people. ‘My’ team (Yorkshire) won one of it’s key matches of the season – they beat arch rivals Lancashire by 17 runs in a confident win. A train ride back to Harrogate, followed by a few drinks in town ensured a healthy hang over the next morning. Luckily, I’d arranged the day off so one of the first ports of call was coffee in town followed by a few missions to stock up for the festival we were headed to for the weekend.

As I’d mentioned in last years post, Lindley Woodstock is technically a private party but had the feel of a small festival – stages, fires, PA’s, people, curry van, bouncy castle etc. Very lovely it was as well. I ran the top stage – the format of top stage act > bottom stage act > top stage act (etc) meant that the music could go on seamlessly (ish) all day and night. The highlight musically for me on that stage was a psychadellic act who’s name I missed – all Gong / Hawkwind ish. really interesting. The highlight for the bottom stage for me would have to be Mick Artistic, who I’ve seen before somewhere but who was on top form at Lindley.

After a lovely Sunday in the sun we headed home to get the kids settled for school night. The next day – Monday – I went and had quite a major haircut followed by lunch at home, followed by the delights of seeing Sophie at her Baby Ballet class. Very cute. Very pink. We let Sophie have a potter about in the KidzPlay at Hammerian House – they had a TV on where I got to see the second half of Portugal thrashing North Korea. The big think of the day was Eirene and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. ‘Tin’ apparently. 10 years ago that day we had our wedding reception / party (and oh boy oh boy, what a party it was!) up at the Harrogate Arms. This was back when the club downstairs was still serviceable, so we took over that with DJ’s, set an acid jazz / funk type band upstairs and I think we had more stuff outside… all very much fun) so with those thoughts in mind we headed back up there with the kids after school for a look. Downstairs is no more, the pub has been knocked about a bit (still nice) and outside has donkeys and birds of pray! what a difference 10 years can make!

Last week we attended the launch of the Harrogate Fringe Festival. After a general intro from the Harrogate Internation Festival (proper) Director, Graham Chalmers of Gig Scene was introduced. He gushed the passion, like only he can,  about how good this thing could really be. There’s so much creativity in this town and so much creative appreciation of off mainstream stuff that – the feeling seems to be – it really could be the start of something quite special.

There’ll be the widest of sub spectrum acts ‘flown in’ , playing at a host of some old – some new Harrogate venues. A secret venue for instance and “The Harrogate Club” which I’d never heard of but someone told me it’s a lovely Victorian chamber down Victoria Avenue.

There’s a day of more home grown acts – mainly Harrogate and Leeds based bands (including an after party by us lot (FIRE) ‘v’ Bottom of the Bottle. whilst the North Yorkshire Hardcode Punk lot make some noise in Crabtrees ) This is billed as “Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day” but I much prefer the title “Harrogate Fringe Fringe”.

As it’s the first year, its a bit ‘suck it and see’ but the organisers don’t seem to have used that as an excuse in any way for falling short.   The Fringe highlight for me would probably be Robin Williamson (Incredible String Band) and local boy Karl Culley – both geniuses in their own right. A brilliant pairing who ever came up with that idea. Field Music (they don’t sound like they’re from Sunderland but they are) who this time last week I’d never heard of, who since have featured heavily on my spotify playlist – quite refreshing stuff. The Rothko v Stockhausen guy Mark Stubbs will be doing some kind of lecture by the look of things – could be interesting. As a  package, it’s not  (I’m glad to report) billable as  ’something for everyone’ as that often means ‘something quite mainstream’  - which this seems proudly not, I’m glad to report.

The thing about a good fringe festivals is, it’s not necessarily the acts you ear mark to see before hand that leave the lasting memories but the magical unexpected moments you stumble across that make them special. This fringe looks like it’s got stacks of ammo in the unexpected department.

Harrogate Fringe line up (or ‘highlights’ )

An evening with Bob Harris, Jackson-Webber & Special guest
July 14 Harrogate Theatre

Robin Williamson (ex Incredible String Band) plus Karl Culley
July 15 St Peter’s Church

Poems, Prose & Pints, Creative Writing Workshop & Guest Writer
July 17 & 21 - The Harrogate Club

Haiku Workshop
(Run by Eirene! contact us for details)  - July 17th –  Hornbeam Park

Codebreakers The Story of Enigma
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

Showstopper! The improvised Musical
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

RedHouse presents Music To My Eyes: A Rock n Roll exhibition
July 23 – 25 108 Fine Art Gallery, Crown Place

Kamaca’s Tribute to Gershwin
July 23 Harrogate Theatre

Alex Wilson Salsa Con Soul
July 23 Royal Hall

Fear of Music with David Stubbs of The Wire/Uncut magazines.
July 24 The Harrogate Club

