A week on from Port Eliot

It’s now a week since Port Eliot Festival and I think I’d better stop blogging about it after this one! It was such an amazing experience for both of us that I’ve really found it hard to think of anything else all week. Last night we managed to see the Culture Show repeat which was all about the festival, and it was very strange watching it on TV.

Clearly the programme had been filmed on the Saturday, when the weather was beautifully sunny. By Sunday the heavy rain had arrived and it was cold, wet and pretty shivery. We spent most of Sunday huddled in our gazebo talking to the Stonewylde fans who’d come specially to see us. I wish they’d come on the Saturday and enjoyed the better weather.

The festival we saw last night on TV, with celebrities, authors and musicians being interviewed, was very different to the one we experienced. I always find it fascinating how people can share the same event and yet have a completely different experience. My dear aunt, the Owl Lady to whom Stonewylde is dedicated, once told me of the book she planned to write, which was all about this very thing: the same incident through the eyes of various people who by adding their own filters of experience, emotion and perspective made the incident appear very different. She never did write the book, which is why she was so keen for me to write.

Anyway, watching the Culture Show last night was like seeing a different festival. We didn’t have time over the weekend unfortunately to sit in and listen to all the authors and musicians (except for Dovegreyreader, whom I simply couldn’t miss as she’s been very supportive and her husband Bookhound had spent ages chatting to us in our gazebo). We were so busy with our own thing, talking to the myriads of people who stopped by at our stall, and showing them the corn dolly display and chatting about Stonewylde. I wish now that we’d had more time to spend just wandering about as punters, enjoying the talks and schmoozing buy phentermine sacramento with all the interesting people on their stalls. But that, of course, wasn’t why Lady St Germans had invited us and wasn’t why we’d attended at all.

Having said that, we did find time to socialize with the delightful Simon Costin and his brother Anthony, who were exhibiting their travelling Museum of British Folklore – see the pic above with the lovely little caravan. We’ve teamed up with Simon before at the Wessex Folk Festival and it was thanks to him that we were invited to Port Eliot. He also interviewed me on Sunday, in the pouring rain, for the Port Eliot Radio Show which will go out on podcast too. You can see us above well wrapped up against the elements with the producer – Hamid I think although I’m terrible with names. Simon is a huge Stonewylde fan and we both really enjoyed doing the radio interview.

So … that’s it now until next year. On arrival home we left the wet tent and dripping gazebo mouldering in the car for a day, then managed to get it all dried off in a brief afternoon of sunshine, and packed away ready for our next sortie. We had guests galore staying all week and so much follow-up from the festival to deal with. And yesterday was Lammas, so I’ve been desperately busy putting the latest newsletter together, which you can access on the main website if you’re not already a subscriber.

I’m longing already to return to Port Eliot next year (I do hope there’s another festival then – I heard that maybe it’ll only be every two years?), and will have to ensure that we get a little more time to wander around and listen to other people’s talks. Maybe by next year I’ll be such a famous author that I’ll speak for an hour and get someone else to run the Stonewylde gazebo all weekend, whilst I swan around in Where the Wild Roses Grow’s jewellery (see my newsletter about this!) and drink champagne. Now there’s a thought.