Festival reviews

Many of my friends are shocked when I tell them that me and the girls are spending nearly every weekend until the second week in September at a festival... 'What?! you are taking your girls to a festival?!!'
Yes that's right, they are putting on their neon face paints and glitter and coming along with me! 
I'm not a drug taking raver who gets completely wasted and misplaces the children oh apart from that one time... just kidding!!!

My girls are pretty brilliant, they love listen to music especially when it is live, they like to dance and they love to learn about different cultures, all things they will get from going to festivals!

So I thought I would write a little review of the festivals I enjoy taking my children to and the ones I would never again set foot in, and it might then give you the inspiration to take your children to weekends away where they will definitely find new memories to take home with them. 

Larmer Tree Festival, nr Salisbury on the Wiltshire/Dorset border.
www.larmertreefestival.co.uk

This is one of the most family friendly festivals you can go to! 
There is a whole area for children and all the bands are family friendly, there is so much to see and do. The grounds are kept spotless with people collecting the litter and emptying the many bins frequently, and the toilets are probably the cleanest you will get at a festival!!
There is a family camp site, a quiet camp site and general camping, with toilets and showers in each field and plenty of taps with running water.
Last year Katie from Cbeebies did a show for the children which was brilliant, there is a night time walk you can do through some wooded trees with lots of lights and ambient music.
If you want to start out at a festival this is the one to do although the children's tickets are pricey, at other festivals you just pay a booking fee where as at Larmer it is half an adult ticket.

Gorgeous sculptures in the Larmer Tree gardens.

One of the stages in the Lamer Gardens

Festibelly, New Forest music festival, Lymington
www.festibelly.com

This was a very small but cute festival. There was a special tent for children to spend time either alone or with their parents. 
There was a varied selection of bands which was good but they had not planned for the amount of people who went to the festival!! The toilets were grim to put it mildly, there were no toilets in the camping field let alone showers so you had to walk back to the festival if you needed the toilet and the water tap kept running out so there was no water to drink most of the time.
This was nice to take children to as it wasn't hectic although there wasn't that much to do.

My girls love to get involved!

Secret Garden Party, Abbots Ripley, Huntingdon
www.secretgardenparty.com

NOT FOR CHILDREN!!! I bought tickets for my children but at the last minute they were given the chance to go away for the week with my dad - thank goodness!!!!!!!!!
There was no break from the pill heads and dance music mixed with a large amount of miscreants! 
There were however lots of amazing sculptures and art works around the grounds and they did have a children corner in the grounds for children to do things but really this was not for children I wouldn't have felt relaxed like I do at others, I would want to keep hold of them the whole time!
The toilets.. there wasn't enough, and they were filth!

Fox sculputure

Paint throwing @ Secret Garden

Could you crouch above this to do your wee?

Square Fayre, Worth Matravers, Purbecks
www.squarreandcompasspub.co.uk

This is a very mini festival at a pub called The Square and Compass in the tiny village of Worth Matravers. With lots of music playing all Saturday into the night this is only good for children if they can entertain themselves, mine enjoy making loom bands whilst also making new friends, it is literally in the pub garden over looking fields and the sea. 
There isn't a camp site attached to the pub but a short walk through fields and you get to Western Dairy campsite which have toilets that smell of lemons and are so clean! 
They also have a small hut that sells BBQ food, breakfast baps in the morning and ice creams! A really chilled out weekend as long as the weather is good, best to go with a group of friends with children!

Right by the seaside, absolutely beautiful surroundings!

The Wilderness festival, Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire
www.wildernessfestival.com

This is great if you really want to immerse your children into true festival spirit. There is a huge range of music, sculptures, beautiful grounds and the toilets have got better this year, when they decide to work there are showers and water points.
There is a babysitting service that you need to prebook before you go as the places get filled up pretty quickly. I paid for two nights worth of babysitting but ended up only putting the girls in there for a couple of hours as I felt they were missing out.
There is a whole family section with fun things for kids to do all day and lots of things all around the festival to see and do to keep them entertained. Even at night there are parades and bonfires to see which my girls loved.
You can go swimming in the river there, there really is so much to do!
However the journey from the car park to the campsite is a long and arduous one and you need to either take your own trolley or hire one when you are there.

We have the Purbeck Folk festival, Bardic picnic and Festival number 6 to do. 
Larmer Tree is always the best every year!

Yarn bombing: Bristol

Yarn bombing, yarn storming, guerilla knitting, kniffiti, 

urban knitting or graffiti knitting;

a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful 

displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre.

Photos by Mark Rodgers

Is there an area near you that could do with a little warming up with colour, texture and style?

Eggs for Easter

Happy Easter!

Easter for me isn’t just about the chocolate eggs and the Easter Bunny, my family remember the true meaning of Easter, the period of time leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross, the resurrection, and all to allow us to be forgiven for our sins whenever we ask for it, the most amazing sacrifice.

When at my boyfriend’s house we got talking about Easter and he went upstairs and brought out an old Design and Technology project of his. It was a simple, large, wooden box with a brown tinted glass cover that could slide out. It had three trays that sat one on top of the other and each tray was divided into sections with a dusting of fine yellow sawdust.

This box was designed to protect some of the most precious objects I have had the delight to touch. 

Eggs. 

Lots and lots of eggs, all shapes, sizes, colours and patterns, all intricate and fragile, stored in a bed of sawdust. Some were as bone china held up to the light you could see shadows through them, and each egg had been kept there safely for twenty eight years.

I loved how small the Robin’s eggs were, to think a little chick about the size of a five pence piece would come out of them enthralled me. The colour of the Magpie and House Sparrow eggs that look like pebbles from the beach and the vibrant blue of the Thrush eggs were a feast upon the eyes! All the children loved seeing these eggs, and they probably wouldn’t get another chance to see this many all together from wild birds again!

Easter is definitely about new life, whether it be tiny baby chicks hatching from eggs or the new life in Christ when sins have been forgiven which only has happened since Jesus died on the cross for us.

So Happy Easter everyone, and happy chocolate eating!!!

Taxidermy, trophies or art?

When someone mentions Taxidermy to you, what do you think of? 

Festering old Stag heads protruding from the walls of stately homes, gathering dust? The cabinets of the Natural History museum filled with animals now extinct? Or... do you think of art? 

I have always had a fascination with Taxidermy. I enjoy showing bones of road kill and rodents my cat has brought in to my children, as how else would they get to see the intricate spine of a vole or the delicate teeny tiny skull of a mouse?
It doesn't scare them it fascinates them. They can tell you about the organs of a bird from gutting and cooking the pheasant we accidentally ran over once... its all in the name of Science.
Don't get me wrong, I AM an animal lover!

Polly Morgan is my artist idol. Her work is classically beautiful, macabre yet intriguing. It isn't your usual stuffed fox in a box, it a piece of art with a vintage twist, that would look amazing in anyone's home.
Here is a selection of my favourite pieces of hers.....

To Every Seed His Own Body

Still Birth (purple)

Systemic Inflammation

www.pollymorgan.co.uk