FolkEast 2018 - Happy Anniversary to us!

Evening

Though we've been back from FolkEast for over a week now, this is the first time I've had  chance to sit down and blog!! This not working for 6 weeks is great but I am filling my time up fast!!

Anyhow back to the festival - now in its 7th year - the 6th on the Glemham Hall estate, this festival is probably our favourite for many reasons. S spent 5 days before the festival crewing and helping to build the site. It meant long days for him but it sounded great fun - where else can you drive around in a golf buggy with a giant rubber duck strapped to the roof?

By the time I went over with him on the Thursday morning the site was pretty much ready - a few last minute jobs needed doing - and once our camp was built, I went out in the torrential rain to help him.

We've camped in many things over the years - a borrowed tent, our late but much loved caravan and now this year we have a new toy - our bell tent - all 4m of brightly coloured canvas. We love it - it easy to pitch up, plenty of space for the 2 of us and oh so much more cozy than the nylon tents we've both camped in before.

Plenty of room for the two of us and all our stuff - we don't travel light these days!!

Our little camp - I love cooking outside - even if its just a simple breakfast of bacon butties and proper coffee.

This year the festival has added entertainment on the Thursday for those of us who were camping the whole weekend - a ceilidh with an amazing band called Stumpy Oak (who did our wedding ceilidh last year) and also music in the Moot Hall tent compared and collated by Mat Bayfield who is a bit of a local folkie legend in his own life time. Very proud to call him a friend - he is a man who has over come some pretty tough hurdles in his own life and is so full of positive energy & love.

Mat is the one next to the double bass on the right hand side. His gig was well attended and hopefully this means the festival will repeat both this and a ceilidh as a Thursday night offering every year.

The Friday morning dawned bright and sunny. Our first wedding anniversary - that year has whizzed by. We made coffee and exchanged pressies and opened cards. S had put together an album of photos from our first married year - he'd listened when I said I regret not printing photos out anymore instead they just get stored online or shared in Facebook albums. He'd been very sneaky and raided my google photos and printed out some for each of the past 12 months. Leaving me space to keep adding each month in the future.

I'd asked one of my talented sisters to paint one of our wedding photos for him;

For the first time we weren't dancing at the festival - we've hung up our sticks and boots for the year as we've needed to concentrate on other stuff this year - we might go back when the new practise season starts in the autumn. This meant we had time to explore the festival and all that it offers - many workshops, stalls, an amazing art arcade with many, many talented crafts men and women, 5 bars - from a tiny pub with one ale to a full sized one with a big range of beers & ciders all for just £3 a pint. This is as well as a full music line-up and several dance workshops and ceilidhs each day. Oh and a knitting/crochet tent run by the talented Social Knitworks ladies.

Two of my sisters had created big pieces for this tent - one a knitted deckchair;

and another a traditional seaside peep board (the knitworks tent had a seaside theme this year);

The Friday night headliners were Oysterband a favourite of S's who he introduced me to when we first met - in fact one of our first dates was to one of their gigs. They were as ever amazing and we bopped and sung along with a group of friends.

After they'd finished we went over to another venue to see the festival patrons The Young'uns - great fun and perfect harmonies. These 'lads' use real stories to create wonderful songs which are easy to sing along too.

Afterwards we called into the ImaGINe Gin Bar for anniversary cocktails!!

I love this picture that a friend took of us earlier in the day - its us to a tee!

Two happy hippies in their favourite field!!

Saturday was another sunny morning - more bacon & coffee required. We knew we were in for a busy day - my littlest sister, her husband and two little boys were coming for the day. We met them in the children's area - we nearly didn't leave!! It had so many fun things and the two boys and their Uncle were having lots of fun!!

Only the promise of dancing and food persuaded the boys away!!

A lunchtime family ceilidh with Stumpy Oak was the attraction - the tent was packed with adults and small children - our older nephew was in his element - dancing with me, S, our niece who was also there, his mum and S's Mum too!!

We went our separate ways for a while - the boys wanted pizza and we wanted to watch a pottery throw down - the 3 contestants, John (one of the festival organisers), John Spiers (melodeon player - exBellowhead) and a Viking!!

It was great fun - especially as the Viking is part of a trio of street entertainers who appear randomly at the festival all weekend - they have a love of Abba and The Bee Gees!!

Time afterwards for some silly jumping on Uncle S games followed by more time in the children's area!

We spent the Saturday evening in the woods - listening to smaller bands. The area is powered by a solar double decker bus and it is gorgeous. Lots of emphasis on eco friendly and recycling. In fact the whole festival encourages this too. This sculpture of the festival totem animal - A Jackalope - was created from plastic bottles - it highlighted just how much plastic families use that just gets thrown away.

The woods area was just gorgeous at night - lots of fairy and laser lights which people old and younger were just entranced by;

Sunday seemed to pass so quickly, we spent time in the Art Arcade and bought some lovely things for us and the house. All handmade and very much one off creations. I love my new dress upcycled from a vintage tablecloth!!

All too soon it was bedtime again - the weekend was almost over :(

Time for one last campsite breakfast before tidying up and packing the car;

That coffee pot and mugs have got about a bit this summer - they are packed again for another adventure later this week!!

Car packed, it was time to say goodbye to FolkEast for another 12 months. By now even our flattened patch of grass will have cattle grazing on it again and the whole site packed away as if nothing had happened.

FolkEast is certainly a festival I would recommend to everyone - its relatively small, a friendly crowd of people, with things for everyone to enjoy. The food stalls are good and prices reasonable and of course who can say no to beer at £3 a pint. Early bird tickets for 2019 are already on sale and selling well.

