Truck fest

We went, we saw and we had an awesome time. This pretty much sums up this weekend’s experience at the Truck festival. The morning started with quite a leisurely pace Dave & I both getting a reasonable lie in (& quite a few cups of tea) before starting the cycle to Steveton. Dave is a bit of a biking enthusiast & I was pretty sure that he was going to speed off and leave me huffing & puffing behind him. This prediction turned out to be quite accurate, so it was a good job we had agreed to stop at café Gia’s on the way there (below is Dave heartily enjoying one of their famous breakfast baps).

Breakfast over it was time for the rest of the cycle. We finally reached the site at about 11am just in time to have a quick look round & decide who we wanted to see for the afternoon. On the way to the beer tent we bumped into my friend Mark who is currently drumming for a band called From light to sound. This is them in action

They were in fact so good that I am a proud owner of one of their numbered ep’s. Most excellent! We wandered around for a bit looking at some of the stalls and seeing quite a few bands (not really anyone worth mentioning here, they were all good, just not quite my cup of tea…) before accidentally stumbling across Ash in the signing tent (I must have been quite annoying at this point as I kept repeating Dave it Ash, look Dave Ash! but to be fair they were pretty much my idols when I was younger & they were just sat there!). Wasn’t brave enough to go ask for a signature so took a surreptitious photo (included below)and ran away. Once I’d calmed down we made our way over to the tent near the bar to catch the fantastic Stornoway (band not the island, I apologise in advance for these photo’s the tent was rammed and I am pretty small). They were in front of a home crowd and although the sound wasn’t great the band really threw themselves into the set, it was just brilliant.

All too soon it was over, so I was really pleased when I managed to bag a copy of their first single Zorbing on 7’’ on the way out of the tent. We sat & enjoyed food from the round table food stall (Pasta with great big chunks of goats cheese for me and Dave had yet more fried stuff, yuk!) and then spotted the truly awesome truck monster.

Darkness fell & Ash came on, the set was great, they basically played all the hits plus a couple of their new singles (apparently the band have come up with a cunning new plan to revive singles sales, they are releasing 27 singles in a year, each with a limited run of 1000 copies worldwide) it was great & totally took me back to sixth form when I really did think I was gonna be able to get away with playing guitar for a living….

What a great festival, if you live in Oxfordshire you should def keep an eye on this website http://www.thisistruck.com/ as I believe the Truck gang are planning more events just as great as Truck throughout the year.

Touch down

So back on English soil for my first full week. Alarmingly its only Wednesday & I'm cream crackered already (I think its all the intense catching up I'm trying to do). Fortunately all the deadlines I was panicking about before I went away were met and I'm starting to see the results. Firstly the article that the knitting group wrote ages ago is now in print. Yes rush to your news agent and demand this month's knit today, we are lurking near the back I'm really proud of my girls. The lovely folks at knit today also sent us a big bag of single balls of wool which I'll be handing out at the knit meeting tomorrow. Second up (and also publishing related) my 10 top gigs article is in this months Ice Cream for Quo, which is a brilliant issue (as random as usual, but all the better for it). My birthday present has arrived early (its a second hand desk that my parents have bought me). This hopefully means that instead of lieing awake at 2am with writers block/the urge to make a garment/piece of jewelry I can slink off to my desk, without disturbing long suffering housemate Dave from his slumber. Fourthly (and indeed finally) Captain hook made his debut in the coat of much pain (the pattern was so so wrong). Below are some photo's,the first one is of me wearing it (might have to work on the pirate wench look) and the second s the man himself. Sadly I haven't got a photo of the amazing last minuite bunting but I got a really nice thank you note from the wardrobe mistress. Hurrah!
But as they say there is no rest for the wicked, I got the official email from work today to say I've been accepted on a volenteer scheme to build council houses in Liverpool (its happening in September, I hope I can do my best for them, I've never been to Liverpool before, it's exciting!). Tonigh after my lesson Robin also bought round the cello that he bought for me (£40 in a junk shop, it's not the prettiest thing in the entire world but the sound it makes is us lovely, so much richer than the violin). So I think a few nights practice in with that could be in order. That's not going to happen this weekend however, as I'm doing sound for a gig at farmers choice of pub The North Star on Friday and its Steveton's finest Truck festival this weekend as well (http://www.thisistruck.com/). Dave and I are only going for the Sat this year for financial reasons but it should be a good one! I've also got to try & see he new Harry Potter flm at some point I've missed loads of the later ones & I really want to have a good look at the costumes.

There is of course all the normal stuff to do, garden to weed, veg to take care of, jam to make, bees to check. Italy was fantastic but I have to say its good to be home!