Saturday Sun

James and Rebecca

Peter in the foreground with mug

Stuart singing





By 9am it was HOT in the tent. Vince and James both felt really rough with wisky heads. The gash on Vince's shin looked nasty. The nice people whose paddock we were camping in let us use a little toilet and sink that was in a little utility room and they even brought us some bread, houmous, fruit, tea, coffee, rooibos tea and some orange juice. I thought this was incredibly nice.





Vince and I sat about chatting to folk in the morning while James and Rebecca snuck off to the hotel where aunt was staying to have showers. Cheaters! We went for lunch in a nearby Harvester pub, our first proper food since lunch at KFC at Oxford services the day before.



Then we headed back for soundcheck in the church. I had my book with me to stave off boredom and also got up and wandered around frequently as my bum went numb from sitting down so long last year. Pews are not comfortable.



One set of performers from the Friday night were joined by the rest of their band Eve and the Garden. I had wondered why I recognised the drummer and realised it was the parish priest! The band were really good and hadn't really heard of Nick Drake until the vicar got involved last year (he had been in the job 10 days!) They do sort of folksy celtic rock stuff and the Paul the vicar seems to have a large array of different congas, bongos and djembes.

Vince and James performed Three Hours for the second time as it went down so well last year. Next year they're hoping to play it with Paul the vicar on drums. James played a song of his own, Closed, which went down brilliantly and he sold quite a few of the CDs he took with him. You should be able to check out James and Vince's performance on You Tube so please check it out.

Back to the campfire again but a slightly more restrained affair this evening. I think people didn't want to pack up their tents with a hangover.

Place to Be

Every yearsince 2003 there has been an annual Nick Drake gathering in Tanworth-in-Arden, the sleepy Warwickshire village where Nick grew up and is now buried.

Last year was the first time that Vince, me, our friends James and Rebecca and some of his family had gone to this gathering and we had a bloody great time. It was a bit of a farce getting down there from Scotland as we were told our train was cancelled due to Virgin staff being on strike, only to have to leg it to a different platform to get on a train to Birmingham. It was hot and everybody was trying to get on our train as theirs had been cancelled.

We made it in the end though. On the Friday evening there is a more informal concert in the village hall and on the Saturday is the concert "proper" in the church. For such a small village the church is HUGE!

Last year we stayed in a B&B in Solihull, this year we're camping in Tanworth itself, hence the reason why I want it to be good weather, but not too hot, at the weekend. I'm not looking forward to trying to take all our camping essentials on the train!

This time we're going via James and Rebecca's in Surrey so Vince and James can practice the songs they're playing. As you can imagine they don't get to do that very often due to the miles involved! If you click on the link above you'll see some photos of James and Vince, as well as other performers, in the gallery section.

So, if you want to come along then please do. It's good place to meet some great musicians playing beautiful music in a scenic place. Plus it's FREE (apart from the drinks)! Mine's a cider thanks....

Weather Witch

Picture from bbc.co.uk

My mum (Gill) think's that I am a weather witch.

When at Ehenside School I made it snow and we were off for a whole week! At Whitehaven School we had been off for a couple of days due to snow, I wanted to have one more day off but mum reckoned the school would be open again. We tuned into Radio Cumbria and sure enough Whitehaven School was still closed, due to the grounds being very icey.

We stayed in Tower House in March this year for a weekend. We had the place until Monday morning but Vince and I couldn't get the time of work. I wished that we got snowed in so we couldn't leave as we had plenty of food and fuel. I managed to get it to snow but unfortunately by the evening, when my parents were giving us a lift back, the snow had melted.

In my blog Flamin' June I wished for cooler weather as I couldn't stand the heat. The Bishop of Carlisle can blame the gays all he likes but unfortunately I might be to blame for all the rain.

I have tried to wish it to be better weather but it isn't working. Maybe I am just a bad weather witch. Or maybe even more specifically a precipitation witch!

I am however now worried that I have overdone it. I wasn't specific enough in my wish for it to be not as hot as it was. I can't get the rain to stop! I need it to because I want to go camping in Warwickshire (see next post)!

So calling all good weather witches - please make it sunny on 4th, 5th and 6th August in Warwickshire but not too hot please! I don't want to die in my tent or get sunburn.

Flamin' June

I hate hot weather.

I am an English Rose with pale skin that burns to a crisp in seconds flat. I even managed to burn my arms yesterday even though I was sat under an umbrella (or so I thought...)

Sticky and sweaty. Too hot for cuddles. Smelly. Having to expose more body parts than is necessary just to try and stay cool. Sleepless hot nights. Getting woken up by the sun at 5am and being unable to get back to sleep. Headache-inducing humid heat that's so oppressive. Theres no escape from it.

What we need is a bloody big storm. Roll on autumn.