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Sunday, November 27, 2016

Summer Holidays 2016 Part 6 (Wilderness days 3 and 4)

Highlights of the rest of our time at the festival included various visits to the "naked" fruit juice stall which dispensed huge quantities of free fruit juice (which the kids loved and given how hot it was, everyone took full advantage of), a ride on the Big Wheel which also gave panoramic views of the Park where the festival was being held as well as a number of trips down the nearby helter skelter by the kids; plenty of excellent food including a chocolate brownie stall and a waffle store which were in very convenient proximity to each other; plenty of live music including Robert Plant (of Led Zep fame) at full throttle and a jazz band that seemed to consist of a couple of huge Tubas and musicians who basically danced their way through the songs along with the audience; various demonstrations of dance, crafting, henna tattoos taxidermy, a "quiet" disco (where participants wear headphones playing the music and dance around to that but there is no other sound - it is pretty surreal to be standing around watching everyone cavorting in a silent room - the kids absolutely loved this); a late night yoga class which the kids found hilarious; more wild swimming; lazing around in the Summer sunshine people watching - the dress code appeared to be hippy chic with lots of glitter and the very young children (of which there were many) being transported round in little carts decorated with flowers - there was also a couple who were simply "dressed" in blue body paint and there was plenty of sunbathing with varying degrees of clothing (although pretty tasteful all things considered)around the wild swimming area; a couple of glasses of champagne in the Champagne tent to celebrate E's big birthday; games of Frisbee and football with the kids; and the David Bowie tribute set on the last night where Kate Nash and Charlotte Church shared top billing with yours truly and the Wilderness choir (well we opened the show with a four part version of Space Oddity which was quite magical even thought I say so my self).

I had never stayed at a festival before and this was very user friendly and loads of fun - I would definitely do it again although we were truly blessed with the weather which was uniformly good until the morning of our departure and even then it was just a bit overcast. We even got the hang of the toilet/shower facilities (the showers were actually pretty good). There was a lot of walking around and we barely skimmed the huge variety of events, shows, lectures, seminars, concerts on offer so next time I will pay closer attention to the programme. N. managed to break her teeth brace on the penultimate day so there was a bit of a rush to get back to Maidstone and return the vans and get to the orthodontist in time before our early morning departure on the Tuesday to Cephalonia for the next part of our Summer adventures.

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