A long day's journey into night

Day 10, Cropredy

A long day and a long night, Friday, which is why I didn’t get around to posting this last night. I can hardly remember the beginning of the day, other than that it rained and I lit the fire again, and the surprise appearance of Keith as we huddled around the stove. Lots of people turned up yesterday, of whom more later.

The rain eased off mid morning and Baz and I went over to the festival field to buy a pretty little star-shaped glass lantern (the first small step towards Warrior becoming a hippy boat) and listen to some music – in particular Siobhan Miller and Jeana Leslie, the Scottish duo who won the BBC Young Folk Musician award this year. We listened to the final on Radio 2 because one of the other finalists, Dogan Mehmet, used to be in the same Brighton orchestra as Baz. They were great and so were The Family Mahone. Baz has been buying loads of CDs and queuing up to get them signed – it’s a very efficient operation. Never having been before, and not being an expert in this kind of music, though wanting to know more about it, I’ve found that the earlier, lesser known bands have been much more enjoyable than the evening big names, of which more later. (See how I’m building the suspense?) Baz also tried out an electro-acoustic cello, which he now wants. Mike revealed later that he has purchased an accordion, fulfilling a long-held ambition, so we look forward to hearing him play it next year.

After lunch we had the excitement of the arrival of Lucky Duck, by which time the sun had come out. Baz and I went up to the lock to meet them and rode down with them, and they tied up to Warrior. We decided that we should go and get plotted up on the field relatively early.

We found a fairly good spot, and settled down there with Mike, and had an enormous plate of curry, which was very nice but I couldn’t finish mine. Now, we had heard tell that Bones and Maffi and 3D Steve were on their way, and that Steve had our old pistons and liners to hand back. So I agreed to meet them in the Brasenose at eight. They arrived some time after that, having been setting up camp in some far-off corner of a field… withou the bits; I suppose it would have been unreasonable to have expected Steve to carry them all that way. We had a drink anyway, with Megan and her friends, and I headed back to the field having entirely missed Joe Brown’s set, which apparently wasn’t missing much, as the general agreement was that the sound quality was terrible up the field.

I made sure to be back in time for the Levellers though, who way back when busked for Christmas drinks in the pub where Jim worked. After a while I made my way down to the front, where there was a great atmosphere, and thought you couldn’t hear the words, you could feel the bass, which is much more important.