Busyknitter

One of these days the Department of Work and Pensions will cotton onto the fact that Ted’s autism actually isn’t going to go away and let me off filling in those ghastly forms every two or three years.

….or the significance of dates or any hokey stuff like that. But the 19th September does seems to want be a bit of a pushy, extrovert date in my life.

It’s my wedding anniversary and the anniversary of my Dad’s death. Which is a bit of an odd mix.

And I have a wedding to go to this afternoon (friends from church).

And it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yarrrrrrr!

Sam ironed a shirt yesterday, no-one hurt.

T and I had another fun trip to Greenbelt this year.

I did manage to get to a talk or two (thanks to brother stepping in with a spot of childcare when desperately needed ) but my best bits were all musical ones with the littl’un in tow, particularly anything involving singing; We did the Big Sing, the Wee Sing, the tail end of Beer&Hymns and the Tim Hughes worship (which the little fella really, really enjoyed).

I didn’t mind that we couldn’t get into the actual beer tent for the singing. It was just as much fun outside, being conducted by one of the crusader guys.

I’m sorry to say that the Sunday service was dull, too specifically political, hardly mentioned God let alone Jesus and the songs turned into a farce.

Most of the rest of the time was spent mooching around the site, chatting to folk, drinking tea and bobbing into gigs for 10 minute chunks.

My big find of the weekend was the Welcome Wagon, who as another friend has put it are my new favorite band. Would have liked to have seen Shlomo, but didn’t manage to get there.

Would also have liked to have gone to a Rob Bell talk, but I bought the book instead. In fact I am very pleased with my haul of books this year; currently reading “Heresies and How to Avoid Them” by Ben Quash and Michael Ward.

The bit that wasn’t so good for us was the disabled camping. We must have struck lucky last year, because then we were pitched on the narrow strip of grass direcly facing the grandstand. Though it’s quite close to the main festival areas, it was actually pretty quiet there and that worked for us brilliantly.

However, this year, all those pitches had been bagged by the time we arrived, so we found ourselves in the main disabled camping zone, which I am sure would have been really convenient for wheelchair users and people with mobility issues, but was a complete nightmare for us. It was cramped and noisy more or less round the clock and to make matters worse we found ourselves camped two feet away from a main thoroughfare to all the other camping areas, with hundreds of people tramping past more or less continually. and chatting. loudly.

This meant that my son spent a good hour or so very distressed late at night, finally dropped off to sleep around 12.30am and woke up again at about 7. That’s not enough kip for a 7 year old. And certainly not enough kip for me!

We stuck it out for two nights, but on the Sunday almost sick with exhaustion, I bailed and checked us into a hotel in Gloucester. I wouldn’t have been able to drive home safely on Monday otherwise.

Of course camping at a festival is always going to be a bit rough and ready, but it would have been nice to have been able to reserve a place in the same area that we had last year. There was a special zone for deaf greenbelters after all. Will need to think hard about arrangements for next year.