Tag: 60 before 60

Swallows and Amazons

This is book #57 on the BBC Big Read list.

by Arthur Ransome

This book is number 57 on the BBC’s Big Read list and is a children’s book.

The Swallows are four children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger, who are spending the summer in the Lake District with their mother, baby sister and baby sister’s nurse. Their father is away at sea but has given permission by telegram for them to take a boat and a couple of home-made tents and sail off to an island in the lake to camp by themselves.

The children spend most of their time in a make-believe world where the lake is a sea with the North Pole at one end and the Antarctic at the other. They have renamed all the places around the lake and so the river leading into it has become the Amazon, the village has become Rio and a pool part way along the river has become the Octopus Lagoon. They use sailor/pirate/explorer words for everyday things and people. The local people are referred to as natives and the charcoal burners as savages; a snake is a serpent; lemonade is grog; they don’t go fishing, instead they go whaling.

The children quickly settle into a peaceful routine on the island, but then find themselves under attack by a couple of Amazon pirates. The arrow-firing Amazons are two sisters, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, who are also staying by the lake with their mother. The Amazons have their own boat and had previously claimed the island as their own. They do not take kindly to the intruding Swallows and the two sides declare war. However, they are soon united in battle against the mean Captain Flint (aka the Amazons’ Uncle Jim) who lives on a nearby houseboat.

Adventures follow and the Swallows and Amazons find ‘treasure’ which had been stolen from Captain Flint. This endears him to the children and he gives them his parrot and agrees to lead them on a bigger adventure the following summer.

The book was first published in 1930 and the story is set in the 1920s. It always shocks me a bit when I’m reminded of how big the gap between the classes was in those days and how the working classes would be treated as so inferior. This is the case with this book. The children, with their naval father and baby sister’s nurse, are obviously middle-class. The local farmers and villagers refer to them as Master Roger, Miss Susan and so on. When a policeman comes to the island to follow up a complaint from Captain Flint the Amazon sisters, who know him, are downright rude to him and talk down to him as though he is a naughty boy – ‘as long as you’re good we won’t tell your mother’. The policeman is frightened and chastised and hastily leaves.

All in all, I enjoyed the book though I’m glad I don’t have to teach the children – I think they’d be damned annoying and precocious in real life and I doubt I’d last a day with them before I’d be sacked for insubordination!

Climbing, archery and bad internet

There’s a lot going on at the moment.

So, what have I been up to? Quite a bit actually. Let’s start with archery.

The man at the archery club where I was going to take my Duke of Edinburgh students has let me down so I’m feeling rather miffed about it. I’d told him in my initial email before the summer holidays that it would be Friday afternoons from about 12.30. After several emails in which he’s sounded as though it might happen at the last moment he told me they can only do courses on Tuesday evenings. Arrgh.

 

After some frantic hunting for another activity I’ve come up with climbing. It all sounds very positive. The club can fit us in at the times we require. The students can gain their level 1 and 2 qualifications in indoor climbing and it costs slightly less than the archery. Only problem now is whether or not school will give me the funding for it. I don’t see what the problem is as I only need the money I would have had anyway for archery, but for some reason no-one will confirm with me whether I can go ahead and book or not.

 

Although I won’t be doing the climbing myself I’m sure to pick up plenty of tips for when I do get round to trying this for myself. I’ve put it on my list of things to do as some of my friends are climbers and seem quite obsessed with it. I thought I should give it a go to see what’s so exciting about it. Personally I’ve always preferred to walk and get from one place to another rather than hanging about (literally!) in the same place all day. But I know I shouldn’t dismiss something without trying, hence it’s on my list.

 

I’ve also been looking into doing my level 3 Basic Expedition Leader Award as this will be useful both for when I’m working on the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions and for when I get around to doing my Walking Group Leaders’ qualification. The course runs over four weekends and costs £325. As it’s work related school would pay for this so of course I’m very keen to do it. The course runs twice a year, once in the autumn and once in the early spring. The autumn course would be best for me, but it’s full. I’ve looked at the dates for the spring course and it looks as though I’ll be unable to do two of the four weekends. I’ll have to try to move things around a bit, but as some of them are holiday things and as working in a school I have to take my holidays at fixed times, it won’t be that easy.

 

Duke of Edinburgh issues aside, I’ve also been starting to think seriously about my own business. Ultimately I want to own my own hostel and I have very specific ideas about what I want. But now isn’t a good time economically to start that type of business and also it would need a lot of financial input upfront. As I don’t have any track record in running my own business I’d find it difficult to get backing for something like that. So I need to start with something that is cheaper, easier to make a turnover in the beginning and ideally is something I already know quite a bit about.  I’m thinking sandwich shops / coffee shops. Having worked in this kind of business for years when I was travelling and a student it’s the thing I know best. I’m starting to look around at businesses for sale to get an idea of prices and locations. I’m not in a position to do anything about it at the moment, but at least I’ve made a start.

