TravellingJan rides again!

 

Glastonbury Sunrise

Well, it’s finally happened – TravellingJan is back on the road again! But before I tell you all about it, let’s do a bit of a catch-up on life since my last blog.

It was Mum’s 94^th birthday on 24^th July, so Jeni and I arranged to go for the weekend and then found out that my brother was going to be there, too. Jeni made a lemon drizzle cake (well several small ones, in fact, so that Mum could freeze some) as it’s Mum’s favourite and I baked a couple of different quiches for a birthday lunch. We decided to try out a new route to Cheltenham that didn’t involve the steep hill out of Bath (you’ll see why, later) so set off in what felt like completely the wrong direction, heading towards Frome and then Bradford-on-Avon, Chippenham, Malmesbury and Cirencester. Google Maps insisted it was several miles shorter than the route I’ve driven for years and, potentially, quicker, and it wasn’t wrong! It was nice to see some different countryside and picturesque villages and Bradford-on-Avon is always lovely with the river and the Kennet and Avon Canal running through the centre.

The weather was very warm, so we didn’t do too much over the weekend, but on the Saturday evening we went to the pub in the village where they were having a Tapas Evening and had a very enjoyable meal. We also went to Mum’s favourite gardens at North Cerney House where we indulged in more Lemon Drizzle cake and Millionaire’s Shortbread whilst drinking tea and looking out over the walled garden. My brother had been eyeing up a sloping area of grass with a certain wistful look in his eyes, and then gave into temptation and rolled down the hill! He didn’t get up for a little while afterwards as it had made him dizzier than he expected! Some people just never grow up!

Rich revisiting his childhood!

Back at the end of June I’d heard, via Facebook, that the young couple who ran the organic market garden that I helped with a bit during lockdown, were desperately looking for somewhere to stay. They’d rented the ground and the owner had sold up and moved to Greece where he had offered them employment, but it was taking far longer than anyone had anticipated to get through the bureaucratic red tape that is involved in setting up a new business in Greece and getting visas and residency permits sorted. They had already been staying in a room in their friends’ house for three months, but felt that they might be outstaying their welcome, so I offered for them to come and stay with me until visas etc., could be sorted. What I hadn’t realised until then, in my naivety, is that there are many people in Glastonbury (and probably elsewhere, too) who have no permanent home and move in a continuous flow of sofa-surfing and rented rooms. Lou and Liam have been great since they moved in, being very quiet and respectful of my space and privacy, but we’ve also had some shared meals and good chats, plus they have looked after the house and garden while I’ve been away. I may just hide their visa application forms, when they finally arrive, as they are very keen to help me with garden projects once the weather cools down a bit!

I finally got my camper van back on 21^st July, serviced and MOT’d, and ready for the next adventure. As it had cost a fair bit to get her back on the road, I felt that I must make a concerted effort to use her more this year, which meant being prepared to go off on my own, as well as occasionally with Jeni. But where to go? Now, anyone who has read my blogs over the years will remember that at this time of year I could usually be found heading towards a small village in Oxfordshire with a group of my sister’s and brother-in-law’s friends, to sit in a field listening to music. Obviously, the pandemic had put the festival on hold for three years, but we had stopped going the year before that because Chris, the main instigator of the group, had very sadly died and no-one wanted to go there without him. I decided to see if there were any tickets still available and duly bought one and a three-day camping pass, so now I was committed!

I decided to do the outward journey in two stages as I didn’t feel completely confident in Bunty’s reliability so, on Wednesday afternoon, on a boiling hot day, I loaded all the necessities that I could think of into the van and off we set en route to Cheltenham and an overnight stop with Mum. Driving an old, normally aspirated, diesel vehicle is very different to driving a newer petrol car and I soon found that I had to adopt quite a different driving style, shifting up and down through the gears much more frequently. I discovered that 5^th gear was only for cruising at a decent speed on flat roads, any slight increase in gradient would result in a drastic drop in revs and a hasty change down into 4^th (or 3^rd when I got it really wrong!) Bunty doesn’t like hills, be they long and gradual or short and steep, hence the need to plan my route carefully and avoid the steep hill and sharp left turn at the top of Newbridge Hill in Bath. The new route worked pretty well, apart from a heart-in-the-mouth hill start in the centre of Bradford-on-Avon, and we arrived at Mum’s in good time.

I found Mum really struggling with the heat; she hadn’t slept well for days and had no appetite, so we ditched the idea of going out for an evening meal and had scrambled egg on toast instead, which was a much better option in the circumstances. We were both up quite early on Thursday as Mum was also off to stay with my sort-of-aunty, Jen, in Cwmbran for a few days, so it wasn’t long before Bunty and I hit the road again, heading off across the Cotswolds through Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton, Banbury and on to Cropredy. Despite the embarrassment of crawling up multiple Cotswold hills in 2^nd gear with a trail of cars behind me, we made good time and arrived in Cropredy before 8.30am.

Camp site 7A from the canal bridge

At first, I was a bit upset because, at the last moment, I had taken a wrong turning and so had only one option of camping field available to me as I had come into the village the ‘wrong’ way. However, I was soon mollified by being directed to a spot right next to the canal and, as I discovered later, within listening distance of the stage. I parked up as levelly as I could and then started sorting out the interior of the van – that was when I discovered that the fridge wasn’t working! With predicted temperatures of 32 degrees this was not a good start as I only had two ice blocks in my cold box, and they were fast defrosting. I hurriedly transferred everything into the fridge, working on the assumption that it was probably better insulated than the cold box, and hoped for the best.

