A festival with a difference

This was my third visit to Buddhafield, and it's only just occurred to me how different it is from other festivals. It's very small compared to many, it has a no alcohol and no drugs policy. There's a lot of yoga and meditation, and there's more and more crafty stuff each year, which was lovely for me, and is where I realised I wanted to be when I wasn't teaching people how to make books. I had gone with the intention of doing loads of yoga and meditation, but making beautiful things is my meditation.
Below are too many images from the festival, I'll post all the crafty and book workshop ones tomorrow.

a stone age earth oven, baking real bread

early morning

quite a crowd at Buddhafield

compost toilets



'what's on' board, can you see the bookmaking, centre left?



the 'green crafts' area

my caravan and mended awning in the corner of the green crafts area

a shrine in the healing garden

wood fired showers, £1.50, luxury!





beautiful rainbow flags

Ready (ish) for Buddhafield festival

I shouldn't be blogging...I've still got loads to do!, I haven't even started packing clothes and I've got another workshop to teach tomorrow afternoon and a big shop to do as the larder is seriously empty and as I'm leaving Vince at home I don't want him to waste away, poor man.

So..

I've repaired the awning, mostly by hand

 and partly with my lovely old hand operated sewing machine

 I've scrubbed off and hoovered out the old caravan (hmm, I definitely have a soft spot for old things)

view from my workshop window

 I've got piles of stuff ready to go.., duvet, guitar, sewing box (mainly for possible running repairs to aforementioned awning!), sketching bag, and a large bag of bits of material to decorate the awning (which will also be my workshop space) with bunting/banners/whatever takes my fancy.
Teddy is not going, he looks like he's had a hard day at work doesn't he?

 And MOST importantly boxes and boxes of books and stuff to make books with....oooh I'm so excited, I love teaching.

 Each tray has a 'kit' for one or two workshops, it's a new idea, it might work?!

So, as I'm definitely not taking my laptop to the festival (thankfully there's no mains power and my battery is very old, {more old stuff}) I'll take lots of photos of all the lovely books that people make and show you when I get back.

back to sorting and packing, byee

Beautiful flowers and gardens

Just a quick show of flowers and general views from 3 of the gardens I work in. When the sun is shining I think I'm the luckiest person on earth to work in these lovely places.

The close ups were taken a while ago.

Do you recognise that pink rose that's on my tiny allotment shed in two of the above pictures? Can you imagine my shed under that lot??! I think it's probably a very old variety as it occurs in a lot of local gardens. It only flowers once, and unfortunately doesn't have a scent, but when it does flower it really goes for it. It's also very disease resistant....and very vigorous!