Glastonbury 2011

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to Glastonbury on Sunday (this is my last Glastonbury related post I promise). Why the hell was I worried about it raining?? I woke up this morning with sun burnt shoulders that are now hurting enough to remind me why sun factor is my friend. When we arrived it was warm and sunny, but still muddy and I lost track of the amount of times I nearly lost a welly. But as the day wore on the mud dried and we were able to sit down in most places. I only had to queue for the loos once and even they were in pretty good shape considering. I even remembered to take some photos through the day..

This was what we arrived to, mud and lots of it. It was already beginning to dry, but at that point it was thick, sticky and really hard to walk in.

This chap's called Dan Mangan and he was ace. He got all excited when he saw an ice cream van and at the end someone actually bought him a huge ice cream. He was chuffed to bits. He also had the second best beard at the festival.

Some more mud while we waited for Sea of Bees

Quick pic together. Dan took it and I think he did good considering he could barely see a thing!

Sea of Bees and that girl's voice was so damned beautiful. One of the best performances of the day in my opinion.

 Would you look at the stage sign. I mean, just look at it! Wow.

 

The dreaded 'long drop'. They actually weren't that bad if truth be told. Hats off to the poo parade.

That little white dot on the Pyramid Stage was Laura Marling. I didn't stay that long as it was too hot and crowded. It was a shame because I had to leave Sam Brookes' set after just one song and run across the festival to get there in time (completely lost track of time). 

Ahoy there matey!

Ok so I didn't stay to watch much of Laura Marling, but while Dan and I were sat in an open mic tent, who should run in and jump on stage, but her friend Emily Woods! So I sat there and watched her set instead and she was fab.

Waiting for Queens of the Stone Age. We checked out Beyonce later too, but didn't stay for long. She was putting on an amazing show, but I dunno. Just not my thing I guess.

The only down side of the day was the litter. Don't get me wrong, there's always litter, you have to accept that as part and parcel of the whole thing. I just couldn't shake the feeling that this year there was more of an "ah to hell with it, that's what the litter pickers are for" attitude. Also, I think the sheer number of people there overwhelmed me at times.

Oh and I must share this with you, we caught this guy when we were on a cider hunt. Check out the moves!

All in all we had a great time at Glastonbury. That said I think Dan and I are going to take a break from it for a while and focus on the smaller festivals instead. The next one being the Beacon's Festival in August which we'll be camping at. And if the weather turns out to be sunny, I will be using my factor 50!

And there I was, gone.

As you read this I will be at the Glastonbury festival. BOO YA!
Earlier this week we were offered tickets for today, an unexpected and scream-out-loud surprise. So that's where I am, soaking up as much of it as I can..and probably getting soaked in the process too.

In the meantime, here are some photos of last year's festival. A far less soggier affair..

5am start..I did not deal well with it.

There was dust everywhere, it made for pretty pictures though.

One of my favourite moments, just relaxing with Dan in a field looking down on the festival.

Mandatory flag pic.

Well helloo.

Dan with a hand full of moon.

Dan doing some more relaxing..all that enjoying ourselves was quite tiring don't you know.

 Watching the England game, I was more interested in the crowd. Just look at 'em all!

It was here we 'discovered' Sam Brookes. Well come on, I haven't mentioned him on here in weeks, we were over due. Get it? In Weeks? Thank you, thank you.

And let's end this for now with a hula hooping indian.

I'm going to post more photos of my Glastonbury trip soon so if you like this post, keep your eyes peeled.

Getting into the spirit

Glastonbury 2011 Playlist (click me)

Usually for my music posts I upload a video of a song I'm a little in love with, but in the lead up to Glastonbury I thought I would do something a bit different and share a playlist with you all instead. Everyone on the list are bands and artists who are due to play the festival this year. All very talented and none on the Pyramid Stage.