John Otway: Making Success Out of Failure & Chris Simpson of Magna Carta reads Fields of Eden
July 25 The Harrogate Club

Alrnias: Anthropology/art music with Phil Legard.
July 25 Secret Harrogate Location

Esoteric Electronica with Primate Engineer.
July 28 The Harrogate Club

An Evening with Field Music
July 29 Harrogate Theatre

Ralph McTell
July 31 Harrogate Theatre

Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day
July 31 Monteys / Blues Bar / Rehab / Crabtrees / St Peter‘s Church

Bookings

As soon as I know about booking info, I’ll post it up here – at the moment, unless someone cares to correct me in the comments, there’s no news. Stay tuned!

How excited does Jay look?, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

There’s a set of photos I took at last weekend DragonGate festival on my flickr page now. For those who know him – check out the expression on Jay’s face on this pic above. Made me giggle when I saw it.

Dragongate festival was officially very much fun indeed. After hearing nightmare stories from the crew on site about main stages blowing down, roads in resembling a war zone and a catalogue of other worries, I was, well, worried. Turned up on site around 16:30 and was hit by a wall of positivity. Wasn’t expecting that and I think that’s the thing that turned it into a superb festival. It’s almost like it was a test from the festival gods to see how much the crew could take, testing them to see if they would throw any towels in or if they would come through stronger and wiser (which they did).

Friday night, musically was a bit sketchy – as the main stage collapsed in the tail end of hurricane winds the main stage acts got moved to the 2nd stage, rendering the second stage acts homeless (which I was one off – it was predominantly going to be a FIRE tent). None the less a superb time was had by all of us lot on Friday night.

Saturday the weather calmed down and the festival got it’s act together big time. The kids tent had a stack of activities going on, the Green Dragon (acoustic) also had a top line up as well as the main stage, Xilr8 and the Oblivion Pavilion tents. The Instruments of Jah were a nice bunch with their van full of analogue noise making dub apparatus. Very cool. As the site was near Harrogate, it seemed that most people decided to just get a day pass and Oxfam sold out completely for the day – the place got busy, the music got varied and excellent and sun got his hat on. The bar was the centre of the universe leading up to a crescendo of top acts – Scapegoat Kelly, Bird Man Rallies and Paul Middleton as headliner. I was over by our site in crew camping for most of this as it was Eirene’s turn to go for a wander but every report that came back had thumbs aloft. After 11 the music had to pipe down (licence conditions meets best behaviour) so we had a silent disco. We (FIRE) set up on the main stage. 200 wireless headsets were made available and (the idea I’d initially poo-poo’d) was surreal but fun! As a performer, when I’m playing a gig, a glance around the crown quite often to see who wants to ‘av it, who’s in a groove, who’s listening to the intricate bits, who’s listening to the primal beat of it all. I could still do that but there was such a non connection with people sans headphones. When I took my headphones off it felt very odd indeed. I’d been playing to a quiet tent. After my set (killed even quiet non amplified conga drumming after a while) I went for a wander to discover pockets of people here and there, dotted around the site, listening to our set! How odd is that – checking out a live gig from the comfort of your own camp.

Sunday was a bit of a fuzzy head day. I was massively thankful of Dave who ran the crew mess tent, making cups of tea, soup, foot, sustenance, normality! Pottered around, played a gig with Ricky Hebblethwaite and did some Jam stuff – organized (!) an impromptu kids jam where I had a bunch of kids on stage and let them have a drum and a sing to a backing track. They loved that.

Called it a day late afternoon as the kids were back at school the next day.

As I looked back at the site from the car park I thought “yep, success – look at that, a proper festival, in Harrogate. Who’d have thought it”. Hats off to Matt from Oxfam + his lot, Austin from Pro-Tech and his lot, Hats off to Allan from Smyth and us lot, Hats off to all the muso’s DJ’s and their lot, Hats off to Jules and her lot for the kids tent, but the biggest hats off from me are the people who weren’t connected in any way who turned up and had a wicked time, Spread the word, spread the love! See you next year.

Interesting weekend. Road tested Clover (A campervan) to make sure she was ship shape for an up-coming longer away mission. She’s fine. Invented a new rain / shelter system using a huge chunk of tarpaulin that we’ve got. Shanty Camping.

We were over in Markington near Ripon for a ‘festival’. Quite fun. Ace campsite (just behind the Yorkshire Hussar Inn, in Markington).

We got the very last pitch on the campsite – so lucky to get the one we did right behind the outdoor stage in a great spot overlooking the kids play park which meant we could sit and watch the kids from the comfort of our nomadic back yard.