 

I’ve downloaded a few books on coffee shops, sandwich shops and small business start-ups on to my Kindle. My knowledge is out-of-date and legislation and so on does change so I thought I’d better read up. By downloading the books I’ll also use my Kindle more effectively as I can use the tools for highlighting and annotating and so on, rather than just reading. This means I’ll be getting to know how to use one of my new pieces of technology and working towards achieving one of my 2012 twelve targets at the same time as reading up on businesses.

 

Another of my 2012 targets that I’m working on at the moment is reading 10 of the books from the BBC Big Read list. At the beginning of the year I set myself the target of reading ten books from the list thinking this would be easily achievable, but we’re now three quarters of the way into the year and I haven’t read any. I realise I need to get a move on if I still want to achieve this goal and so I’ve started reading Arthur Ransome’s Swallow and Amazons.

 

I’ve also been working on my book database. I’ve catalogued my books up to the letter ‘C’ and already have almost 1100 entries on my database. I knew this would be a mammoth task when I started it, so I’m not setting myself a deadline. It does feel good to be getting on with it though.

 

The other thing that’s taking my time at the moment is trying to get all my write-ups from over the summer transferred onto my blog. I found using my tablet whilst I was in the Hebrides a good way to get every typed up straight away, rather than hand writing and then typing up later, but I struggled to find internet access. In Shetland there’s lots of free wi-fi and I was expecting it to be the same in the Outer Hebrides. So I have all these posts that I wrote at the time but was unable to publish. I have lots of photos to upload too and really it should be quite straightforward and quick, but my internet keeps playing up and stopping and because I have a rubbish internet company I’m struggling to get it fixed. This means that often when I do have the time and motivation to sit down and starting getting things updated the internet lets me down. As I do manage to upload my posts I’m backdating them to when I originally wrote them otherwise it’ll just be too confusing for me when I look back over them.

 

Arabic books

I’ve bought a couple of Arabic books.

The other day when I was feeling all enthused about learning Arabic I got online and ordered a couple of books from Amazon just to get me started. I don’t have time to do a course at the moment so I thought books would be a good way for me to at least begin familiarising myself with the language. Today they arrived.
 

The first one is a child’s book – ‘The Usborne First Thousand Words in Arabic’ by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright. The slim volume is slightly bigger than A4 sized and consists of a series of double-page, full-colour pictorial spreads, each on a different theme e.g. the kitchen or the hospital. The main picture shows a large array of items in situ, whilst around the border there is a selection of the items which can be found in the main picture. These each have the relevant word written in Roman and Arabic scripts. At the back of the book is a dictionary with each of the words from the books written alongside the English equivalent. This seems to be a good book for me to leave lying around so I can keep dipping into it.

 

The second book is ‘The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read and Write it’ by Nicholas Awde and Putros Samano. This A5 sized slim volume has an introductory chapter on the language and then goes into detail about each letter and how to write the different versions of it. There don’t seem to be any exercises in it, but the letters are laid out in such a way that I can easily copy them to practise my writing.

I read a lot of reviews of different books before choosing these two. They both had plenty of positive reviews and they seem to fit my needs at the moment. When I improve, and when I have more time, I’ll look for a book which includes grammar and sentence structure and has exercises I can work on.

2012 Twelve August Review

The eight monthly review of my 2012 Twelve challenges.

I’ve done a few relevant things this month, but still nowhere near enough to be confident of ticking everything off by the end of the year.