And it is this that I love about the festival the most. You've bought your tickets, the line up is released and horror or horrors, there are no names you like or recognise. So festival ruined yes? Not even close. In my experience the only thing that can ruin Glastonbury is rain...or forgetting your tent poles, but if I'm honest the stress caused by both experiences scenarios is temporary There's so much else to do and see that you can spend the entire time taking in the sights and discovering new music without so much as going near the main stages, unless you have to walk past them in order to get somewhere else of course.

So in the spirit of discovering new music, have a listen to the playlist. Maybe you'll find something there that will take you somewhere else for three or four minutes.

Veggie Patch Update

I can tell it's summer now when I look at the vegetable patch. Finally things are starting to bloom. I always find that when I first plant things out that they take a couple of weeks to start growing again. It's as though, despite looking perfectly healthy, they go into shock at being thrust outside. Almost as if they've forgotten that they're plants and are supposed to be there!

But now not only have the plants been growing up and out, but the vegetable part is actually doing it's thing too. I now have the start of courgettes, gherkins, peas and a even a strawberry! Yup, my two ickle strawberry plants that were left neglected and dug up twice by the chickens have still managed to produce a single little strawberry. I'm so proud.

I'm watching my gherkin plant quite closely. Having never grown them before I have no idea what to expect from this plant. I actually thought that it would be similar to the courgettes in some way, or vine like, but no. It's growing up and is a little odd looking if I'm honest. It still seems very small too, but considering it was also dug up twice by the chickens, I'm just pleased that it's growing at all.

Banoffee Pies

About six months ago it was my birthday. It landed on a week day, so I didn't go in. I have a strict "no work" policy when it comes to my birthday and I simply cannot understand why people would happily go in if they had the option of taking a day off to spoil themselves silly, but anyhow, I digress.

Because I took the day off I forgot all about the office rule of bringing cakes in for everyone. And as I said at the start of this post, that was about six months ago. Yup, that's right, I never got around to making any baked goods for the office girls and boys. Oops.

So last night I decided to do something about it and make some mini banoffee pies. I discovered the easiest recipe via a guest post by Talia Christine on Elsie Larson's blog A Beautiful Mess. Incidently, do any of you read this blog? If you don't then you should definitely check it out, the girl is so inspiring it makes my head spin. But I digress again.

They came out pretty well and even though I'm not much of a caramel fan, I've eaten enough of them to mean that there will be no baked treats making their way in to the office tomorrow. Once again, oops.

Soggy hens do not happy hens make

A couple of weeks ago I commented that my chickens were not enjoying the rainy weather so much. Then I put the problem to the back of my mind hoping that it wouldn't be something I would have to worry about until autumn. And then it rained.
It rained a lot.

My poor girls! These photos were taken on a day when it rained particularly heavily and just would not stop, not even for a few minutes. Puddles formed and it wasn't long before Hen, Margot, Maureen starting looking very bedraggled and sorry for themselves.

Dan was an absolute love and went out in the rain to make a shelter for them as they didn't want to stay in their coop - which was toasty and dry I might add. This helped and by the evening the rain eased up enough for them to dry off a little. 

It's only temporary though. We need to come up with something sturdier to protect them from the elements. In the meantime, at least this make shift shelter works. So hopefully I won't see them looking that soggy again for a while!

Seed to Pie

I am so glad I started this feature. Every day when I get home from work I walk past the vegetable patch, look at my pumpkins and think "why aren't they growing?!"

But these posts remind me that they are and that come the autumn, I won't be pumpkinless. I just need to be more patient!

Bread and Butter Pudding

We have the best neighbours. They own a grocery shop and they regularly give us the bread that has just past it's sell by date for the chickens. Sometimes though, we have more than they can eat so we have to throw some out. This always seemed like such a waste until I remembered that just as old bananas are perfect for banana bread, slightly stale bread is perfect for bread and butter pudding! And seeing as the weather has been far from summery this past week or so it felt like the perfect time to make some stodgy, comfort food.