The music was OK. Apart from perhaps one or two songs, it was exclusively a covers showcase of 50’s – 90’s North American music. Lots of blues, rock, a bit of country and some Motown. Rob Donnelly was one of the key contributors.

A whole roast pig, well worth the wait was served with all the trimmings – this was worth going for on its own.

We turned in comparatively early and got up to enjoy a superb morning in the sun where I cooked some top fried fayre in the van and listened t’ cricket on the LW radio. This blended into a lovely afternoon of sitting, reading and chilling. Hope to stick a few photos up on flickr later.

Plump DJs, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Chucked up a bunch of photos to flickr from my visit to Glade Festival at the weekend. Here’s a stage view shot of (what I considered to be) the best set of the weekend – Plump DJ’s.
To visit my Glade Festival 2009 set, click here >>

Went to the Lindley Woodstock Festival at the weekend – Technically a private party but had the feel of a early bloom festival. We all had a cracking time. I ended up engineering / stage managing the acoustic / ‘Lindley Top’ / Stage #2 for the day on Saturday – stepped into fill the gap of someone not turning up. I much prefer being involved!

Set in a lovely little (literal) neck of the woods, the event featured two stages / PA’s, Games area (everything from exercise bikes and table football to a bouncy castle) a couple of butty vans, big communal fire pit, an assortment of hippies, muso’s, punters, dogs, a cat and a chicken.
The top stage, the tee pee he pee she pee’s were all done out in acres of fabric that someone blagged from the Millennium Dome which I thought made the place look great.

The music was top notch in it’s variety as much as anything else. One of the surprise highlights for me was the Jed Thomas Band. Even thought they hail from my doorstep as it were, I’ve not seem them live for ages.. Doing the stage mix put me right in the middle of their sound – It was ace. Also loved the output of ‘Uncle Montey’ who’s Bell and Sebastian meets The Devine Comedy tunage was above average.

Anyhoo – back at work now wearing the t-shirt. Photo’s and vids to follow.

TONIGHT:

Bloggin from the field – quick on the spot report from Lime Tree Festival, Stage II, aka the Jason Rae, aka circus circus, aka the fun zone, aka the Smyth and 3 Matt’s stage. What a festival it’s been so far. The Gentleman’s Dub Club on early doors yesterday were the dogs – should of headlined this tent last night (imho). It’s bigger than Thornborough was (on the same site a few weeks ago) Where as that felt like a gathering, this feels more like a festival – partly because we don’t know everyone and partly because it’s got a different raw edge to it. Or something. Loving it anyway – shouldn’t compair the two really, both totally different things but this fest, thanks to it’s £60 pre sale ticket price has had more buying power for some ace acts. Not sure about some of the music policy decisions but it’s all worked out nicely! ANyhoo – we take over tonight.. FIRE ! bish bash bosh.

Just about to sound check Light Garden who seem a lovely couple with a range of fascinating instruments.

Here’s a timelapse video from our camp on Friday at Thornborough festival

So, an unexpected festival occurred this weekend. We’d been planning to go camping anyway for Tinanana’s birthday but Eirene phoned me on Friday morning to bring me up to speed with the plan reset arrangements – we were off to The Northern Didgeridoo camp / festival thingy. This was at the Lime Tree Farm site where the Thornborough festivals are held.

Friday night there were just us and our good camping buddies and their same shape as our family clan. (we’ve both got x 3 kids about the same ages) Had a nice fire, met some nice people and bimbled about, jammed a bit with some folk, went to see a couple of bands who were interesting and creative.

Saturday, set up the cricket set and played a bit with the kids and the big kids. Birthday girl Tinanana turned up with a couple of other friends. On the evening we did the usual tag team exploratory missions (some stay at camp, keep an ear out for the kids, some go to see bands and that). We’d got the camp set up really well. Awnings, vehicles, everything set out in the right place with (thankfully) loads of windbreakers in place as it was really windy.

Sunday – this was a surprise highlight for me – we went for a guided walk with the Lime Tree farmer – a really nice and very knowledgeable chap called Peter. Lime Tree Farm has some fantastic conservation programmes going on. A huge badger colony and a very hi tech hide were top things to see. Some gorgeous ponds and fenland areas alive with (thanks to the wind dropping for a bit) all sorts of nature. We got to see a barn owl fly past us at very close range. After that, we came back to camp and cooked, packed and came home. On arrival, the box set of The Blue Planet was waiting on our doorstep for us, so, fish and chips and nature programmes were the order of the end of the day. Nice end to a nice weekend.