Greenbelt 2013

Last weekend hubby and I went to a festival.  Not Shambala, Creamfields, Leeds or anything quite so huge or crazy.  We went to Greenbelt, which wasn't tiny (about 20,000 people I heard) and was slightly crazy, but not for the reasons you'd think.  I didn't see any drugs, only a handful or drunk people and the main age groups seemed to be under 10's and over 50's!  I went last year and I enjoyed the combination of music, colour, poetry, art and talks about all sorts of things.  It's sortof a Christian based festival and another great thing is the wide range of expressions of faith, from Goth Eucharist to Taize to 'messy church' to meditation to drumming and dancing and more!  So when I somehow ended up being asked if I'd like to help arrange the 'Photo Swap' (which encourages festival goers to bring photos that are displayed over the weekend and then swapped), I thought why not?

I persuaded hubby to come too, my Great Aunt gave us a tent, so we were all set.

I think with things like festivals you go with big expectations, hoping for non-stop fun and entertainment.  I should know by now not to have such expectations about things and just to take them as they come.  Because it wasn't AMAZING.  We kind of wished we had gone with more people, just to have a 'crew' or 'community' to hang out with.  There wasn't a lot of music that excited us and to be honest we're a bit tired of God-talks and stuff like that.  [Not that I'm bored of God or claim to know it all or anything, just that at the moment my thinking is that we just need to get on with loving God and loving people, rather than debate over things that people will never agree on]

However.  On reflection, there were actually a whole bunch of good things from the 4 days away.  So I am glad we went.  And I am very thankful.

Top Moments

• Seeing my old friend Abbie and her husband and new baby.  Ahhh... something about those people who know you, and remind you of the good things, and get excited for you when you don't feel able to.

• The Boxettes.  We kind of stumbled upon them and for me it was the best performance of the weekend. They only use their voices to make all of the sounds.  When they dropped in Destiny's Child's 'Jumpin jumpin' into this Rudimental cover (video below) I got so excited!  But I think that my friend and I were the only people in the Performance cafe who appreciated it quite so much...

   

• Silent disco in the Big Top.... although again most people there seemed too young to appreciate the Drum and Bass (picture me and hubby jumping around mentally at the back while everyone else looks a bit awkward)

• The Randomness...

(like Penguins....)

     
• The great range of photos that people submitted for the Flash swap exhibition.

• The handful of people that we did know there (some expected, some a total surprise) and the conversations and dances and takeaway food we shared with them. That means you -Louise, Lorianne, Adam, Abbie, Tom, Barney, if you're reading this!

• Dancing and singing along to Lemar (who woulda thought it could be so good! haha!) with Lorianne, a girl i met on a writing project earlier in the year.  Also seeing performances by Amadou & Mariam, Harry Baker and Inua Ellams.

• And finally, some time to hang out and chill with Mr Q.  It's been quite a hectic month and feels like we haven't seen each other much properly. So getting away together was rather nice :-)