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India Returns To Eastnor
I will be six in two weeks time, which means this was my sixth time at the Big Chill and my sister Saphi's third time (she is two).
We had great fun and I made notes of some of the things we did there like I did last year.
Friday
We arrived yesterday and the car got stuck in mud so we left it where it was and carried the stuff away to set up camp but not before Saphi had fallen in the mud first.
Today, we had sandwiches (by Mummy) and Ice cream (by sheep) for lunch while the Bombay Dub Orchestra were on, they had a good film of a dancer and I really liked the music. There was an announcement that someone called Mika was ill and wouldn't be coming. Everyone cheered really loudly. Next we were off to the Fat Tuesday tent where we had to resort to using Daddy as a climbing frame until we were finally allowed to go over to the children's area.
CLUBMUM - this tent is full of toys for toddlers and banging music for the parents. I thought the music was too loud but they played Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone which seemed appropriate. Saphi loved it; she played with lots of toys and was handing out glasses of wine made of playdough. I got locked in a fridge called "The Little Chill", it was really cold.
We saw two fights break out over an abacus; it is good to see that mathematics is so popular amongst the younger generation.
I went on the rocking boats, I gave the man £2 and he didn't give me the change so I asked Daddy to go over and look intimidating to get the £1 back. This wasn't going to happen so Mummy did it. Then I saw the puppet show, it was Punch and Judy and contained pretty much the same amount of spousal abuse and animal cruelty as last year.
Richie Havens - we saw an old man on the main stage playing guitar, Saphi thought he was Father Christmas but I knew he wasn't. He was fantastic, playing lots of Daddy's favourites from the classic Alarm Clock LP (whatever LPs are?). He is still a revolutionary at heart, playing a medley of "Maggie's Farm" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", reproducing The Who's electronics perfectly on his acoustic guitar. By the time "Freedom" brought the set to a close everyone was ready to go out and smash the system. Well, maybe not today - there are some good people playing tomorrow - but definitely next week when we all get back home.
Saphi danced to the music in her fairy costume, he didn't play "Back To My Roots" which was a pity as all the old Balearic beat veterans would have danced along with her if he had.
He told a story about how the children are going to clean up the planet and how adults had better make friends with them quickly because they know who did it. We are and we do.
Daddy was in such a good mood he finally relented and agreed to buy me poi. I had my first go with them and hit him in the head quite hard.
We had a nice pizza for dinner and Mummy and Daddy had some really good Moroccan food, pastries called "Boreks".
Played with the Poi again after dinner, I have abandoned using two, it is more fun just swinging one round and round over your head as fast as you can - I hit Daddy on the side of the head this time. We fell asleep in the push chairs as we were walking back which was good as it meant missing the unedifying spectacle of our parents dancing to Kruder and Dorfmeister. Daddy thought the music was great but found the incessant overzealous encouragement to have a good time by the MC extremely irritating. He is such a miserable old git.
Saturday
Woke up really early which Mummy and Daddy were really pleased about. The man in the tent behind us came round and said he had been up all night organising gangs of "Herefordshire lads" to round up thieves, handcuff them together in the middle of a field and force them to reveal their accomplices. After he had gone Daddy said that in the good old days in Goa the villagers would have tied him to a palm tree for a couple of days until he calmed down a bit. I really don't know what Dad is on about sometimes.
We went into the festival, Saphy calls it the "fishybubble", we think her speech development may have been permanently affected when she wandered into an amyl nitrate infused dance tent at Guilfest.
In the children's tent I saw another puppet show and then watched the "Mad Scientist", although not quite as "zany" as I had envisaged he did some really interesting things and didn't dumb down any of the explanations. He showed how to create vortexes - blowing giant smoke rings by tapping a bin (not sure this is legal in an enclosed area anymore) and then used a leaf blower to blow all the toilet paper off a roll and completely cover a small boy.
I made a fish to carry in the procession and then had my face painted with horses heads. I don't know why I chose horses heads, perhaps I have Sicilian ancestry.
