Strawberry fair and other strangeness

I like strawberry fair. It has all the good bits of summer festivals, without many of the bad points (being free and non-commercialized is a major starting point). It has the spontaneity and oddness of glastonbury, and while the bands are usually unknowns, they are good, play the music I like, and it's nice to find new interesting sounds. There should be more festivals like it.

Its full of a wide mix of people - theres the inevitable doggie-on-a-string brigade and hippies in abundance, and pretty much every other group under the sun. The liberty to wear the most outrageous outfit without being stared at led me to swan around in a sarong, a `hug me' top and attach an entire rainbow of hair extensions and fluffy things in my hair, and paint my eyes a wonderful shade of purple sparkly. Yes, I was having a bit too much fun and got carried away, a bit over the top, but who cares? *smallsmile*

My plan of arranging meetups along the lines of 'I'll be at strawberry fair, we're bound to bump into each other' looked doomed to failure at first, when me and emarkienna wandered around for about two hours without seeing anyone else we knew. Just when I was thinking people weren't there, suddenly we were pounced upon by a eviltwinemma, then rathenar and valkyriekaren. Found compilerbitch and doseybat at the Fort St. George, and I was delighted to see a wandering Leo and the_alchemist. Slightly awkwardly, as we left the pub, we got jumped by Kelly and emomisy. While I was happy to see them, I think I did good by talking to Tristan a little to one side, while Mark could chat to Kelly without getting too highly strung, but it was obvious he wasn't coping, so we made an exit. Erk.

Plopped ourselves down with aiwendel and olithered to see alixandrea's band Skelliga, which was wonderful, as people have been telling me for months I'd like them. Something like a cross between NMA and AAE, so I was told. Well, it wasn't exactly that, but there was very much a violin in evidence, and I like bands with violins, and it did much stringy goodness to the music. Someone prod me if they play in London in the near future, please? :)

compilerbitch then kindly drove me, bat and catriona to Hitchin for the lovely ixwin and vectorious' party. I've got a odd ability as a navigator, and once again, I navigate a perfect route to somewhere I've never been before without a map at all. Certainly scares me every time it works, although it's not totally infallible. Knowing a lot of people at the party made it good, and them being very pretty people made it even better. Overjoyed to see yvesilena and casby, who had even brought Hooch along. mirabehn and evil_nick were full of nice compliments (and were lovely themselves). Found someone I can jointly chick-perv with in the form of kmazzy. gnimmel and purplepiano arrived later, me having totally missed them at Strawberry fair earlier. And many other people, some of whom I vaguely said hi to, but there were a lot of people there, and they all seemed very nice. *hugstoallthenicepeople*

Woke up this morning to find myself back in Cambridge, with a nasty case of hangover and sunstroke. Eeep. Drinking lots of water, and smothering myself in sunblock before Strawberry fair didn't work as effectively as I'd hoped it would. Just had a nice freezing cold bath, which felt better than sex (ok, maybe not, but I'm not getting much of the latter right now). Am hoping I come up with a better survival plan for glasters, which will be a whole week of outdoor debauchery.