Festival Feelings

Although I spent much of the weekend at the Wychwood Festival, I didn’t really manage to catch much music. I savoured a few Squeeze classics played by Chris Difford, lounged about and enjoyed half an hour of Eliza Carthy’s collaboration with Salsa Celtica (which was superb!) and loved what I saw of Field Music (edgy and angular and sharp) to the extent that I’m keen to purchase some of their stuff. I did want to watch the Amadou et Miriam set but I had my elder daughter with me on the Sunday and it was getting late. School the next day and all that. Most of the time I was flogging fancy dress, leathers, fake furs and old designer clothes in the Oxfam tent and that was a lot of fun. There was a (mostly) young team working for Oxfam and they were energetic and interesting and great company. I’m not sure I’d do a festival again for Oxfam – regrettably, I concede that it’s a youngster’s game – but it proved a worthwhile experience. I’m young at heart but I simply couldn’t cope with dressing up like Santa and dancing round with an umbrella for hours on end like some of the nippers on the stall. I cocked a snook at that rag week style japery when I was 20 too, mind you. I wore a Mexican hat for a while but that’s as zany as it got and I didn’t really enjoy that either. This sounds awfully selfish but the next time I visit a festival I want to catch more sounds and visit more stalls and sample more food.