Had a break from the Kids Tent and saw Piney Gir, she played some good songs, and when she started one called "I Was Born in a Thunderstorm" the sun came out and a hoedown started, instead of cowboy hats being thrown in the air I saw a Wellington boot and a flip flop flying up. She played my favourite song "Greetings Salutations Goodbye" and all too quickly was gone.
Then some chap called Ben came on impersonating someone singing soul music, a bit like a boy Joss Stone, so I went back in the Kids Tent and made a hat out a balloon with Wizard Wonky. This is clearly an assumed name although he does look like a Wizard. Saphi nearly got in a fight over a rocking horse.
Tunng (not the tongue in your mouth) came on the Castle Stage. This is a really good group we saw last time on the Village Green. They did all their songs like "Engine Room"- Saphi did her hippie dance to that one. Tunng were really excited too, they said "last year we sat under that tree over there and got drunk and thought how great it would be to play on this stage" they were brilliant and everyone was jumping around for "we don't like it any more than you do" there was no difference between crowd and band, same crap dancing, same silly grins.
We walked all round the site before going back to the tent. We were given feathers by a girl who said she was the feather princess. I know she wasn't really a princess but she did have a far away look in her eyes. She was very friendly.
There was a silver boat on the boat on the lake that Saphi loved and did not want to stop looking at "somebody is not going on that boat" she said, clearly her syntax has been affected too.
Sunday
The man in the tent behind said the thieves were the same ones who had been in his sister-in-law's tent at Womad, "but we're not from Bristol, we're from Herefordshire, they won't know what's hit them" Daddy tried to avoid eye contact and we set off for the day.
Ate pancakes and danced to Norman Jay. So did everyone else, well maybe not the pancakes bit. He played "I Say A Little Prayer For You" and "Let the Music Use You" which made my parents very excited, it was a bit embarrassing.
After Norman Jay I went on the bikes under the big tree, there were loads of children doing it. You cycle as fast as possible and then the lights in the tree come on. It was hard to tell if the light was coming on in the sunshine so I had to go on all the bikes for quite a long time.
In between bikes I saw Ojos de Brujo, a flamenco hip hop group from Barcelona. The name means 'eyes of the wizard' and their music was really fast and really noisy. On one song a flamenco dancer came on.
She was brilliant stamping her feet and going into a trance (I tried it when we got home and got told off) and then had a duel with a rapper who was making drum noises with his mouth.
Had a walk around and went into the Big Chill shop, it was really boring, there were no toys. Mummy led Daddy away before he started looking at the records. Then we went up to the Sanctuary at the top of the hill where Danny Rampling played sunset music that gradually built up in the way only he can do it until everyone was dancing and very happy.
I helped get things going by running through the crowd dragging a very long piece of tape with "police crime scene do not cross" written on it. The view of the sunset was beautiful and Danny Rampling finished with a Led Zeppelin song (he really did) about the sun.
Came down the hill and saw Isaac Hayes do Soul man and Shaft and a few others and then went to Bubble INC, my favourite stall in the whole festival. Samsam the bubble man taught us lots of secret bubble tricks and put on a show with massive bubbles. I popped one with my head and Saphi got a bubble gun that she really likes to put in peoples face and set off.
I had the biggest ice cream ever and then we went back to the tent. Before I went to bed I looked at the castle, it was all lit up by the moon, I think a princess might live there.
From about three in the morning the man in the tent behind us started talking really loudly, but he didn't play his rockabilly records luckily. By 5am people started shouting at him to be quiet "it's alright for you to tell me to shut up, but I've got to sort out these Manchester gangsters with the SAS boys". Someone shouted "Yeah, and I'm Spiderman". He went to sleep after that.
The best thing about festivals is that everyone and anyone can come and have fun there, however eccentric they may be. I can't wait until next year.
Diary by India Bradley, with a little help from Daddy (aka Mark Bradley).
Written: 13th Aug, 07
Read: 5146 times
