Saturday

The rain threatened all weekend but held off till the end of Saturday evening as the festival ended with Fairport Convention (and it seemed like most of the other performers from the whole weekend) playing 'Meet on the Ledge'. We'd been bringing plastic bags and brollies and all kinds of stuff and hadn't needed them till the trek back to the campsite on Saturday night.
Then it rained alright. Wind howling and crowds trudging, and my goodness, finding the way through the campfield to the loos was a bit of fun!



Swarb's Lazarus were brilliant. The immortal Swarb, risen from the oxygen mask and wheelchair (seven years after reading his own obituary in the daily telegraph) and still playing the fiddle as though he was laughing at demons. He has a right to laugh at them.


It got quite cold and windy and Barney was persuaded that he should go and buy warm patchwork trousers (at a fiver, what person with cold legs could resist). he was deeply upset that they were now only reduced to a tenner. Well me and phriend told him he should have got them the day before. So we had warm, matching legs.





20 years ago I bought this rug at Cropredy for the huge sum of £30. I really just wanted the pleasure of bringing home those rich colours so it seemed like a wild extravagance. But it's still warm and thick and dense and the colours still glow.
Many times I've stood and listened to 'Meet on the Ledge' at the end of the festival, with it draped round me or the children. And hours and hours, lying on it, protected from the damp grass, reading or dozing while music filled the air. 30 quid's worth of warmth and good memories.