Back to reality…

June 15, 2016

…except not.

The last week has been eventful in many ways. Download was muddy (oh so muddy), drunken (oh so drunken) and muddy again (did I mention the mud?)

I got overly drunk, which to some seems funny but, in retrospect, I’m pretty pissed about because:

a) I should know better

b) I’m too old

c) I missed out on stuff I would have liked to see

Still, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I haven’t hurt or upset anyone (quite the opposite, I’ve been a source of comedy it seems) plus how else was I supposed to deal with the mud? (I know, I mentioned that).

Reality has taken it’s time to join forces with me ever since, and I’m not sure we’ve quite connected yet.. The news of the Orlando shootings filtered through but seemed so very far away until the bands had finished and Monday’s hangover kicked in, and then the inevitable social media skim to see what we’d missed really hit home. I was especially angered by the Sky News reporters who refused to acknowledge a blatantly homophobic attack for what it was. Good for Owen Jones on walking out. I’d have lost my rag way before that.

The drive home, which should have taken an hour, took 2 and a half, due to someone who’d climbed up on a motorway gantry sign and been in situ for 18 hours. The worry was obviously for his mental health, but I’ve seen no conclusion as to why he was up there either way.

A bag of muddy clothes proved too much for my washing machine which then stubbornly jammed up to cause me even more headaches. Big thanks to my very understanding manager who granted me a last minute extra day off which I used to sleep in until I could face my domestic disaster (which now seems to be resolved, fingers crossed).

In truth my head is still not fully connected; the cataclysmic weather and humidity is playing havoc with my sleep and I feel somewhere quite detached between the muddy fields of Donington versus the expected nirvana of sun and all the bands; the disappointment of spending a lot and not seeing enough; the rabid disbelief of death and politics (seriously, between idiotic referendum speak and the very real threat of Donald Trump I worry for the future of the world) and my ongoing headache which may or not be a mix of stressed hangover with bad weather head pressure and cumulative three day lack of sleep. It’s not a hugely pleasant place to be, but is a very real result of my own excesses (combined with those awful awful real life events that we all seem so powerful to prevent).

On that note I’m feeling rather cross with myself and the dullness of this post, so I’m signing off with the promise of lighter heartedness to come!

Sweet dreams people, and thanks as always for reading! x

My first…part 4!

June 1, 2016

Another first of the month – wow! And it’s a pretty grotty one here; rain and cloud and general gloom. Welcome to Flaming June!

What June does mean is Download festival! Which is something I never thought I’d hear myself say, even as recently as 3 years ago, but here I am preparing for my 3rd one in a row and feeling very excited.

The decision to go to Download was a flippant drunken one. You see, I’m not the festival type. I don’t do rain and I don’t do camping and I don’t do wellies. I don’t do big crowds and I don’t do stinky toilets and I find a lot of rock music too heavy or shouty.

What the hell was I thinking of even suggesting it?

Honestly, I don’t know! It seemed like a really nice thing to do for the husband after a few glasses of wine (he’s a lifelong rock fan and used to go to Donnington when it was Monsters of Rock). By the following morning I was already half full of regret but it was too late; the tickets and accommodation were booked.

As I said, I don’t do camping, so it was staying in a guesthouse or nothing! I like home comforts, a dry bed and a bathroom. I can’t possibly imagine how anyone can enjoy themselves if they’ve had a quick wipe down with a wetwipe and their clothes are swimming in mud. But to each their own!

Oh, and we booked VIP guest passes in additional to the standard tickets, so we could go in and out of the guest area which has better toilets, less queues, bars, places to sit, undercover areas and additional entertainment, At £100+, on top of the £160 ticket, it’s pretty expensive, but £35 a day just for a more hygienic loo break is worth it!

So the car was packed full of clothes for every eventuality and we had plans to meet up with friends who went every year. We got ourselves settled, got ready, and called a cab to the festival site.