  1. Floating in a floatation tank (I’m hoping to do this in London during the February half term)
  2. Reading at least 10 books from the BBC Big Read list (if I read 10 a year, I’ll have the whole 200 knocked off in the next 12-13 years!) – still haven’t done anything about this one.
  3. Taking at least one photo every day of the year (this will improve my photography skills, be a photo-diary of ‘year in my life’, and help me to learn to use my new camera) – As I’ve been on holiday all month I’ve taken loads of photos and had not problem taking photos each day until right at the end of the month when I came home. Then I forgot all about it.
  4. Coming up with a fitness plan and sticking to it (the start of my training for Kilimanjaro, though I may not actually climb it for several years yet) – I’ve done lots of walking over the past month in the Outer Hebrides. Nothing too strenuous, but at least I’ve been getting exercise.
  5. Leading at least 4 of my own walks (good practice for my walking group leader’s qualification) – I’ve still not led any walks, but at least I’ve done lots of walking.
  6. Buying another house (need to get my finances in order first) – nothing done towards this yet.
  7. Learning to use at least 3 new pieces of technology or computer programmes (not counting my new camera) – I’ve been getting to grips with using my new tablet. It’s very different to my laptop and Office so it’s taken a lot of trial and error, but I’m getting there.
  8. Doing a writing course (depends on the length of the course whether I’d complete it in the year or not) – I took lesson 1 of my writing course to the Outer Hebrides with me but did nothing on it.  
  9. Getting at least one piece of writing published (paid or unpaid, as long as someone else makes the decision to publish it and it’s not self-published)
  10. Making a start on sorting out my photos (putting the prints that are currently still stuffed in packets into albums and getting all my photos scanned into the computer – no way will this be completed in a year, but I’ll feel good even if I get started on it) – Haven’t been home to do anything about this.
  11. Buying a car/van that I can sleep in (and doing any necessary conversions/adaptations) – I’ve lived in my van for the past month, sleeping in it every night. I love it. I feel I’ve got the feel of it now and I’m ready to get it converted. I know exactly what I want, I just have to find someone to do it for me.
  12. Getting into cycling (even if it’s just short cycle rides along decent paths) – I didn’t get to do anything about this, though when my brother arrived from Germany at the end of the month, he brought me the panniers I’d bought when I was over there at Easter. So I’m getting all the equipment together, now I just have to get out and cycle!

I want to speak Arabic

A meal in a Lebanese restaurant motivates me to learn Arabic sooner rather than later.

This evening I took the various family members who are staying with me at the moment to the Curry Mile for an Indian meal. Once there, we had a change of plan and went to a Lebanese restaurant called ‘Beirut’ instead. The food was wonderful and we spent several hours eating from the buffet and the menu. We had desserts and soft drinks as well as mint tea and the whole thing came to less than £10 a head.

The staff were really friendly and helpful and extra nice to the children. They were all speaking Arabic to each other; a language I love hearing and would love to be able to speak. They sometimes didn’t quite understand what we were saying and it was so frustrating not to be able to just say it in Arabic to them. Usually this wouldn’t bother me too much, but because this is a language I’ve been wanting to learn for years, it frustrates me I think because it makes me aware that I haven’t done anything about it yet.

I don’t think it would be overly difficult too learn because I’ve learnt Hebrew in the past and the roots of many words are the same in both languages. Whenever I’ve looked at the alphabet I can see how some of the letters relate to the Hebrew letters and have obviously come from the same source even though they are very different now.

I’ve got learning Arabic on my list of 60 things, but didn’t plan to do anything about it for next few years as I know I really don’t have the time. But after this evening I’m wondering if I should really try to make the time and start now.

St Kilda in a Day

I actually made it to St Kilda AND got to see a shoal of tuna along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first thought about going to St Kilda I didn’t think about a day trip. In the absence of having my own yacht and not having the kayaking abilities to paddle my way out there (yes, some people do) I’d decided the only way to get to St Kilda would be to join a National Trust for Scotland working party and go for a week or two. However, in spite of these being quite expensive, they are still allegedly very popular and hence difficult to get on to. What makes it almost impossible for me though, is the time of year. The working parties are pretty much finished by the time English schools break up for the summer holidays.

Not wanting to let a simple thing like fixed holiday times get in the way of my ambitions I looked around for alternatives and after meeting someone in Unst last year who’d been for a day, decided that maybe a day trip wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

During my time in the Hebrides I’ve been trying to get myself booked onto a tour with one particular company. It’s always a bit touch and go whether the trips go ahead or not, because they are very weather dependent. If one trip is cancelled the people booked on to it get taken out the next day meaning no free spaces for other people. A spate of windy weather seemed determined to prevent me from going. But then another company said they had room and the chances of actually going were pretty good on the day they were offering me.

The night before I drove out to the small pier at Miavaig in the Uig area of Lewis. I set up camp beside the office which conveniently had a toilet and wash basin round the back. I got everything ready for the next morning and settled down to sleep. I’d not been asleep long when I woke feeling a bit headachey and queasy. Not the best feeling at any time, and certainly not before such a big day.

By morning the headache had gone but I still felt a bit sickly. Hmm, what to do for the best when feeling a bit sick? Stay in bed, rest and relax? Or get on a little boat and spend 4hrs being tossed and churned as you crash your way across the Atlantic? Of course the only choice I really had was the latter. If I didn’t go today, I wouldn’t be going at all. 

