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.

2. Fellowship with most of our church family

3. The teaching
Andrew Gardner from Fulwood Free Methodist preached over the course of the weekend on Genesis and Community. He also did Ephesians but I missed that as it was my turn to look after T. He was great. The invitation to think of Genesis 1 as God behaving a bit like Rolf Harris was truly unforgettable (in case you are wondering it is all about describing creation with broad brush strokes – the detail comes in Chapter 2)

4. The Yurt

5. The rain

As for the little fella, he loved it! Quite the little autistic party animal he was. He especially enjoyed any event with music.

As Greenbelt newbie, it took me a day or so to work out what was going on and when. But we still did loads. Beer’n Hymns was a particular highlight (two nights in a row!) As was a talk by John Swinton on the theology of disability. Also one by a bloke who walked the entire route of the M62 and wrote a book and a blog about it. And then there was the Taize worship. And the dinner I had from the Pie Minister stall (almost a religious experience in itself). Oh, and the Iona Big Sing. I could go on.

Camping with T was not too bad at all. The first night’s sleep was a bit rubbish; we went to bed at 1am and T woke us up before 4 and that was that. But Saturday and Sunday were a lot better.

And I spent a small fortune on books

Here’s a few pictures. There will be more on facebook.

The House

The Pool

Inside

A very jolly time was had by all

-Work, work, work, work, work. I won’t go into detail (this blog is about my real life after all…..) but the past few weeks have been consumed with the preparatory phase of a Seriously Big Project. We get a little break for a few weeks, so it’s back to just doing the day job for a while.

- My choir had it’s summer buffet concert.

- I knitted my first Baby Surprise Jacket. Does anyone know any surprise babies needing one?

- My beloved (but admittedly rather knackered) old wooden Adler treble recorder finally gave up the ghost. It split in four places. So I have finally succumbed to the world of recorder consumerism and am now the happy owner of a Moeck Rottenburg in Palisander from the rather wonderful Early Music Shop and a Moeck Tuju in maplewood bagged on Ebay. I’m playing them in now.

And I had two holidays at half term!
-For the bank holiday weekend, T and I went on a specialist weekend for autistic families organised by Through the Roof. It was just so relaxing, and fun. T was looked after for much of the weekend by the incomparable Vicky and had an absolute ball. I mostly sat around drinking tea and nattering. Which was just what I needed, given that the deadline for all that work I’d been doing was lunchtime on the day that the holiday started.

-We got back home on the Monday evening and on Tuesday morning, all four of us set off for the wilds of Ardnamurchan for what turned out to be the first successful family holiday we’ve had for four years. Define success? Well everyone enjoyed it and we didn’t come back thinking that it would have been easier to not bother taking T away from home. Nice weather, too.

And Mr. BK went to Poland and brought me back a picture of JPII as a present! And S did his Year9 SATs. And he had his 14th birthday. And I had to go to a beancounters conference that night so missed it. And T had his annual statement review – all presented on the smartboard with the lad doing cute and clever things like buying bananas in Sainsburys or parallel playing with a classmate.

The outside is gorgeous enough. But it’s the concert hall that really took my breath away (however, i didn’t think to take a photo. duh.)

So what were we doing in Newcastle? Well, it was time to pay a visit to my MIL. The North-East is really a bit far for a day trip for us, so we decided to risk an overnight visit, splashing out on a funky urban apartment on the Quayside.

Here is the view from our window

And here it is at night

How many bridges can you count in this picture?

The whole trip went really well. T coped with a night away from home brilliantly and a good time was had by all

Once we got going we were fine, but there was an unexpected sticky moment when T flatly refused to get out of the car. Very perplexing as it’s quite out of character – generally he loves the open air and countryside and needs very little encouragement. The current working hypothesis is that we don’t often do car trips with all four of us together and when we do, they are generally very long and involve packets of Opal Fruits and Extra Strong Mints. Clearly we had deviated from the script.

Anyhow, the walk was great and we were all mesmerised by the paragliders whirling over our heads as we climbed the hill (which was very steep)

Everyone is happy that school has started. T’s behaviour and general happiness levels have improved about 300%. And S seems to appreciate being in Year 9 (mainly because it means only one more year of compulsory French!) Me other half is just thrilled to get his own life back (weekdays 8.30 am – 3.30pm). And I’m totally immersed in the busiest period of the year at work. Wahaay!

That’s all OK, but what’s really rocking my boat at the moment is the fact that choir has started again. And what a programme we are working on! The big November concert will be Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Coronation Anthems and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. It’s the society’s 80th anniversary gala concert and we were told this evening that we are going to be filmed for a programme on BBC4! In addition to that, we will be reprising our showtunes programme for the opening concert of the Preston Arts Festival and holding a Come and Sing workshop on the Vivaldi. Oh and there’s a carol concert in December.

Now what else is happening? I read 2 Timothy last night for the first time in ages and that blew my mind slightly. I think I need to get a decent commentary on the book.

Oh and Mr. Busyknitter and I will be celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary in 2 days time. Hopefully with a walk up Pendle Hill and a cheese butty at the top. But if it’s sheeting down with rain, we’ll probably get tanked up in a restaurant somewhere near home

It’s a classic British tourer, built to cruise elegantly up hill and down dale. It’s really a crime that for the past year I’ve been restricting it to tedious journeys to work and ambling about my part of town. But finally today I got the chance to put it through it’s paces.

We’ve just had the first week of the summer holidays and I took some leave, but it was really no holiday at all. Our respite carer was away herself and my Mum got carted off to hospital for the week (nothing serious, so I’m allowed to grumble a bit). When I wasn’t looking after T (who was all over the place with a head cold) I was visiting Ward 12 and by the end of the week (despite midweek trip to ASDF Towers) I was feeling rather fed up (and I’d caught the cold).

So with the respite carer back and on duty, T in a much more mellow mood and what anxiety there had been about my Mum totally allayed, I decided to play truant today and take a half day holiday all of my very own.

I’ve been for a 30-mile bike ride round the the bit of Lancashire between Preston and the Forest of Bowland. The weather was perfect, the roads were quiet, my bike performed like a gazelle and i haven’t felt so relaxed and refreshed for months. Got a sore bum though.

No photos as I was travelling light.