I didn’t really get into festivals when I was younger. When I lived and worked in Reading the bane of my life was the Reading Festival and WOMAD – I couldn’t get home across the Caversham Bridge because of all the festival goers traipsing to the site. There were always lots of muddy, drunk people in the town then as well!
When I moved to Devon I fell in with a crowd of latter-day hippies (the ones with a weekly wage or parents with pennies!) and found myself returning to Reading to take part in WOMAD and having the best time (I think I, too, became muddy and drunk). Since then, I’ve been to Beautiful Days, a local festival put on by the Levellers on three occasions and I’ve just returned from the Llama festival in North Devon, the smallest one yet!
Festivals are great places to people-watch. There’s such a mix of people; families, teenagers drunk on cider and older groups refusing to grow up, taking various substances and falling all over the place. All the old dudes bring their guitars and are quite happy pottering around and finding other old dudes to jam with.
I’m not so sure that festivals are much about music, really, unless you’re at Glastonbury where the big players perform. However, I personally have no inclination to watch Coldplay (or Beyonce, for goodness’ sake) from three miles away. I’d rather listen to Three Daft Monkeys have a fiddling time of it while I relax on the grass right next to the stage with my mates and join the teenagers with several pints of (warm) cider.
Llama was fun, and a great place to have a ‘hen’ weekend with my lovely friend Flavia who is finally tying the knot. There were no ‘L’ plates, no pink cowboy hats or pink lady outfits, just lots of laughter and several unforgettable moments.
Back on the words again today, with more awards entries to put together for local tourism awards, several articles to finish for trade magazines and a caption competition to judge on a Facebook page that I run for a travel company.
I love diversity, from those people I saw at the festival to the subjects I’m writing about this week. Being a freelance writer allows me to find out little about lots. And that’s fine by me!