And it was AMAZING! The buzz collecting our wristbands and walking into the main festival arena was electric. There were hundreds of people, some dressed up, some dressed down, some already drunk. Everyone excited and up for having a good time. The sun shone all weekend meaning we could sit on the grass and chill out with drinks when there were bands that didn’t interest us that much. The food was really good; with food trucks and cuisines from all around the world. We went on the fairground and I screamed my head off. We drank Sambuca shots from a converted VW Campervan. We sang along at the top of our voices to Aerosmith and swooned over Steven Tyler.

I loved every minute.

This is my favourite picture of the weekend.

Download 2014 me and my husband

In fact it’s one of my favourite pictures EVER! It was taken by an ex work colleague of the husband’s, who is now doing very well as a photographer. I love the reflection of the circus tent in hubby’s sunglasses. It never fails to make me smile and fade off into hazy memories of an amazing weekend.

Read about last year’s wet and muddy Download here!

Are you a festival go-er? I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks, as always, for reading! x

Download festival (in the rain)

June 16, 20157 Comments

My worst fear about going to a festival is rain. And mud. And basically all of the associated icky, cold, not fun, wet parts of bad weather. It’s hard to get excited about anything in the rain.

Last year at Download it was glorious. Which made sitting around, watching bands, having drinks and chilling out on the grass all lovely and nice and how summer should be.

This year I was determined to remain optimistic in the face of adversity – despite all of the weather reports that were saying otherwise, I was sure it wouldn’t rain. At most it might be cool and, even if there were showers, it had been so dry in the lead up that the rain would just drain away.

Wrong. The heavens opened on Friday night like someone had turned a tap on. It bucketed down! And by Saturday the whole of Download was churned up into a big squelchy muddy field.

I learnt some stuff this weekend. I learnt that wellies are much more comfortable than I ever remembered (I haven’t had any since I was about 8). I also learnt that it’s kind of fun splashing around in puddles when you know you’re protected. I learnt that paying £100 extra for a guest area pass is most definitely worth it if you want to sit down under cover and not queue ages for a stinky muddy toilet (although I seriously hope the drinking water and toilet water came from separate sources!)

The lesson that jagerbombs and Sambuca shots will lead to a whole body hangover that lasts almost as long as the festival was a harder one to handle.

Most of all, I had fun. The kind of fun that makes your sides hurt with laughter. The kind of fun that you only truly have when everyone is on the same wavelength. Daft fun, sing-a-long fun, screaming til you start to lose your voice fun.

I didn’t see as many bands as I expected to, which was partly due to the weather (we had to abandon Judas Priest and missed all of Slipknot on Friday) but also partly because Download is about more than that. It’s about catching up with friends, hanging out, talking crap and soaking up life. Also because it was always mainly about the Sunday line up, for us, and we knew that’s when we would find a spot and barely move.

Friday started off badly due to poor organisation – collecting our wristbands took 2 hours this year, when last year it had only taken 10 minutes. The set up just wasn’t equipped to deal with the number of people and the process (the festival organisers had introduced a cashless system this year which meant that each wristband had to be uploaded with the pre-paid cash on arrival and there was one person at one computer doing it). We missed a couple of bands as a result just catching the end of Lacuna Coil.

Marilyn Manson on Saturday was as weirdly brilliant as ever (although I’m hearing conflicting stories that he was terrible, so maybe I was really drunk!)

Our Sunday started with Backyard Babies on Stage 2 – kicking off with their new song and delivering a corking set. Billy Idol was brilliant (and looking fab; my childhood crush doesn’t abate!) Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators was as cool as expected (throwing in a couple of GnR classics too – brilliant!) Motley Crue delivered the goods more so than expected considering the car crash from Sweden Rocks the week before and the stage show and pyro made up for Vince’s missing vocals.

Kiss were a blast of noise and fire and make up and everything you would expect – sounding and looking great.

What I will say for Download is that it’s an incredibly friendly festival. No attitude, no trouble – just like minded people with no alternative agenda enjoying themselves and throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the action. And fair play to the organisers for having a shedload of hay on hand to try and make up for the mud – it certainly helped! In spite of the fact I originally said I wouldn’t be going next year, there’s a very real chance that in 365 days I’ll be rounding up my 2016 highlights – hopefully with less hangover.

