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Two
years on from having spent a magical weekend on Lord's Hill in Wiltshire,
I found myself at another Big Green Gathering. Here's my selection of the
pics that I took at a festy I really looked forward to going to for most
of the summer. I start off with a snap I took of 'Red Nev', my 1964
Moulton 'Deluxe' - just a little too overloaded perhaps! - with some of
the things that I took along to Somerset with me (the next time I go along
to a festy, I'll carry a lot less on my bike and in my rucksack!) on the
platform of Northumberland Park railway station, somewhere near the Spurs
ground (boo!!).
I waited
patiently for the train to arrive to take me to Liverpool Street (as they're
so infrequent around where I live, I'd plenty of time to rearrange the
bits I'd stacked on my bike, so they'd not move about as they'd done earlier,
when cycling to the platform) station. Once the train reached the station,
I blagged my way through the ticket barrier (somehow, the guy at the gates
just wasn't in the mood to play 'Mr. Jobsworth 2002 that day) and I got
the tube to Paddington (I had to take the long route, as there was just
NO WAY I'd have got my stuff over to the platform giving me a more direct
journey to said station). Luckily, it wasn't the rush hour (just!), so the
carriage I was in was relatively empty.
Arrivals at the gates of the campsite. getting 'Red Nev' and my camping gear from off the bus, I got my first ever text message from Dawn's friend, named Erica, who was helping her with Jasper, asking if I'd arrived yet ("l.o. lawrence, r.u. near the gates? if so, txt me back. erica"). Texting her back to call me, Erica rang and told me where she was with Dawn & Jasper and I set off to look for them (it's fortunate that none of us are Hindu, as if we were ever to come back as homing pigeons in the next life, we'd have a v.stressful existence!). After much pedalling and near-sightings, I saw the three of them going into what I was later to discover was the healing field, their stuff piled on the back of a horse-drawn cart like the one that's seen in the second pic below.
Revellers
enjoying some inspired rock/trance fusion in the one of the big tents
to be found on the campsite. Earlier on (having finally put up my tent
and having cooked some noodles and hotdogs for supper), I went off to look
a for water pipe so I could wash up my pans and plate. As I'd forgotten
to pack a torch in my rucksack, I promptly got lost trying to find where
Dawn, Jasper and Erica (plus my tent) were. Staggering about in the dark
(while those with too much time on their hands watched Roger Moore giving
his right eyebrow a serious workout in 'For Your Eyes Only' at home that
night), my mobile rang. It was my mum, replying to the call I made to
her from the train station.
"Hello there
Lawrence, how was your journey?" "Ooh, fine thanks," I replied. We chatted
for a while, and then she said, "Don't do anything silly while you're
there, Lawrence," "Don't worry mum, I won't (if she only knew the sordid
truth!)." "God bless you Lawrence. Bye." "You too, mum. Give my regards
to dad. Bye."
Barely two
minutes later, and just a little nearer to finding my tent, the mobile
rang again. "Now who could it possibly be this time?" I thought to myself.
It happened to be my ex-girlfriend. "Hi Lorenzo (her pet name
for me), what are you up to this evening?" "Ooh, deep in the middle of
a field somewhere down in Somerset looking for my tent," was my reply.
I was still chatting away to her when I finally found Dawn sitting outside
her tent more than a few mins. later (my ex must get a special discount
from BT for calling mobiles, judging from the length of time she talked),
and she asked to speak to her. When she finished talking to her (I checked
my phone - she'd spoken for an hour!), I took Dawn & Jasper down to
check what was happening on the campsite that night.
Folky
bod gets all showbiz and stuff in a smaller tent next to the one where
all the trance/rock stuff going on, sometime around the midnight hour.
Dawn and I found ourselves discussing why it was that most female folk singers
she's ever heard sang like how they do ("....they always sound so light
and fragile, airy and fluffy....it'd be nice if they were a little rawer
& gutsier for a change"), to which I replied that the singing they do
goes with the music (two days later, Dawn was to reveal whom she thought
that female folk singers should be taking as their templates, choices that
made a friend of mine shake their head with disbelief).
There was also a stand-up comic present, but as my compact camera was
playing up most of the evening (the retractable auto lens jammed at one
stage, and I was screwing my face on that happening!), the snap I got didn't
come out, along with a couple others I took that night.
I
overslept the next morning, so as well as missing a yoga class I'd hoped
to get along to, I had to queue for an hour and a half just to have a shower.
Getting dressed inside my tent (an interesting undertaking in such a cramped
space!), I rang up the library where I work to discover that I was being
missed by the kids there (they weren't getting on the Playstation machines
as quickly as they usually expected, and had to wait for a change - that
must have been a new experience for them!).
Going off to explore the campsite, I bumped into a lady named Chrissy (hello!)
who I met at Dawn's place before, getting herself ready to perform in the
band she was in, named Tantara, down
at the 'Small World' stage. As she went her way, I got the pics that you
see of some bods doing Desmond Douglas moves (Britain's greatest ever
ping-pong exponent, I'm told) at the table tennis table below.
A
tipi, one of many to be found
strewn all around the campsite....
....and
here's a sign painted upon a block of wood outside it. I was about to
head off over to where Chrissy was going to perform, when a bloke on a
red Brompton bike came pedalling up, having seen me earlier going round
the campsite on 'Red Nev'. I think his name was Richard (hello to you too!),
and he'd only just come back to the UK, having spent more than a few
years abroad.
As we were chatting,
a hang glider soared above our heads, which led him to tell me about his
time in the RAF cadets, having old school pilots with classic Terry-Thomas
moustaches (who referred to him as "old boy!") letting him take the controls
while in the air, amongst other numerous things before going our separate
ways.
Still more table tennis going on nearby.
