Mudfest

I learnt one very important lesson today...you should not attempt to take a buggy to a festival, no matter how tired you think your child might get.  Three days of revellers at Guilfest had taken it's toll on the ground, and I had never seen so much mud in my life.

I have a confession - I've never actually been to a "real" festival.  Pictures of Glastonbury horrify me.  Not for me the camping out covered in oozy dirt having to queue for a wee.  The closest I have been to one is the posh West London version, House Festival which, although I did attend at 8.5 months pregnant, is set in lovely grounds and as I recall had a lobster and champagne tent (which I couldn't partake of, dammit!)  Plus the sun was shining in 2008, which makes a big difference.

But I'd heard lots of good reports of Guilfest, and with the inclusion of a Kidszone, I thought we would give it a go.  DH had a friend visiting so the plan was that we all go during the day, with me peeling off when the kids got tired and DH + 1 would stay and enjoy the evening.  As it turned out, we peaked far too early arriving at 11.30 although it did mean we found a prime parking spot and didn't suffer the fate of many cars we saw with their wheels spinning in the mud while they were going nowhere fast. 

The kids were overjoyed by the sheer volume of mud and spent the best part of 2 hours stomping, splashing and trampling through the sea of mud.  We had a surprisingly tasty albeit expensive lunch from the food stalls (of which there are plenty) and they did have a boogie to some of the music too but to be honest the mud was more alluring.

I left DD pogoing between DH and +1 while I took DS for a wander round.  We stopped in at the discotheque tent, at his insistence, where we sat on a makeshift table eating our ice-creams and listening to the music whilst I explained just what those "big black CDs" hanging from the ceiling were, and suggested he ask Daddy to show him his record collection one day.  I had to drag him away from the Zorbing area after finding out they were charging an extortionate £5 for 5 minutes, telling a white lie that you had to be 5 before you could go in one.

Around 4pm and with two now caked-in-mud children, I decided to call it a day and get them home for a bath.  We waded back to the car and stripped them off to their underwear before putting them in the car seats - no way was I getting the interior of the car as muddy as we currently were!  When we got home, I hosed down the buggy and all the welly boots - I only just stopped myself from doing the kids too - and piled all our clothes into the washing machine.

As I finish typing this, DH just called to let me know how good the evening acts were (and so I could listen to a bit of Bryan Ferry down the phone :p).  Next year, I think we'll head there later in the day and hopefully stay for some of the evening acts if the kids make it through...and we'll take some chairs ;o)