The ramblings of Keane Ingram

Village Green is a local festival which this year took place on13th July. This year was exciting for me as it was my first as part of the BrazilArte tribe. We were scheduled to perform a few times on and near the Global Village stage as well as a parade through the site. We got free VIP entry which allowed us to go backstage and take advantage of the private (and cheaper) bar as well as deckchairs and tables. Very refined!

A rather large deckchair

Most of my time was spent drumming - I'd remembered my ear plugs but forgotten to put them in, I won't be making that mistake again! My right index finger was also a little sore towards the end. It was great fun though, especially the final parade through the site where we joined forces with the other acts from the Global Village Stage. We also did some capoeira, mostly solo - I was a bit too enthusiastic in my solo and was pretty dizzy by the end of it!

It was a pretty long day and by the time our performances were over we were tired, so we didn't hang around for Fun Lovin' Criminals or Busted. It was a really fun day though and I hope to do it again next year.

Holiday

We've just come back from a week in Somerset. We stayed at Warren Farm in Brean, we'd previously stayed there before in 2014 when it was very, very wet - we were hoping for a bit more sun this time, especially as we'd brought the holiday forward a week from when we normally went away. We were mostly lucky, there was one day which was very wet and windy - I was worried that the awning would blow away in the night. One of our neighbours lost their awning roof during the day as it was so windy, and there were a few snapped flagpoles. Luckily all of our things survived intact.

It wasn't a relaxing week but the kids had a good time, and things are slightly easier now that the kids are older. We took their bikes and they happily did laps around the campsite. We only had one day at the beach, Kitty especially enjoyed sitting on an inflatable and riding the waves. We did try a second beach visit but the wind was blowing the sand into our faces (I couldn't even get the windbreak to stay put as it was so windy!) so we gave up.

We visited Glastonbury town on the Saturday and had a look around the Abbey, before heading to the top of the Tor. It looked really steep but wasn't too bad, and the view from the top was great.


On the Monday we had a walk around Pilton and took a quick look at the Glastonbury Festival website. Everything had pretty much gone except for the Pyramid Stage which at that point was still fully clothed (they started removing the covering a few days after). The kids had a quick play on the castle in the Kidz Field. Everything looked so much smaller without all the stalls and people, it was very strange. After leaving here we headed to Wells where I caught up with my uncle and cousin.

Tuesday (the very wet day) was spent at Longleat. It was a bit quieter because of the weather but it wasn't too bad, most of the rain came when we were on the safari bus. We got to feed giraffes and see the monkeys climbing on other people's cars! After this we did the maze - we got to the centre surprisingly quickly. We also went on the boat trip and I had a quick look around Longleat House - I'd been hoping to catch a glimpse of the "Fallen Madonna" from 'Allo 'Allo but sadly it didn't seem to be on display anywhere.

Our last day on holiday was Anna's birthday, which coincided with a visit by Sooty to Brean Theme Park. We spent the day in the theme park - Kitty finally discovered that she actually does like rides and went on the Caterpillar roller coaster numerous times. Rory was not impressed by the ghost train but loved the Sky Diver. We all enjoyed the bumper cars but my favourite was the go-karts. Hopefully next time Nicky will be tall enough to drive one, this time we had to have a twin.



It might be our last trip in the caravan - it's falling apart and the storage costs are being more than trebled in October, so we're looking to get a tent instead. It's served us well and I'm a little sad to be getting rid of it, but it's not practical to keep it and I really hate towing it! Having a tent will allow us to go a bit further afield and maybe even to the continent.