Recently back from a brilliant weekend at the New Forest Folk Festival. You'll know that I'm not particularly a folkie but there's some good stuff here! Our draw was the fact that the brilliant Oysterband were headlining Saturday night, neither of us are into camping so our big decision was whether we had a couple of nights under canvas.
We decided to bite the bullet & go for it, not least because the past two years have been scorchers, were we just about to jinx this weather!?
Luckily not! Although we had one night which was bloody cold (had 3 nights there) it all went well. Camping wouldn't be our choice in the normal course of events but it was that or don't go! Had the weather been completely karzi I suspect we'd have knocked it on the head, there was a short sharp shower one night but by morning all was dry again.
To my great joy Kas & Stan have a shower in their caravan that they kindly let us use. Not being able to shower is the thing I hate most about camping & this festival didn't offer any on site showers at all!
We got down there Friday afternoon after a tedious journey down there via the ever popular car park known as the M25, though we got held up on the M27 as well. Friday late morning/afternoon just ain't a good time to travel. Stan had very kindly erected our tent so we could be next to them as well as their friends Pat & Paul, all I had to do was put up the inner 'rooms.' This was especially good of Stan as they've bought a caravan to make life easier after the faff putting up a trailer tent but he still put up our tents!
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| Views in and around where we camped. |
I guess the only downside of where we were was our close proximity to the kharzas. We had to be there to get an electric hook up to S&K's caravan, of course it was quite good being near in the middle of the night!
I managed to miss the ukulele workshop that I wanted to do but only because I'd gone on a really good walk with Paul. Not only is he a keen birder he's also into all aspects of nature so was able to point out butterflies,plants and insects etc, not only was it a very interesting walk but Paul is good company. Ida came along as well though she got bit of a shock running headlong into a bog! Needed to hose her down when we got back, she wasn't keen on that either!
There was music at this festival as well by the way, another good thing about our site was you didn't need to go into the main field to hear the music,it was all adequately loud from the tents. Stan managed to get hold of a fascinating football facts book. Both he and Paul are life long QPR fans and he regaled us with the odd titbit......much to Kas's chagrin I think! We went into the main field for Ralph McTell. he sang his one hit 'Streets of London' and many others. he does come over as a nice bloke ( though so did Ashley Hutchings but was bit of an arse when being interviewed by Dan), Gigspanner were the headliners for Friday and were as depressing as when we last saw them I'm afraid!
Saturday's music was better.The Urban Folk Quartet were very good and 3 Daft Monkeys were great,even though there was four of them! and the mighty Oysterband headlined who were fab! Although I think the sound was abit off on their first couple of songs. I was surprised how many of their songs I knew.
Sunday's offerings were OK. Plaitford Common were a local folk group and IOTA featured Marion Fleetwood who's always good. Banter were fine and The Sandy Denny Project quite listenable. The Ashley Hutchings Morris On Band were good, with , as their title suggests added Morris Dancing though they seemed bit of a quite end to the festival.
Really enjoyed it, so much so that we took advantage of the festival book early offer and booked for next year.
Plenty of food to choose from in the main field, covering vegan as well as veggie. There was also plenty for us carnivores as well. It was our 35th Wedding Anniversary on the Sunday and I bought Tara a nice dress from one of the stalls, & I got two hippy ish shirts.
It was a great weekend with great company, plenty of food and drink and good music. What better way to spend a weekend?
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| Ralph McTell |
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| Us with added festival hat |
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| Dress for our anniversary |
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| Stn the Man |
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| 3 Daft Monkeys |
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| The Oysterband |
I guess the only downside of where we were was our close proximity to the kharzas. We had to be there to get an electric hook up to S&K's caravan, of course it was quite good being near in the middle of the night!