Before it got rough

The other passengers arrived, about a dozen of us in all, and after re-arranging cars on the pier we boarded The Lochlann.

I strapped myself into a seat and prepared for the worst. Once out at sea the roller-coaster started in earnest. The boat felt as though it was being plucked up high and then being dropped from said great height. Each time this happened the ‘BANG’ as the boat hit the sea and the reverberations through my body lifted me out of my seat. If it wasn’t for the seat belt I’d have repeatedly hit my head on the roof.

I tried to sit with my eyes closed willing the horrible feeling in my stomach to go away. No chance. I’ve never been sea-sick before and I have been on some tiny boats on some pretty rough water. But then again, I’ve not got onto a tiny boat on pretty rough water whilst already feeling sick.

My guts had no chance of recovering and at one point I had to stagger to the deck to lean over and throw up. I wanted to rush, but it’s a bit hard when you’re getting thrown from side to side and have to plan each move to ensure at least 3 limbs are firmly planted at all times. If I didn’t have sympathy for people who suffer with sea-sickness before, I certainly do now.

One highlight of the otherwise dismal trip was seeing a shoal of tuna leaping and swimming in front of the boat. Even I stood up to get a look and watch them for a while. The tuna were dolphin sized, and look nothing like they do in a tin. Having seen them, I can understand how the nets used to catch tuna also manage to snag dolphins. I don’t understand how the dolphin friendly tuna nets work though – how do they manage to keep the dolphins out? As a veggie I don’t buy tuna anyway, but have wondered why next to the ‘dolphin friendly’ label that can be seen on some tins of tuna, there isn’t another label next to it saying ‘tuna unfriendly’? Apparently it’s quite unusual to see tuna so close like this so we were very lucky.

St Kilda slowly came into sight and we could make out people sitting around on the jetty. These turned out to be students who were on some kind of placement on the island. We decanted ourselves into a dinghy and travelled the last tiny bit to the pier. Once we were all on dry land we were met by the warden who gave us a chat about dos and don’ts and told us about what there was to do on the island.

This would have been someone’s living room

I set off for a wander, still feeling queasy. I had hoped to walk up to at least one side of the cliffs but didn’t really feel up to it. Instead I wandered round the derelict village, poking in and out of the old houses. They were mostly laid out in one main street and in between the derelict building were a few restored ones which were used for accommodation and a museum. I spent a while in the museum finding the exhibits and the information provided quite fascinating. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The MOD, as part of a long-running arrangement, have workers based on the island and their accommodation and offices are in green painted buildings near the pier. Maybe these could be said to be an eyesore and spoil the antiquity and isolation of the island, but the MOD have played such an important role on the island I’d like to think that in future years these buildings and their role will be seen as just as relevant to the history of the island as the remains from the St Kildans are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A helicopter landed and took off whilst I watched. The unique St Kildan sheep roamed around, birds flew or skittered across the ground, the sun shone, a perfect day. If only I could have enjoyed it more.

We had a stay of a few hours on the island and this was plenty of time to have a really good look round the village and museum and would also have given me time to go for a bit of a walk had I felt so inclined. Just before the boat was due to leave, the warden opened the shop which sells souvenirs of St Kilda as well as a range of books. Next to the shop is the restored school (one classroom) and church and I had time to have a look round them. 

The Museum
The Church
The School

Once back on the boat we circled the island and went out to a couple of the stacks to look at the birds before heading back for Lewis. It was much later that evening before I started to feel alright again. 

I managed to enjoy my day on St Kilda even if I wasn’t feeling great. It’s such a special place and felt like such an achievement to get there, that even an upset stomach couldn’t put too much of a dampner on things. I doubt I’ll ever get back, so I’m glad I didn’t decide to give it a miss, as I now have memories that will last me a life time. 

The Details

Company I travelled with: Seatrek
Cost: £180
Depart: 7.30am
Arrive back: 8pm
Time on Hirta: approx. 3.5hrs

Here are a couple more posts on St Kilda:

The St Kilda Mailboat 

Getting closer to St Kilda 

and one on Mingulay – an island that found itself in a similar position to St Kilda.

Here’s a copy of the press release Seatrek issued regarding the tuna we saw. I’ve copied it in rather than just linking to it, in case it later disappears off their website.

