‘It’s situations like this that are often the cause of divorces, you know!’ Keith is getting more and more agitated as the fly sheet wafts up and wraps itself around his head again. Right on cue large, cold spots of rain start to land on my forehead and explode on my glasses. Keith stops fighting with the tent and starts scrambling into his royal purple rain coat.
'No, nothing worse than putting a tent up in the rain,' I agree, clinging for dear life to the opposite corner, 'but at least we are here and we are going to have a good time.'
About an hour later our tent is up with the bed made and our big dome kitchen tent is also up and ready. The cooker is out with most of the food and equipment stacked under the camping table. The sun has come out again and we are making our way through the campsite to the main arena, collecting envious looks with our 2 pint beer steins. Hetty is now happily wagging her tail after being shut in the car watching the confusion of Mummy and Daddy trying to erect her weekend accommodation.
We have finally made it to Camp Quirky, a family friendly festival centered around homemade van conversions which is now in it's third year. Now, you don't need a converted van to attend the event, but if you are interested then there's plenty of workshops and talks going on, along with people hanging around their own vans who are more than happy to talk about their conversion stories and lifestyles. The stalls are varied from fancy soaps to hippie clothes alongside van storage, upholstery ideas and log burners. There's an area to keep the kids entertained with craft workshops throughout the day. And the toilets, well, if you haven't tried compost festival toilets before, then you don't know what you're missing. The funny thing is that if you see someone take a cup of sawdust into the cubicle with them then it's obvious what they are going in for. Oh and don't forget to remove your phone/wallet etc from your back pocket because if it flips out and falls in, it's a hell of a long way down to try and retrieve them. On the upside, they don't smell anywhere near as bad as the usual festival toilets and stayed well lit all night, thanks to the festival's great solar powered system, the Solar Decker.
One of the first things that we needed once in the actual arena was a schedule with a list of all the bands, activities and workshops going on. We'd already seen a rough list of the workshops which had been sent via email the week before and I'd already picked up on the blog writing and swing dance classes. Keith wanted to go to the 'Planning a Van Conversion' workshop which was on at 10am on the Saturday morning. We got up and got a breakfast of sausages and eggs (Keith makes divine scrambled eggs) then made our way down to the marquee. I left Keith listening to the talk and went off round some stalls with Hetty. However, two books and a pair of fluffy socks later, I turned to see Keith sitting on a bench in the middle of the field. The workshop had been so full that he gave up trying to participate, but luckily it was going to be repeated the next morning anyway.
Time seemed to go so fast after that and once we'd wandered around a bit more it was soon time for the blog writing workshop, followed by How to Earn a Living on the Move talk where a panel of people who have experienced full time vanlife talked about how they made their money while traveling. After that I had to move again. Hay bales are far too low down for me to sit on for very long. So we decided to go back to the tent and get some tea. I did have the intention of going back in time for the Saturday swing dance class, but after a belly full of Keith's vegetable rice and a couple of bottles of Peroni all I could do was stand and watch to get an idea of what was coming the following day. The first day they had been teaching a Charleston, then after they'd finished the male tutor said, 'Now before you go we will just show you the dance we are doing tomorrow.' They proceeded to hop and spin about very energetically and just watching them was giving me indigestion. I realised that if I wanted to make sure I joined in the following day, I needed to be well prepared for it (i.e not having eaten a full meal just beforehand). But I was excited about learning the Collegiate Shag the next day.
Of course, you cannot go to a festival without raving about the bands. After seeing the band line up when Camp Quirky was first advertised, the only one we had actually heard of before was the Undercover Hippy. They were playing last but one on the Sunday night and was actually one of the reasons that Keith booked tickets for the festival in the first place. He'd become a big fan since coming across them last summer on YouTube. It was great to discover that we weren't going to be hearing the same music as we did at the VDub festivals. The Camp Quirky line up definitely had something different to offer with The Baghdaddies headlining Friday night, an infectious mix of Ska and Brass getting the place bouncing with their 'Mash It Up' and the Carny Villains on Saturday night. The other bands that stood out for us were Holly Holden y su Banda and Vamos, a French band who sang about 'a reckless fox with silent socks' in their Chicken Revolution song.
Sunday turned out to be a much nicer day weather wise. We went to the Planning a Van Conversion #2 and as it was much more laid back, me and Hetty also stayed to listen. We also got round to meeting some of the well known vanlife people, many of them having popular YouTube channels like Beyond The Van, Florence and The Morgans, The Rolling Home, Houseless Not Homeless and my personal favourite, Morag the Van. All lovely people with great stories to tell. And later I got to join in with the Swing Dance class and learn the Collegiate Shag while Keith disassembled our weekend lodgings. It involved a lot of partner swapping (ooh..er), then half way through the class they changed the music to a Si Cranstoun track...what a brilliant coincidence. (see previous blog)
Undercover Hippy were held up a bit with the tuning up but once started they didn't disappoint. As Keith had two of their albums on his phone and had been playing them quite a lot, we already knew their songs. They rounded their set off with the appropriate Last Chance to Dance, well appropriate to us anyway as we had to head off home straight after that. It seemed a bit odd as, usually when we arrive at a festival we are faced with a virtually empty field and it never fails to fascinate me how quickly that empty space can turn into a magical space in such a short period of time. Then at the end it's all reversed, and that magical village disappears so quickly. We would quite often be one of the last off the field, except for our friend Steve, The Driftwood Artisan who always makes jokes about being the very last to go home. But, as we were only punters this time, it felt like we were leaving while the party was still in full swing. And really it still was. But next year we will know better and stay the extra night.
