Bank Holiday Weekend in Exeter

After work finished on Saturday afternoon I raced home to catch the Grand Prix qualifying, I managed to get in just in time to see the last two parts, and exciting it was too! It was worth getting out of breath for (a little worrying for my Great West Run prospects next year that a short downhill run left me in that state!)

Then in the evening we wandered down to the quay for a drink. There was a band getting ready for a gig, outdoor bars and balloons. I managed to get a balloon even though I think they were for the children!

It was a nice evening, but even at 8.30pm it was starting to get dark and cold, the summer really is nearly at an end! At least we have a week in Majorca next month to get some sun!

Sunday was spend mostly watching motorsport. The organisers of the BTCC series seemed to have messed up the scheduling and clashed with the Belgian Grand Prix, but I watched as many of the races as I could then caught up with the missing ones on the ITV Player later in the evening. We also met Darren and Dave for a spot of Wii Bowling in the evening.

Today I lay in until 10am, and later will be off to Nick and Sarah's for a Barbeque (weather permitting!)

I thought I might find it strange not being at the Greenbelt festival this weekend, and the internet has been strangely quiet as many of my "online" friends are there, but in fact I have not missed it, and enjoyed relaxing at home for a few days. I might revisit it again one year, but I also fancy trying out some of the other festivals around too. I guess it all depends where we end up living and which festivals are convenient.

Rome

We are off to Rome for a week now, see you when I get back!

I will leave you with 2 final Greenbelt pictures.

Dave Walker at Greenbelt

I can exclusively reveal that cartoonist Dave Walker uses a small IKEA pencil to draw his cartoons, I have proof.





He was recovering from a virus when this photo was taken, so any larger writing implement could have taken far too much out of him.

Greenbelt 2008

Have been away from Exeter for the weekend to go to the Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham. Another good year, although I am finding less and less each year to interest me, but still plenty to do and friends to see!

Some highlights for me were Beth Rowley (http://www.bethrowley.com/), who was fairly new to me, but very impressive on stage



Juliet Turner (http://www.julietturner.com/), a long time favourite of mine!



An artist totally new to me, Esther Alexander (http://www.estheralexander.com/)



And the mainstage headliners of José González and Seth Lakeman on the Saturday night both put in spirited performances.



Off the stage all sorts of things were happening, films, meeting people for a pint of cider, a marvellous collection of photographs called Hard Rain (http://www.hardrainproject.com/exhibition.htm), floating angels and plenty more.





Slight change of plan for the Wibloggers meet, but the "Tiny Tea Tent" was the venue that had the honour of hosting it this year. Not ideal perhaps, but we made the best of it, and had a complicated system in place for keeping track of tea orders.

Leaving Do

Saturday night our friend Ruth was leaving Exeter to move up to London to make a career for herself in singing and songwriting, and we met up at The Living Room in Exeter to see her off. There were some songs from Ruth herself, including a requested version of Big Yellow Taxi, and then her brother Sam played a few songs with his “Peachy Farmer” band mate. Great fun evening and just about dodged the worse of the torrential downpours!



Most of the weekend, however, was spent watching the Olympics. Can't believe how many medals Team GB (Why GB? Why not UK?) have won, I regret not having taken a few days off to watch it.

This weekend I am off to Greenbelt (http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/), quite under prepared for camping this year, but hopefully a trip to Sainsburys tomorrow night will get me all the essentials I need (Cereal bars, Wine and Torch Batteries). Really looking forward to Beth Rowley and Jo Enright, but most of all catching up with old friends!
Will blog again next week...

5 Things on 2 days off

I am on the second of 2 days off work today, I had built up a fair bit of lieu time so booked 2 random days in August off mistakenly thinking the weather would be lovely...

So instead of laying around drinking cider in the sun here are five unrelated things I have been doing and thinking about in the last week.



1. I am getting rather excited about the Olympics, generally I am indifferent about most sport, but this seems an exceptionally large and important event, with all the added side news stories of human rights, smog and drugs. From tomorrow I will be glued to BBC1 and FiveLive.

2. Been watching a few films, Anchorman last night (never seen it before, and although it's very silly it made me laugh lots), some fairly poor Woody Allen efforts, Stardust, and on Sunday night re watched There will be Blood, which is just as good, if not better the second time.



3. Amazon sent me an email this morning telling me about a new book. “As someone who has purchased or rated books by Sophocles, you might like to know his new book will be released on 14 August...” amazing, after 2500 years he is still churning them out!

4. The SPCK bookshops saga rumbles on, I feel that some of the bloggers on this issue are getting a bit obsessed and occasionally silly about the whole matter, but it has been interesting to see that Private Eye magazine have picked up the story (http://spckssg.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/better-than-a-cartoon-private-eye/) and my sense of vanity notes that I got a mention on Phil Grooms blog (http://spckssg.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/sunday-sermon/).

5. Not totally unconnected from the previous point is the fact I have finally booked to go to Greenbelt this year. I was in two minds about going (saving money for the Rome trip being the main concern), but have decided to book it anyway. The year I missed going to Greenbelt felt odd, like I had not had a proper summer, or space to relax with like-minded people. I have also not seen some people for ages, such as Dave and Maddie, Ship of Fools people, Steve and all the other people I bump into year after year. The Wibsite (http://www.wibsite.com) gathering is also always an event to remember.