Day 2 and I’m so relaxed I’m totally zonked, I spent ages chasing around trying to get an interview with Ade Edmonson but he was elusive and the PR chaps couldn’t find him anywhere so no success there, never mind.
I’d already agreed that we’d have breakfast out, big mistake, I queued for 40 minutes for 3 crepes, come on guys, this is not good enough, chocolate con churros was better but 40 minutes, next time I’m taking ready made crepes and some lemons. Eventually got into the festival only for small boy to get stung by a wasp so he went off to the welfare tent with Dad so the girls and I went off to the clay making tent, sat around, vegged out and played with clay. This was the girls, at this point I was chasing between the clay tent and the Press Tent trying to hound down Ade Edmonson.
Small boy sorted, clay gargoyles made. Today was a day at the circus for the children, we’d spent the morning donning false eyelashes, well, we’re still on holiday and it seemed a shame not to, couldn’t do the wig as it was really hot and sunny. In the Kids Field they had a section of mad bikes, penny farthings for kids, unicycles (I have one of those in the garage, yes really, well doesn’t everyone?), bikes that turn the opposite way to how you steer them, bikes that go backwards when you pedal forwards and in another section they had juggling balls and clubs, diablos and lots of other circus skills you could try out, the children spent most of the afternoon here and when they weren’t here they were in the kids circus tent. Check out the photos of tightrope walking, it’s really hard.
Pete’s weekend was made with Pauline Black and The Selector playing at lunchtime, he’s broken his toe, kicking the ball for one of our dogs Sidney, so dancing was interesting but he managed it, took him back to his teenage days, brilliant set.
Back to the tent for a bit of packing and supper then back in time for a short bit at the comedy tent with Barry Castagnola, bless him, he was obviously thrown by the amount of children in the audience as his material is slightly risque and he felt embarassed presenting it in front of small children, that said, a comment from one 11 year old boy in the audience totally floored him and he ended up corpsing, brilliant. When the compare came on I tapped small boy and medium sized girl on the head (they were sat right at the front) to get them out so guess who got picked on by the compare? Yes, me. He asks me if I’ve got all the kids?
‘no,’ I reply ‘i’m one missing’,
‘what’s their name?’
‘Ellie’ I shout back
Well, big girl is sitting at the back of the tent at this point trying to blend in with the sofa, he shouts over and makes her stand up and tells her off for not being quicker. Then shouts back at me as asks why I’m dragging these children out of this den of iniquity, where are we going that’s better?
‘The bar’ – I shout back.
That floored him, he corpsed at that point, he wasn’t expecting that! At that point big girl is making her way to the back of the tent, slowly, so he shouts across to the guy stood at the side ‘Eric, poke that girl for not moving fast enough’ so Eric Lampeart poked my big girl in the arm. She’s had a lot of interaction with comedians this weekend.
Back for more music – Benjamin Francis Leftwi
ch who I think is totally fantastic. Greg James played him on Radio 1 a week or two ago and I loved the sound, I did feel for him as he was billed at really bad time. He should have been on in the afternoon as his music is ideal for lounging around to in the hot sunshine so for him to be on at the same time as Primal Scream was horrid for him as everyone was around the Main Stage and the Big Top where he was playing was empty. That said, he was way way better than Primal Scream who I never really ‘got’ and were just totally boring. I tried pogoing to them just to stay away but even that didn’t work so we just sat around pinching each other to stay awake waiting for the fireworks. They got a huge cheer at the end because they’d finished and we could get on with the good stuff – ie the fireworks,thank goodness. I’d say that Primal Scream were the only downside to the whole festival. There was no atmosphere and everyone was just sat around chatting to each other ignoring them. Not good for them or us.
The fireworks were spectacular and included a cartoon projected onto the castle as the backdrop with the story of a princess being rescued from a dragon by a knight, we all decided that we like the dragon and that he was just misunderstood so the prince didn’t have to go and kill him, however the dragon’s blood was purple, hence, ‘purple rain’ played out, sheer brilliance.
Back to the tea and toast caravan before bed.