We went to a Festival last weekend. Everyone goes to Festivals these days, it seems. Once upon a time it was a handful of hippies behind a hedge with a couple of guitars and peace signs on their faces; these days its three dogs in a field and a beer tent and suddenly it's 'a Festival'. Looking through a leaflet recently of Festivals in our area, there appeared to be at least one that was just a retail opportunity at a Mill with slightly longer opening hours than normal.
Stainsby Folk Festival in Derbyshire, however, is different. It is a long-standing event, now in its 48th year, and older than Glastonbury if you're comparing notes. It is small and pretty and rural and everything about it tells me that perhaps many moons ago Glastonbury was once like this when it started out. There is one phrase hidden in the festival literature which sums it up for me - 'Not for Profit'. If only Glastonbury and all the other profit-making Festival machines would choose to emulate Stainsby and move back to something that more embodies what festivals were meant to be about instead of being just another branch of relentless consumerism.
We camped in a small tent (remembering the essentials like the unbreakable cafetiere and the insect repellent) with David's teenage children in pop-up tents nearby. It is a long time since I camped at an event like this and I was a little apprehensive; but Stainsby is small-enough to not get lost in or feel claustrophobic.
The best music all weekend came from small and middle-sized bands, overshadowing the main act of the weekend with their intense vibrancy.
'Seize the day', with their protest songs and green political ideals seemed to me to have far more in common with the original idea behind festivals than perhaps Adele singing 'Someone like you' at Glastonbury. And the audience bought into this in droves, catching the lyrics as they filed away their rubbish, helping others move their sinking camper vans and lending chairs and wheelbarrows so that everyone had a good time. There was an atmosphere of goodwill and helpfulness on the site that was enchanting and compulsive. All the staff were volunteers; and the idea of a sliding scale of payment for the artists meant that no one got paid too much and no one too little to cover their costs. How many other festivals can say that about themselves?
I find these ideas echoed back to me in a book I am currently reading by Tim Freke, from which Ali takes her inspiration to write the song 'Big Love'. It is about awareness and watching the dream of life unfold as well as being part of it. It is surreal. I feel like this as I float along in my long dress and alcoholic haze in the sunshine. Life is good and it feels great to be alive. Every day I try and look a little closer, pulling myself into the Now, and noticing the detail I often miss when I try to hurry.
I buy a hat for Molly (who seems to be into hats at the moment) from a quiet man in an orange canvas tent. It is made of pure wool, hand-knitted in Nepal and costs me £3. I go back later and tell the man he has undercharged me and give him some more money: it seems like the sort of place where you would do that, somehow.
The promise of Summer has made me rather lax in the kitchen. Meals are throw together affairs - lots of artisan breads and cheeses and salads with olives and tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are ripening in the greenhouse and they are sweet and moreish. I pick punnets of raspberries to eat now and blackcurrants to freeze. Summer's glut has arrived and we are making the most of it.
In the kitchen I want to cook simple things. I have mozzarella and aubergines and a basil plant on the window sill that it threatening to flower - all the ingredients I need to make tonight's supper which is your 'Aubergine and mozzarella (page 247). It is just an excuse really to gorge on toasted mozzarella; melted rather than cooked so that it remains long and stringy, without the chance to toughen up. The basil dressing retains all the flavour of the fresh basil. It seems an ideal recipe for pizza addicts who have read the calorie content on the side of their pizza boxes with horror. (My favourite bought pizza appears to contain almost half my entire daily intake of calories, if such things are to be believed, and I don't even feel full afterwards.)
We are in the garden at the farm looking at Sun dogs in the sky. This is a new one on me and I am fascinated. The sun dogs are two phantom suns which appear on either side of the sun and are most obvious when the sun is nearing the horizon. They are caused by the refraction of light through hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus and cirrostratus clouds and are red on the side nearest the sun, graduating through orange to blue. Often these colours are indistinct, appearing mainly like mirror suns, but today they are clearly striated.
Shakespeare, in Henry VI part three (dramatising the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in the War of the Roses), has the would-be King Edward decry: 'Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns.' He reassures his army that victory is foretold and that the three suns represent himself and his two brothers, the three sons of the Duke of York, who have been recently killed. The belief that victory was predetermined, which perhaps aided his army in battle, caused Edward IV to incorporate the sunburst as part of his personal badge.
It is a lazy warm evening and light until almost ten. It is pleasant to lie on the grass and contemplate life and the universe. The sky remains unchanged through the ages however we defile and destroy the landscape around us.
Love Martha x
Always read it , should have said before , like what you do.
ReplyDelete