Shoal of Tuna off Lewis

Press Release 30th Aug, Seatrek

Tuna Sighting West of Lewis

On one of our regular day trips to St Kilda on the 24th of August 2012, our Seatrek vessel, the  motor cruiser Lochlann, sighted an unusually large and concentrated flock of diving gannets.
We decided to go over and investigate, fully expecting to find the usual dolphins feeding on a shoal of herring.  We told the passengers to get their cameras ready for the spectacle of diving birds and jumping dolphins and possibly minke whales. We very often see diving gannets in a feeding frenzy as they can spot the fish from a great height. The gannets are helped by dolphins, which herd the fish to the surface.
The leading edge of the diving gannets was unusually fast moving at 5 knots, and as we closed in we could see the fast moving splashes among them. We were amazed to see the characteristic upright, thin forked tails of tuna darting through the water.
Some were coming to within 10m of us and you could see they were about 6/7 ft long, maybe more. The sight was amazing. The furiously diving gannets were accompanied by fulmars, skuas, manx shearwaters, sooty shearwaters, black backed gulls and herring gulls, all looking for a piece of the action.
We watched them enthralled for some time and thought they were possibly Bluefin Tuna;  such an unusual wildlife sighting we had never experienced before so close at hand.
The next shoal was moving much faster, say 10 knots to the SW and zigzagging with birds showing their whereabouts when near the surface. The tuna were about the same size.
Earlier in the day we had seen a handful of smaller Bonito type, 2ft long, just East of Gallan Head, Uig, Lewis. These were fast moving along the surface just beside the boat but were unaccompanied by birds.
The rare sighting of tuna so far north of their normal habitat was a memorable experience. Unusual also was the distinctive spectacle of the exceptionally large number of gannets that were following the shoal of fish. We have never seen such a large flock in such a small area; they could be seen from many miles away.

July 2012 Twelve Review

The 7th monthly review of my 2012 Twelve challenges.

I’ve done a little better this month than I did last month, but still got lots to do if I want to get them all ticked off by the end of the year.

  1. Floating in a floatation tank (I’m hoping to do this in London during the February half term)
  2. Reading at least 10 books from the BBC Big Read list (if I read 10 a year, I’ll have the whole 200 knocked off in the next 12-13 years!) – still haven’t done anything about this one.
  3. Taking at least one photo every day of the year (this will improve my photography skills, be a photo-diary of ‘year in my life’, and help me to learn to use my new camera) – I’ve taken lots of photos whilst I’ve been on holiday, but not the rest of the month. I’m seeing a pattern here – I’m good at taking photos when I have leisure time but not in my day-to-day life.
  4. Coming up with a fitness plan and sticking to it (the start of my training for Kilimanjaro, though I may not actually climb it for several years yet) – I did a couple of walks on the Cotswold Way 
  5. Leading at least 4 of my own walks (good practice for my walking group leader’s qualification) – not led any walks, but I’ve done a bit more walking
  6. Buying another house (need to get my finances in order first) – nothing done towards this yet. 
  7. Learning to use at least 3 new pieces of technology or computer programmes (not counting my new camera) – I’ve been taking lots of short video clips. I want to put them together using something like ‘moviemaker’.
  8. Doing a writing course (depends on the length of the course whether I’d complete it in the year or not) – I keep carrying lesson 1 of my course around with me and then not getting the time or motivation to do any work on it. 
  9. Getting at least one piece of writing published (paid or unpaid, as long as someone else makes the decision to publish it and it’s not self-published)
  10. Making a start on sorting out my photos (putting the prints that are currently still stuffed in packets into albums and getting all my photos scanned into the computer – no way will this be completed in a year, but I’ll feel good even if I get started on it) – I seem to have got distracted with developing a book database so I can see the photos having to wait until next year.
  11. Buying a car/van that I can sleep in (and doing any necessary conversions/adaptations) – I’ve now had a second week camping in my van and have even figured out how to use it as a shower! I’m fairly certain now about what I want doing to it, but it will have to wait until I get back from the Hebrides.
  12. Getting into cycling (even if it’s just short cycles along decent paths) – I was thinking of taking my bike to the Hebrides, now I’m not so sure. I still want to but my dad has stored it in rather an inaccessible place and I may not be able to get it in time.

Womad Weekend

My review of all things Womad. Except the music that is.

I really didn’t want to leave my campsite in the Cotswolds. I was sharing a 4 acre field with a few campervans, a portaloo and fantastic weather. It was so nice to arrive back each evening and be able to lie outside reading until quite late. I felt chilled and relaxed and really didn’t want to move on.

On Friday morning I packed up slowly and sorted out my gear for the weekend. I didn’t know how far from the car park I’d be pitching my tent and so packed my lightweight tent, a change of clothes and some dried food into my backpack. Rain was forecast for Sunday, but after the dry week I didn’t expect things to get too muddy and so only took my sandals, leaving my new wellies in the van.