Festival Fashion – Download style

June 3, 2015

In just one week time I’ll be frantically packing for Download Festival, praying for dry weather, and wondering whether I really need 6 pairs of boots for 3 days (obviously the answer is yes).

Last year at this time I was having a mini (read major) meltdown because I’d never been to a festival before. Well, not on the scale of Download. I’d been to a one day dance festival back in the day, and a local folk festival. I also had tickets to V Festival one year, but sold them the night before because it had been raining for 3 days and I couldn’t stand the idea of mud (and we weren’t even camping) Download is massive compared to any of those things; just the thought of the size of it made my head explode. And I knew that cancelling was not an option.

Of course my main concern was what to wear. With the chance of rain being ever present in the UK, even in high summer, I needed to be prepared for everything. Such was my naivety that I even enquired of festival going friends whether I could wear sandals if the weather was good (yes, if you want your feet trampled and covered in beer/food/general festival ickiness, was the answer).

At one point I had 16 (yes sixteen) pairs of wellies in my flat, trying to decide which pair I liked best, fitted best, suited my style best. I bought a waterproof poncho. I overthought the whole thing to the point where I didn’t actually enjoy the lead up.

And then it was sunny. Sunny as in warm sunny. Sunny as in denim shorts and sleeveless tops sunny. It was glorious! I wore denim cut offs and vests and shades. Only on the last day did I need my poncho for 10 minutes. Fingers crossed for more of the same!

Because I don’t do camping (I mean, just why?!) I have the luxury of being able to take oodles and oodles of stuff, stack the car up and clutter our hotel room – hurrah! It also means I should be covered for all eventualities should the weather go from one extreme to the other (double hurrah! No-one needs a wet, cold and under-prepared me on their hands – I reckon I can out-bawl even the loudest of bands if I’m not happy). Plus, should the worst come to the worst and I fall over in mud, I have a whole clean set of clothes for the following day(s).

None of this “camping is all part of the experience” for me. Forget it.

Here’s a selection of what I’ll be taking this year.

Biker wellies – Asda (last year)

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Side split maxi dress with leopard print cross (H&M)

High waisted black denim shorts (H&M)

Feather headdress (ebay)

Black and white stripe top (H&M)

Waterproof poncho (Amazon)

Fringed skirt (H&M)

Tartan trousers (New Look)

Grey draped vest (H&M)

C’est la Vie t-shirt (Dorothy Perkins)

Black leather jacket (Tesco F&F) and berry fedora (H&M)

Denim playsuit (Tesco F&F) and blue denim shorts (Matalan)

Obviously there’ll also be the usual staples of black skinnies, leather look leggings, over shirts, maybe a baggy jumper or two (depending on weather forecast). Perhaps kimonos if it’s not going to be too cold at night (although if I take a big enough bag I can have a costume change). Loads of jewellery. The good thing is I can just pack EVERYTHING! And I fully intend to!

Steven Tyler – hot pensioner, country singer and unlikely style icon

May 25, 20154 Comments

When I consider which celebrity wardrobe I’d most like to have, the first person that springs to mind is Steven Tyler. Which is odd considering a) he’s 30 years older than me, and b) he’s a man.

But he’s Just. So. Cool.

When he was one of the judges on American Idol I fell in love with him a little bit (ok, a lot). His charisma, sense of humour, that voice. I also developed a major hair crush. His locks are divine!

Aerosmith headlined Sunday night at last year’s Download Festival, and only added to my love for him. It had been a heavy weekend of drinking, standing, walking and more drinking and we were all feeling worse for wear but Steven came onto the stage like a whirling dervish – a vision in white, feathers and scarves flowing – and lifted our energy levels through the roof.

To perform with such fervour at an age when most men are retiring is no mean feat. The stage show was electric, his vocals were perfect, and it was all very special and emotional and an amazing end to an amazing weekend.

And now he’s diversified musically and is set to release a country album. I’m having a bit of an out of character (for me) love in with country at the moment, and the first single of the album is a bit of a corker, right from the first listen.