We shall be there either as punters or dancers but we will be there. Celebrating the weird and wonderful in a field in EastFolk!

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx

Happily still being green!

Afternoon

Funny how so much from my old life has seamlessly joined with my new life. I've always been a bit of a green/hippy/eco-friendly sort of a girl.

If you follow some of the labels in my sidebar you can see mention of recycling etc going back to the beginning of this blog - and before that to be honest. 

As a teenager I spent many a happy afternoon at a jumble sale with my friends - buying clothes which we'd alter to suit our tastes - making jeans skinny before the invention of lycra and turning old mans shirts into trendy collarless ones.

My first home certainly contained many old and upcycled things - a book case made from wine boxes - a Christmas gift in 1969 for my ex-husband. I delivered it back to him the other week when furniture came out of storage - whilst I loved it there is no room for it here so it needed to be back with its original owner.

This house is certainly full of recycle and upcycled things - along with those collected from charity shops, car boot sales and junk shops. Both S & I can't resist a good rummage through others peoples old junk - our little town contains 11 charity shops and we often do a full tour when we have the time.

The latest upcycling project - our old wooden bed into a garden bench!!

Made from about 95% recycled wood - the old bed and some pallets - only the front posts are from new wood!

It's almost built now - and partially painted - just need summer to return so we can get it finished!

Another project this week has been getting my bike roadworthy again. It spent 18 months in an outbuilding as we had no space at the flat. S has repaired the brakes and checked it all over. I have tidied the basket up - the wicker has got caught on stuff on many occasions and it was looking a bit sorry for itself - I decided to repair rather than replace;

I need to use my bike tomorrow - most days I can get to where I want on foot but I need to drop something off a couple of miles away. Am a bit apprehensive as the roads are busy here and my cycling skills a bit rusty!!

With the house we inherited two greenhouses (one full of tomatoes) and 3 raised veg beds - 2 of which were planted!! We have ended up with a glut of tomatoes and courgettes - time for inventive cooking!!

A rummage in the freezer for some mince and hey presto - the base for a lasagne!

We also inherited some squash plants - these were really quite tiny and seemed to struggle at first - however a bit of rain and some attentive watering and boom they grew like crazy. It was only after a veg gardening book was acquired on a recent charity shop trawl we discovered they like to climb!! Fortunately when the large bamboo plant was removed our friend saved the canes - more upcycling!! These now are supporting the ever growing squashes - come the autumn I will need some new recipes I think!!

Another step to becoming a proper blogger again is taking place as I type - my little camera is being charged!! Going to try to use this as well as my phone to get photos as it does take rather lovely pics.

Right I had best go and hunt down our camping gear - we are off to FolkEast later this week - to celebrate one year of being married!!!

See you soon with plenty of festival photos!

xxx Vicki xxx

Free & Frugal

Good morning :)

Hope the sun is shining where you are - its a gorgeous day here. Just despatched the boys to a sisters for a day of light gardening :) Lovely and peaceful here now! Just the sound of MrVV tapping away on his keyboard and Ken Bruce chatting away in the background.

When we visited my Grandma earlier this week, we left with a huge pile of lovely free food - blackberries from her drive (collecting these each week towards jam making), plums from her orchard and eggs from a friend of hers;

I think next week when we go, the pears & apples should be ready for picking too - thinking crumbles and apple/blackberry jam time - hurrah :)

Within our (quite large) family, we've operated our own version of freecycle for years - if we've something we no longer need whether its furniture, clothes or toys - things are offered to other family members first. Some items are on their 3rd or 4th owners now - there's one bookcase that's appeared in so many houses over the years - it was 2nd hand when my parents bought it 35 years ago!  Well for months now we've needed a replacement wardrobe for little son - his was a cheapie we bought for big sons bedroom when he was a baby - its moved house twice and really had seen better days. The trouble with wanting a replacement was, we don't like having to go furniture shopping - most of our house is furnished with samples/seconds from MrVV's business but sadly he no longer sells wardrobes :(. Well good old MIL came to the rescue - she decided that she no longer needs a spare bedroom so a sturdy pine wardrobe was spare to a good home - ours! With the addition of a shelf upcycled from the old one - it now should last little son into adulthood :)

 

Heavily influenced by my Grandparents, I've always been one to be frugal - I don't like waste especially food. I think hearing all the stories of wartime rationing and how everything got used has stuck in my mind. So when there's only 2 of you for lunch and the fridge turns up 1/2 a head of broccoli, an onion and few potatoes then its time to make the first soup of the season and very scrummy it was too;

 

Right the washing machine has finished - time to hang things outside in the sunshine and then head off into town to do a post run.

Have a great weekend folks - hope you get some sunshine and you're able to get out and about.

See you next week

xxx Vicki xxx

Going Green!

Despite the best efforts of the british weather to turn things white again today, inside we are definately going green!  Its been a long standing joke now that there is infact a shade of green called VickiGreen - somewhere between an olive & an emerald green! As every time we decoratr or I choose something new it often ends up being green or having green in it.

Today is very green - firstly I've ended up wearing a green t-shirt & green cardi - fortunately with a purple dress & blue jeans - oh yes I am colourful!!

I decided to dye the thrifted crochet cushion cover I found yesterday and put it in the machine with a couple of other items including the free CK bag from the 'Make' book - I found the dye when I was sorting out last week - the colour? Green of course.

Lunch today was soup from Waitrose - Thai Green Curry of course!!

Did anyone see the family on the news during the week - so green they only throw away one bag of rubbish a year!! Impressive and green to the extreme!

Here's hoping the weekend ends up being more green than white (I hoped we'd seen the back of that).

See you soon

xxxx Vicki xxxx

^^that is proper Vickigreen ;)^^