I programmed my TomTom which informed me I was 29 minutes away from Charlton Park, the Womad venue. I phoned my friends to let them know when I’d be arriving and get any last minute packing tips. At this point in time I was a bit excited about finally going to Womad, but also regretting leaving my nice field and feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing – would the toilets be really disgusting with huge queues? Would I be able to wash my hair? Would I feel safe leaving my tent unoccupied? Would I get on with my colleague’s friends? Would I have the feeling of being ripped off the whole time? And so on. As usual when I feel apprehensive about something I actually really want to do, I just told myself not to be stupid and to get on with it. I also quite liked the apprehensiveness as usually when I feel this way I end up having a great time. So after a last check for stray tent pegs I was off.

The drive to the ground was quite traffic-free and even once at the ground the queue to get in and park was moving, albeit slowly, but so much faster than I’d expected. Friendly stewards seemed to be all around directing people and everything was well sign-posted too.

Once parked, I locked the van and hoisted my backpack and went to find the gate to get in. It took only about a minute to walk to the gate and I joined a queue of about 20 people waiting to show their tickets and get wristbands. I phoned my friend again to let her now where I was and she asked me to phone again once I was through the gate. I thought this might take a while, but as soon as I hung up I was through. There were lots of people taking tickets and issuing wristbands and they were really quick, so there was no waiting time at all. I called my friend again and got directions to the La-Di-Da Loos near to which they were camped.

It was a less than 10 minute walk and really easy to find. My colleague has a big bell tent and she was sleeping in this with a friend. Her son and his friend were sharing a smaller tent and her friend’s daughter had her own small tent. I erected my tent in the small gap left between the tents and someone else’s gazebo and together we had our own corral. We were completely surrounded by tents of all shapes and sizes and by Saturday there was barely space to walk without having to step over guy ropes. As I usually camp in lonely fields, seeing so many tents packed so closely together over such a wide area was a new experience for me and I stared in amazement.

Once my tent was sorted it was time to explore, listen to music and chill. First stop was the La-Di-Da Loos so I could pay £10 for a wristband entitling me to use them. These are a posh version of the portaloos that were all over the site. The toilets look like the sort you would have in a bathroom, even though they are flushed by chemicals. There are wash basins with running water, soap and handcream. The toilets and basins are basically in 3 caravans joined together under a large tent of which the insides had been covered in pleated fabric and chandeliers had been hung from the roof. In the centre was a large space with 2 sofas and several long tables with mirrors, hairdryers and an array of hair products, spray deodorants, wipes and so on for customer use.

Next we wandered through a kind of village street lined with food outlets, a grocer’s shop, a camping supplies shop, a branch of Oxfam and a newspaper stand. All the shops had been created from portable kiosks, vans and tents. Towards the end of the ‘street’ was an Alpro tent. I love their desserts so we called in to see what was on offer. They gave us some free vanilla and chocolate desserts and told us that they would be doing free breakfasts, free lunchtime smoothies and continuing the free desserts each day of the festival. So that’s breakfast for tomorrow sorted then.

Finally we got to the arena and showed our wristbands to the stewards on the gate. The arena area was huge, with various stages – the main stage was open-air and then there were other tented stages as well. There were also streets lined with shops selling clothes, musical instruments, jewellery, bags, food, skin products, carvings, lamps, things to juggle with … The food stalls interested me the most as there seemed to be a real array of international cuisine on offer and it all looked tasty, well-prepared and relatively healthy.

We joined some other friends and lay on the grass in front of the main stage drinking a beer and enjoying the music. It was hot and I lay looking at a blue sky with not a single cloud in sight. How fortunate, after all the rain over the past few months, is it that this weekend has such gorgeous weather? It really would have been quite horrible to have been ploughing through mud, unable to sit down, not able to go anywhere without piling on the waterproofs, and feeling cold and wet whilst standing around trying to get into the spirit of things and enjoy the music! 

Anyway, the rest of the weekend passed in a similar vein – up early for a first breakfast in the village street, chilling around the tents before going for a second free breakfast at the Alpro tent, wandering towards the arena in the afternoon and then sitting listening to music or meandering around the stalls for a few hours, eating delicious food, having a beer, going to bed late.

It rained a bit on the Sunday morning but not nearly as much as we expected having seen the forecast. It had stopped and everything was dry by the time the music started at lunchtime. On Monday morning it was sunny and warm again and so I was able to pack my tent dry. We took our time packing up, but others seemed to be taking even longer as there were still lots of tents up when I walked back to my van. I thought it might have taken ages to get out of the park but as it was when I arrived, everything was moving and it didn’t take long at all. Once out on the road there was no traffic at all. No-one without prior knowledge would know that Charlton Park was in the process of emptying out 10,000 festival-goers.

