I really don''t need to say anything else, just go into the nearest dirty spot, roll around for a while and get really filthy and then go for a hot shower or bath....

bliss...I am starting to believe that life isn't about the pursuit of happiness, it is about little moments of contentment all strung together, or at least insterspersed by as little discomfort and pain as possible. Happiness strikes me as something more than the norm, it is more of a peak experience, if we always try and hold life in a peak experience, then we habituate to that and it is no longer a peak..so perhaps the pursuit of contentment is enough.


and a good shower and clean sheets and no mud..and not having to dance in your wellies (although that has novelty value!) are enough to make me content...

although the warm breeze and sunshine is a pretty good enhancement of life at the moment!

So a night in London, we did get to see the final Harry Potter..it was great and the end of an era for Moll and I, we have gone to each one on the opening day since the first one. Some day we will have a Potter marathon at my house, with cocktails of course..need you ask...

onw
 
I am (finally) updating this blog from the relative tranquillity of a provencal campsite..the wind is blowing, but its a warm wind and I am voluntarily seeking shade..yes! We have suceeded in our mission to find where the sun has been hiding out.
But first the festival, Up until the last couple of days the holiday has been hard work, the kind of holiday that you don't want to admit is tough, because dammit it is a holiday and we are going to have fun.
The festival was a bit like this, I felt duty bound to have un and to cajole Moll into having fun because our tickets cost so much. And bits were really good, there was an excellent comedy programme and we saw (or heard) a lot of really funny stuff, we also heard waterboys, Paulo nuttini and did a lot of wandering between various little bits of theatrical happenings and the cabaret tent.

And we danced, to a load of pop and 80s stuff, proper dancing around your handbag disco..or in our case, dancing in our wellies around our waterproofs.
Festivals, no matter what bullshit they tell you about festival chic..are not glamorous, or at least not ones that have a chance of rain. Latitude festival is always dry and sunny, well always until this year when we showed up. I am seriously thinking of charging staying away money to festival organisers, rather like the mafia...if you pay us, we won't come and then it won't rain.

Rain is good stuff, but rain in a field with 35,000 people and about 200 toilets and only about 50 showers..yes those numbers are correct. (btw no wash-hand basins by the toilets, just hand sanitisers..yuk)..and water that failed more often that it suceeded...rain under those circumstances is awful, you go beyond muddy into ground in grime. We went to the festival with two pairs of wellies, I had to buy a new pair while I was there, as mine were leaking, Moll made do with that old low-tech solution of wearing a plastic bag over her socks, under her wellies.

Wellies and rain coats sold out in the first day!..OK the second day, the first one was sunny. Two days and parts of the site were six inches of the stickiest mud ever. But with waterproof ponchos from tescos (an inspired buy on the way to the festival..although Moll's was not water proof after two days) and our wellies we kept dry, but sitting on a black plastic bag with a few thousand other people in a tent listening to comedians, does pall after a few days, no matter how good the comedy was,. So don't tell anyone I told you., but it was a relief to leave on Monday, after a two hour queue to get out of the site, the prospect of a night in London and hot showers was a little taste of heaven
 
We survived the mud, on the way back from the festival, London tonight, where we are booked in for a powerhosing...feck the mud was unreal. I started to feel like I was in an episode of Tenko in the end...more de
 
The devoted followers of this blog (all one of you) will know from last year that we had sat nav issues. In that it failed..or I killed it-jury is still out on that one- in Killaloe, about 20 miles into our 5500 mile trip....

this trip it lasted as far as Wales. We arrived into pembroke quite late..I don't know what lasting karma I have with ferries, i can leave 6 hours early for a ferry and still be rushing the last few miles, We left at 3 for a ferry that was at 9, the journey time according to google maps was 3.5 hours..we just made the ferry, but at this stage Doris (the sat nav) was still behaving. The ferry was empty, seriously we were like a handful of peas rattling around in a giant pod. Mollie and I had the kids area all to ourselves so we watched Disneys tangled..again..

anyway we washed up at pembroke at nearly 1am and saw Bosherton marked on the map. For those of you who don't yet know my guilty secret, I collect an old series of school stories published from the 20's to the 50s, chalet school, well in one of the books the Bosherton Lily ponds figure significantly and it turned out to be a lovely spot.

Once we figured out that an army firing range was not such a good spot to park illegally at the side of the road we were OK. There is a somewhat wistful part of me that wishes we hadn't noticed the sign..it would have been a great story to have been woken up by the van surrounded by a crack SAS team..but we parked down the road..we didn't notice the campsite RIGHT NEXT DOOR!...but in the morning it turned out that we were in a gorgeous little spot. A fabulous beach and huge ponds covered in white lilies all in bloom at the moment. We ended up in a tea room run by a 92 year old woman, seriously I don't know what elixir of life they have in the water down there, but that was the second 92 year old we met, the first was schlepping across the sand dunes on her morning constitutional.
 
All was going well after the morning scones in the tea room (you had to ring the front door bell of the house to get served) we headed for Birmingham, via Hay on wye..the town of second hand bookshops...lovely spot.

But then Doris took grevious exception to the whole escapade..or fright at the brecon beacons, I am not sure which but she went into a sulk and refused to talk to the satellites. She emerged from the sulk occasionally and looked around and then went even deeper into a sulk.

Our plan was to meet my old friend Roddy in Birmingham in the crowne plaza..turns out there are two of them..crowne plaza's, not Roddys..he is an original. We found him and the hotel eventually and then late last night headed for London, we got about as far as newport pagnall and a lovely comfy carpark in the motorway services beckoned...scalpers mind you, they charge you 10stg to park in the carpark overnight...still with earplugs, eye mask etc..it is surprisingly comfortable and it is nice to somewhat confound the half awake travellers in the morning when the two of us tumble out of the tiny van, rather tardis like, in my imaginings..but probably knacker like in reality...

Doris woke up with us this morning, but as soon as we got on the motor way she started to sulk again. But started to work as soon as we stopped in NorthWoolwich to revisit my old haunts....I knew it was probably a mistake to name the sat nav after the baddie in Harry Potter.

Speaking of which, we are going to try and see the final movie in the IMAX in London, how cool would that be IMAX, HP and 3D..nerdy heaven!

We are in Bethnal Green now, Doris is parked up for the night, I have a new set of eyebrows (Fabulous since you ask) and the best chinese food planned for this evening...and a proper bed..and the festival tomorrow!!!!




 
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