Personal Blogs

So I have returned from the Beautiful Days festival.  It was the best one yet.  There was none of that 'I'll be glad to be home' feeling, even by yesterday morning when it came to the arduous job of taking down the tent.  I wore shorts for the first time since I was, hmm, about 9 or so.  Brave.  Bands... Big Audio Dynamite, Gogol Bordello, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Blockheads, Gentleman's Dub Club, The Beat, The Mob, Flogging Molly and of course, The Levellers, to name but a few.  No point in naming things I didn't see, didn't enjoy, or don't remember.  Tim Minchin was also a cool tented hour or so.  Discoveries?  Cider.  Poltimore cider.  I had two nights of discovering a love of cider that I had previously thought wholly absent from my tastebud preferences, followed by a very sudden return of said absence.  I will likely not drink it again until the next time I find myself in a field, in the sunshine, listening to The Mob.  T-shirts: four.  Cash spent at the bar: hard to say, but it appears to be several hundred of those hard to come by British pounds.  Cash spent on food: wait for it... 70 of those significantly easier to come by British pennies, on a moment of succumbing to a hot doughnut.  Ritualistic around food as I undoubtedly am, I lived off crackers and marmite, cold beans, cereal bars and fruit.  Oh, cash spent on tea: six pounds.  Al, on the other hand, being far more adventurous in his eating habits, less starstruck by cider and with no interest at all in caramel vodka, spent the majority of his cash tasting the delights of the festival stalls.  I had occasional bites.  I bought only one hat, and nothing daft.  Very restrained.  I have returned with some very happy memories, browner forearms, a rekindled love of music forgotten, and a kindled love of music previously unheard.  I am happy as can be!