As the concert field didn’t open until 2pm with the first act starting at 4pm, I decided to walk along the towpath and into the village to look at all the stalls that are set up there during the weekend. I very soon came to a narrowboat where a guy was selling handmade leather items and struck up a conversation. I chatted to him for ages and then, slightly further along the canal, I found a lady who made felt hats, amongst other things, and struck up a conversation with her. She was thrilled to find a fellow wool enthusiast and we chatted for even longer about all sorts of things. It turned out that she had lived in Evercreech and Shepton Mallet and also knew Glastonbury quite well – what a small world!

Festival ready

When the field opened, I took my camping chair, a bottle of water and a puzzle book and headed in. It was already sweltering on the field as it slopes and faces due south, so the sun really pitches in there. However, I stuck it out all day as I wanted to see Clannad, an Irish group made famous by the theme to the TV series Harry’s Game, and whose music I’ve enjoyed for years. They were on stage at 7.30 by which time the heat had dissipated a bit and I was feeling more comfortable. I wasn’t disappointed as their act was just as good as their studio recordings and their rendition of Herne the Hunter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZI9ZVApSA8) gave me goosebumps. I was probably witnessing their very last live performance as they have decided to retire this year after 50+ years.

Festival evening sky

The last act of the evening was the Trevor Horn Band who, more or less, played the 80s and 90s pop charts as Trevor Horn had produced the likes of 10cc and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It was a very lively end to the evening with lots of people dancing and singing along.

Thinking that the overnight temperatures would still be pretty unbearable I completely under-estimated how chilly a metal box with the windows open can become, and spent the night being restlessly cold and uncomfortable – another lesson learned!

Cropredy lock 

Friday dawned with clear skies and sunshine and by 9.00am it was already very hot. The music started at midday, but I decided to go in at about 1.30 and by 3pm I’d had enough and headed back to the village in search of shade and a decent ice cream. There has always been a stall in the centre of the village opposite the church that sells Water Buffalo Ice Cream, so I headed there and found a bench in the shade on which to sit and eat my ice cream whilst people watching. I was soon joined by another couple who’d also succumbed to the lure of delicious ice cream and we started chatting. It turned out that they were parked a couple of rows along from me and, when I mentioned about my lack of refrigeration, they very kindly offered to refreeze my ice blocks and lend me two frozen ones overnight. Aren’t people kind? It turned out that he was a chartered electrical engineer and he, even more kindly, offered to bring his multimeter over and see if he could work out why the fridge didn’t work. Apparently, the electronic ignition was working, even though the indicator light wasn’t on, but it wouldn’t ignite the gas and, after investigating the rear of the fridge through the outside grill, we decided not to even try as all the pipework looks very corroded – another job to sort out.

I decided it was far too hot to go back to the field, so I sat in the shade of Bunty and listened to the music from there. After a while I got out my spinning wheel (oh, didn’t I mention I’d packed that?) and sat in the early evening warmth, listening to the music and spinning away. This also led to several conversations with random strangers, so I didn’t really feel lonely at all.

Travelling spinning wheel and travelling Bunty

Saturday, if anything, was even hotter than the previous two days and I decided not to go onto the concert field until the early evening. Instead I walked down to the village and went round the car boot sale that always takes place to coincide with the festival, but it was too hot to linger long. I then walked around to The Red Lion pub, opposite the church, where I bought a pint of … no, not cider, orange juice and soda water, and then went and sat in the churchyard in the shade to drink it. Afterwards I went into the church as it was hosting an art gallery of local artistic talent, some of which was very good. For a final time, I walked along the towpath and treated myself to a pair of earrings and a wristband from the leatherworker guy, before returning to the van.

My sister had told me that Katie, the daughter of the aforementioned Chris and Jude, was also at the festival on her own and had passed on my phone number to her. We finally agreed to meet at the bar at 6pm, where we had a lovely catch up whilst not buying overpriced pints from the bar, but swigging water like it was going out of style! We then went our separate ways and I found a spot to settle for the final two acts of the festival, Richard Thompson, singer, song writer and awesome guitarist who was, for a while, part of the Fairport Convention line up, and then Fairport themselves to close the proceedings and, as the full moon rose over the field and shooting stars flickered overhead Simon Nicol sang one of my favourite tunes, The Girl from the Hiring Fair (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHWRYzXG9sU) – another goosebump moment and so very magical.

Full moon over Cropredy

I had intended to cook a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning before driving home but, in the end I had a cup of tea (without milk ‘cos it had very quickly turned to yogurt in the heat!), packed everything away safely, checked coolant and oil levels and set off back the way I had come. The countryside looked almost autumnal with the combines busy in the corn fields and leaves prematurely falling from the trees, but it was a lovely drive home with me feeling more confident of Bunty’s reliability and my ability to adapt my driving style to meet the demands of an old diesel engine and, after just over three hours we were home!

There’ll be no stopping me now! Where shall I go next, I wonder?

Glastonbury sunset