Following the disappointment of Latitude and its distinct
lack of hippies and the like, we’d signed up at the last minute to do Big Green
Gathering (near Cheddar) for a different stewarding group, Green Stewards. It
was interesting to see how they do things slightly differently, a bit more
relaxed, a free T-shirt, and 3 free meals a day. Nuts were doing the catering
(they do the vegetarian crew food at Glastonbury) so it was all good news. Lots
and lots of delicious and nutricious food.
The shift pattern is a bit different too but still messes
you up with night shifts, early shifts etc. All in all they were good to work
for. We had a day of terrible aggrevation from punters on our last shift and
the support they gave couldn’t be faulted.
On one of the night shifts we were all cold as and fires
aren’t allowed on the ground the security guard on our post got out his spare
tyre, set fire to it until he could get the tyre off and then we made a fire in
the rim (rims are the standard braziers on offer, to keep fires off the
ground). We thought him slightly mad (which he confessed to) but extrememly
generous also.
It was great to catch up with Martin and Gary again, and
there were quite a few familiar Oxfam faces there too. At one point I was
wondering along and someone yelled out at me from the beer tent. It was Andy!
From Wychwood festival. We had no idea he would be there (nor he us) so it was
a wonderful surprise. He was there with one of his boys Davy, so we got to meet
him after hearing so much about him from his Dad.
The green crafts area was really good with lots of workshops
on offer. Nick did a really cool Raku glazed pot. I spent most of my spare time
just wandering around. At one point I recognised a face in the green crafts
area – Jamie Catto! I normally don’t like to go up to ‘famous’ people as it
seems pretty uncool but we’d all still been talking about his gig at WOMAD and
how we’d enjoyed it – listening to it over and over again. He’d admitted to
being a bit nervous during it so I thought he’d probably appreciate hearing
that we’d really enjoyed it. And he did! He pointed out he was playing again
the next day and Nick and I went along to relive it all. He was a bit more
relaxed this time and his wife and kids and a friend were all in the front,
very nice!
We left on the Sunday and headed to Bristol to leave the van
at the boys place while we were in Canada. They weren’t home but their fabulous
neighbour gave us a lift to the bus on a very hot day when we wouldn’t have
survived the walk. It was quite a shock to have to pack things into a bag,
after having the luxury of driving our possessions around with us everywhere we
go.
We took the bus into London and stayed that night at Jenny’s
place. Her lovely flatmate Natalie made us welcome and cooked us a nice meal.
We were all a bit knackered so a quiet night was in order.
The next day we headed to Gatwick to fly out to Montreal via
Halifax.