It tasted sooo good! It was also easy to make and cheap as chips too. I would highly recommend it. So if you fancy a go, here's what you will need..

Bread, enough to layer your pudding bowl with two layers

Butter

Icing sugar

2 x eggs, beaten

Milk, enough to cover both layers

Raisins

Nutmeg

1. Butter the bread and arrange in the bowl, butter side up. Sprinkle half the sugar and some raisins on the top.

2. Arrange another layer of buttered bread and again sprinkle with the remaining sugar and raisins.

3. Heat the milk until almost boiling and add the beaten egg. Stir it all up and add to the pudding. Leave for 10 minutes to let the bread soak up the milk/egg mixture.

4. Sprinkle with nutmeg, stick in the oven on gas mark 5 for 45 minutes and eat.

Also note how, unlike my banana bread (here and here), this isn't burnt! I put that down to the fact that I was drinking tea instead of wine this time. Drinking alcohol whilst baking = burnt stuff. Who woulda thunk it?

Return of the Mac or I need you!

Back in March I (temporarily) shelved a feature which I had hoped would become a regular one. It was called Project Wednesday and as the name would suggest I chose some projects and posted about my progress each Wednesday. However, it was slightly flawed in that I had bitten off more than I could chew project wise, I never seemed to have enough spare time and as a result never had much to post about each week.

So, only slightly flawed then.

Any hoo, skip forward three months and I think I'm ready to pick this feature up again, only with a few tweaks this time around. Like the name..and the projects..and when I update about my progress.
I'll be tweaking the entire thing basically.

So I know that much, but what I don't know is what the project will be. You see this is why I ended up juggling three projects last time, I couldn't settle on one so I figured I'd just to do them all. And look how that turned out.
So here's what I'm thinking, I make a list of small, practical and 'doable' projects, and you guys choose for me! If there's no outright winner then I'll just let the cats chose for me instead. I'm not really sure how that will work though..

So anyway, the projects I'm thinking of are:

1) Make a curtain for our bedroom (we're currently using a bed throw - not great).
2) Take apart a shapeless and  over sized pair of trousers and try to sew them back together again into a pair that fits.
3) Fix the kitchen wall (see here)

Ok, so it's not the most inspiring list of ideas I'll grant you. But each of those are things that I need to do and people I'm procrastinating like a pro here. Help me!

My Sunday in pictures

Ok so I realise it's not Sunday any more, but I was rained in yesterday so I thought it would be kind of fun to take photos of my day. Here's what I got up to..

Got up and went outside to let the chickens out. You can't really tell from the photo, but it was raining heavily. Bang went my plans of car boot sales and elderflower picking.

Looking at the photo above, did anyone notice my poor girls sheltering from the rain? Winter is going to be interesting that's all I'm going to say..

Whenever we get heavy rain, the chickens tend to only lay one egg or none at all. Today was a good day.

One of my favourite things about Sunday mornings. The Cerys Matthews show on 6 Music.

Enjoying my Sunday ritual of drinking coffee, reading blogs and listening to 6 Music.

After a while of enjoying that, I got a clean for little Miss Meeko, which told me that it was time to stop mooching online and have a shower. No photos of that though.

 After I was all cleaned up I went upstairs to the den and spent a large amount of time taking photos of my latest makes..

..and then stopped because I got hungry.

Then it was back to work, this time to edit the photographs.

Finally then to add them to Etsy. There were only four pieces! I can't believe it took me the best part of the day to do all that!

 By this time it was time to feed the chickens again. And yes, I am all too aware what an absolute tip the side of the house looks like. I even thought about not posting this photo! The truth is, the chickens loved scrabbling around the old tree branches so we decided to just leave them there. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

One of the best parts of the day. Choosing which music festival to go to!

And this was the one we went for. I bought the tickets today. I can't wait!

At this point I put the camera down to enjoy dinner and a film with the bloke. So there you have it folks, not such a bad Sunday if I do say so myself.