Festival in the mud

We spent last weekend camping at a festival near Ashbourne, just into the southern end of the Peak District.  Although it has dried up significantly from the previous weeks flooding, it had been raining fairly regularly last week and the festival was inundated with mud.  Someone commented that you can tell how good a festival is by the depth of the mud.  At any rate, we were glad to have our wellies.

There was a very nice setup for art projects and the kids spent many hours making and decorating beautiful shapes such as this heart:

River and I collaborated on this hula hoop.

My capoeira group did a demonstration and workshop at the festival.  It was fun to play capoeira in the sun and I enjoyed hanging out with the folk from capoeira outside of our normal training routine.  Sage really enjoyed the workshop.

There was also some elaborate costume making and a semi-successful theatre workshop.  River transformed into some sort of purple monster.

Another thing we particularly enjoyed was the giant hammock constructed in the woods.  Easily big enough for the four of us, we rolled and bounced and played and relaxed.

There was some very good music at the festival as well, ranging from punk to old-time Appalacian and Irish tunes to drum-and-bass and electronica.  In addition to listening to these high calibre musicans and djs, I managed to have a little jam at the campsite with a friend from capoeira who is an excellent violin player.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend.  The weather was amazing, for England.  The moon was almost full and there was hardly a cloud in the sky revealing more stars than I’ve seen in quite some time.  It might have been even better without the mud, but perhaps that’s just part of the experience.