So, that’s another goal from my list achieved. Would I go again? Yes, definitely.

Below, I’ve highlighted certain aspects of the festival and the weekend in general.

Food
Japanese noodles, Spanish tapas, Thai curry, Carribean goat curry, Cajun gumbo, Lebanese mezze, English fried breakfast, porridge, Mexican nachos, stone-baked pizza, fish and chips, Indian curry, sausage and mash, muesli, salads, roast chicken, pies – the variety of food was overwhelming. There was so much I wanted to try but not nearly enough time. All the food was quite reasonably priced, not cheap, but not unreasonable for the size of the portions and the quality. It was tasty, often healthy and sometimes organic. Much of it was locally sourced. Needless to say, my dried noodles stayed in the bag.

Recycling
I was given a pack of recycling bags when I got my wristband. Throughout the site all the rubbish bins were divided into four – paper and cardboard, plastic, glass, and general waste. Much of the food packaging was was recyclable e.g. paper and cardboard trays and plates, wooden cutlery (the sort of wood disposable chopsticks are often made of), sauces that you squirt from a big bottle rather than individual sachets. Some food stalls offered a discount if you had your own cutlery. There were water taps throughout the site from which you could fill your own containers with regular tap water, but for the people who would normally buy chilled and bottled water there were stalls selling a refillable bottle for £5. This bottle could be refilled throughout the weekend with chilled and filtered water from any of their stalls. If you wanted the chilled and filtered water but had your own bottle you could pay £3 for a wristband entitling you to it instead.

Toilets
They were cleaned each morning and stayed relatively clean throughout the day. There was plenty of toilet paper and outside each set of toilets was a line of hand-sanitiser. The blocks of portaloos were spread all over the site and although queues could seem long, there were actually that many loos that there was never more than one person per loo waiting. Only on the Monday morning was there a problem. I think because it was the last day and the toilets would be removed the trucks hadn’t come to clean them. Of course, almost 10,000 people still needed to use them and so some of them, for the first time, got really gross.

La-Di-Da Loos
To use these I had to buy a wristband for £10. I’ve described them above so won’t go into detail here. The idea of them is great and when they work they work well. But there were lots of downsides. They are only open from 7am to 10pm. The 7am opening wasn’t too bad, but the 10pm closing time was way too early. Most people are still out listening to music at this time and so can’t use them when they are returning to their tents and getting ready for bed. Also there was only one set of these posh loos. This meant in the morning there was a big queue and throughout the rest of the day they were too far from the arena to use. The use of the products was great but some of them did start running out after one day. Also the toilets weren’t cleaned until later in the morning well after the other portaloos had been cleaned. As they are closed during the night surely this would have been the time to clean them? When you are paying so much to go to the toilet I don’t think it’s out of order to expect these few things to be sorted. I did like being able to use the hairdryers though and not having to go to bed with wet hair.

Showers
Lots of them, but there was still a 2 hour queue in the mornings. I had showers at night when they were mostly empty. They were pretty clean and had a space to put your clothes to keep them dry. The water was hot and the jet was strong.

Children
Children under 16 got free entry and the festival was really child-friendly. There were lots of free workshops for kids to take part in such as making pin-hole cameras, pottery, and drumming. There was also a fairground. The children’s wristbands had a space for a mobile phone number to be written in case they got lost. We hardly saw the young teenagers in our group, they were busy doing things all day or else just chillin’ round the tents. There was a whole section dedicated to family camping for those with young children.

Festival-goers
What a mix. Babies to quite elderly people. Very middle-class and lots of old hippies. The Guardian was the newspaper on site and was giving away free bags with each paper. The Guardian was probably the best choice of newspaper to be there as the crowd in general seemed like The Guardian reading sort. People were really friendly and it was easy to strike up conversation. This wasn’t just the festival-goers but all of the people working at the festival too. In fact I think it’s the only place I’ve been where, when leaving, the stewards not only directed the cars out but waved goodbye to everyone too. I didn’t see any drunken, aggressive or anti-social behaviour at all.

Queues
Even when there were queues they were usually fast moving. The only exception was at some of the food stalls and the morning shower queue.

Security
I felt safe the whole time. I didn’t leave valuables in my tent as I’m sure there will be people who get tickets to these festivals solely for the purpose of stealing what they can, but in general it seemed very safe.

