Action packed weekend - Saturday

Sadly I didn't get much of a lie-in on Saturday morning as Marwood wouldn't let me sleep in much past 9am. Irritating but I still love the little bugger! I bummed around for most of the day until I met up with Phil, Hazel and Zoe to head through to Brampton for the live folk festival.

When we arrived it pissed it down. Zoe dropped off her car at her parents' house whilst Phil, Hazel and I got a delicious burrito from a Mexican food stall. We sheltered in the beer tent and the shower soon passed. The sun actually came out then!

The first band we saw were called 3 Daft Monkeys, they were a lot of fun and probably my favourite band of the night. A guy on bass, another guy playing acoustic guitar and doing lead vocals and a lady on fiddle and backing vocals. I'm surprised they played so well as they had been at another festival in Dorset and their set had been at 2am. They'd had to drive through the night to get up here in time for their slot at 7pm. They went down really well and had everyone dancing. Sadly their set had to come to an end and we headed off to the other tent.

After dancing around like idiots the other tent was much more sedate and genteel. The age of the audience was much higher in this tent as there were seats. There weren't enough seats for us to sit together so we huddled along the side of the tent. We were glared at a lot by one woman as we weren't listening to Thea Gilmore in rapturous silence. She sang lovely songs and had a beautiful voice but we had been up and dancing so it was a bit of a downer. It was almost time for the next band to start in what we had nicknamed "the dance tent" so we headed back there in the hope of being near the front again.

Little did we know that Bellowhead were quite so popular. We managed to get a spot fairly near the front but not nearly as close as we had been for 3 Daft Monkeys. The tent became absolutely packed eventually, although I wasn't as crushed as the time I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers on Glasgow Green. Bellowhead had a much more confident and polished performing style to the Monkeys, and as such they lost something. They seemed to play with a bit of an arrogant swagger which didn't endear me to them much. Having said that though they had the whole tent dancing and were jolly good fun. They were hotfooting it up and down the country too as on Sunday they played the Folk Proms!

This is turning into quite an epic post! Special mention must go to the strange group that we enjoyed commenting on. There was an older man with a fairly large group of teenage boys. We decided that he was teaching them the ways of debauchery and nicknamed them the Gay Scouts. Their motto? Come Prepared of course.

When the evening came to an end around midnight we had to try and get a taxi back to Brampton. No mean feat but fortunately it was third time lucky and we eventually got back to Carlisle just before 1am. Zoe headed straight home as she was drunker than we were. Phil and Hazel decided they would crash at mine as although we were knackered we were all wide awake.

We all sat huddled in my front room wrapped in several blankets, put the fire on and watched Hot Fuzz on DVD. By the end of the film Phil looked as if he could fall asleep anywhere and I wasn't far behind him. Much faffing later we eventually managed to get the sleeping arrangements and airbeds sorted.

A fantastic evening was had by all!

Estimated time in bed: 3am