Mary and I both gave huge sighs last night as we enjoyed a glass of wine after an amazing roast of local belly pork. The first really busy week of the season is complete and we have just a handful of tents decorating the site, looking lost in the huge space.
A week of (mostly) glorious sunshine and endless phone calls, with "Sorry no - we've been full for weeks..." imprinted on our brains. The Bradbury family returned (see last time's blog) and our girls gorged themselves on Claire's famous toasted marshmallows. Now it seems like somebody turned off a light – suddenly the constant shrieks and shouts of excited little voices have all disappeared back to school. We are left with calmness, broken only by the sound of the birds, the cows and the lambs.
Our four lambs have proven a huge hit with the children. Countless little faces have lit-up as they got "up close and personal" with the soft fleeces, often for the first time. The lambs seem to love it too, all the attention and definitely the extra food! They have grown so quickly it's hard to imagine they were such scraggy balls of skin and bone only a couple of months ago. But now they are bigger and braver they are harder to contain. They seem less concerned by the electric fence and "The sheep are out again" is a phrase being heard too often. Time to think of a new plan!
Our chickens are also becoming mini-celebrities. They wander from their Egloo hut to the campsite and spend their days pecking for worms and out manoeuvring the children's attempts to stoke them. The eggs taste superb too! Superb taste was also on offer here last week in the form of the Brown Cow Organics produce. Judith brought a selection of their goodies down to the campsite, fresh from winning the "Best Yoghurt" award at the Bath & West Show. She seemed surprised to have won – we weren't surprised at all. Brown Cow will be back in the main summer season.
So now we have a short window of 2 quiet weeks before the start of the Glastonbury Festival rush, which gives us a brief chance to complete the tiling of the showers. As soon as the last campers pulled out of the site yesterday (on the back of an AA truck, but that's another story) I got to work with a crowbar, hammer and saw. The creative part I'll leave to the experts, but wrecking-out is such fun! One of the boards was signed by the original builder – "D.Carter, Pilton, 1977" - that's hardly historic, but ready for an overhaul sure enough.
Then there's the important technical challenge of making sure our camping dads (and mums too!) don't miss out on the World Cup from next weekend onwards. "Chicken Shed TV" will feature every kick of the England games on a big projection screen – just bring your own chairs, cans and some hankies for the penalty shoot out!
Best wishes,
Duncan
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