Music
I suppose I should mention music seeing as it is a predominantly music festival, but I’m definitely not the best person for this. I like music and heard some really good music (Algerian singer Khaled is the one who most stood out for me). But I’m tone-deaf, can’t pick out individual instruments and most of the time can’t even tell if someone is singing in tune. Often I was very far from the stage, so it was a case of listening to rather than watching the bands. Some big screens would have been good so everyone could  see what was happening on stage. The music could be heard throughout the site and I loved hearing it in the background as I wandered around. I also liked lying in my tent at night listening to it as I went to sleep. It was never so loud as to make sleep difficult, but loud enough to be clearly listened to all the same.

Womad

I’m looking forward to my week in the Cotswolds and going to Womad, but there are a few things I’m a bit apprehensive about.

I put Womad on my 60 before 60 list as I thought I really should go to a big, muddy, weekend festival. It’s the kind of thing that people assume I’ve already done and I really feel that I should have. I’ve just never got round to it. Never been in the right place at the right time.

Womad interests me because it’s so international (hence the name = World of Music, Arts and Dance). And I don’t think I’d enjoy Glastonbury – 20 years ago I might have done, but not now. I wasn’t planning on going any time soon, mainly because I like to do other things in the summer, but also because I didn’t have anyone to go with and this is something I feel would be better experienced as part of a group.

Then a colleague mentioned she was going this summer with a group of friends. Although I didn’t really want to break my summer up, it seemed like an opportunity that was meant to be. I asked if I could tag along and of course she said yes. I got straight online and booked my ticket. I haven’t heard of any of the bands that are playing, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy them nonetheless and come away with a wishlist of music to be purchased.

I’m going down to the Cotswolds on Sunday and will spend most of the week there staying on a tiny campsite with a portaloo but no shower. I’m thinking of ways of rigging up the back doors of my van to make a shower cubicle and then I’ll be able to have bowl and jug showers. Or if the weather doesn’t improve, I could just stand outside with a bottle of shampoo. On Friday I’ll go to Womad. I’m not expecting to find showers there, so if my van doors idea doesn’t work I’m going to pretty smelly by the time I come home on the following Monday.

I’m looking forward to Womad but at the same time I’m apprehensive about a few things. If the weather is really horrendous I won’t enjoy standing around watching bands. I don’t mind walking in rain and keeping my head down, but standing still and looking up for hours at a time will be pretty miserable. I’m also a bit concerned about security. I imagine these events are a magnet for thieves, so I’m concerned about taking anything expensive with me, or leaving it in the van. I also hate not being able to wash my hair. I could survive without a shower as long as my hair gets washed, but I don’t know what the water situation will be like.

Anyway, I’m not too apprehensive about my apprehensions as usually when I’m apprehensive about something I end up having a great time and none of things I was worried about materialise.

June 2012 Twelve Review

The 6th monthly review of my 2012 Twelve challenges.

I’ve done a little better this month than I did last month, but still got lots to do if I want to get them all ticked off by the end of the year.

  1. Floating in a floatation tank (I’m hoping to do this in London during the February half term)  
  2. Reading at least 10 books from the BBC Big Read list (if I read 10 a year, I’ll have the whole 200 knocked off in the next 12-13 years!) – still haven’t done anything about this one
  3. Taking at least one photo every day of the year (this will improve my photography skills, be a photo-diary of ‘year in my life’, and help me to learn to use my new camera) – I took lots of photos during the first week of June whilst I was walking the coast path, but not many since 
  4. Coming up with a fitness plan and sticking to it (the start of my training for Kilimanjaro, though I may not actually climb it for several years yet) –having not walked much this year so far, I did lots when I was in Devon 
  5. Leading at least 4 of my own walks (good practice for my walking group leader’s qualification) – not led any walks, but at least I’ve done some walking again and signed up to work on the DofE 
  6. Buying another house (need to get my finances in order first)
  7. Learning to use at least 3 new pieces of technology or computer programmes (not counting my new camera) – I’ve bought a Kindle and am currently getting to grips with everything it can do. I’ve also recently aquired a tablet computer. 
  8. Doing a writing course (depends on the length of the course whether I’d complete it in the year or not)
  9. Getting at least one piece of writing published (paid or unpaid, as long as someone else makes the decision to publish it and it’s not self-published)
  10. Making a start on sorting out my photos (putting the prints that are currently still stuffed in packets into albums and getting all my photos scanned into the computer – no way will this be completed in a year, but I’ll feel good even if I get started on it)
  11. Buying a car/van that I can sleep in (and doing any necessary conversions/adaptations) – now I’ve spent a week camping with my van (I was sleeping in my tent, but had everything in the van), I have some good ideas of how I want to convert it 
  12. Getting into cycling (even if it’s just short cycles along decent paths) – I’m seriously thinking of taking my bike to the Outer Hebrides