Strawberry fair and other strangeness
Jun. 8th, 2003 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fluffymarkI 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 withaiwendel 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.
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.
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Date: 2003-06-08 05:33 pm (UTC)Oh, and there is no such thing as 'too over the top' when it comes to fluffy accessories and stuff. :)
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Date: 2003-06-08 10:32 pm (UTC)Gina
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Date: 2003-06-09 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-09 09:01 am (UTC)True about the fluffy things, but i was practically wearing an entire shopsworth of `Claires accessories' on my head. :)
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Date: 2003-06-09 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-09 09:04 am (UTC)I'll have to hunt some down. I've noticed a few bitemarks appearing on my arms (and sadly, no, not the nice kind of bitemarks)
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Date: 2003-06-09 09:38 am (UTC)Hey, how was your eclipse experience?
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Date: 2003-06-09 09:47 am (UTC)Eclipse wa sadly clouded out. I waited very paitiently for the sun to appear from behind the clouds, and when it did the eclipse had already ended. Grrrrrr.
Next time theres a total solar eclipse somewhere easy to get to (so that means the one in antartica later in the year probably doesn't count) then i'm so there.
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Date: 2003-06-09 11:02 am (UTC)Gina
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Date: 2003-06-09 02:30 pm (UTC)It was lovely to see you too. :)
I hope you recover from the sunstroke and hangover soon. Ouch. :(
Methinks you need a special Fluffymark hat, of an appropriate style. I have to be very careful about the sun 'cos of the evil M.E.ness, and hats (or more usually bandanas, in my case!) make everything much easier to deal with, I find.
Mind you, if you'd been wearing a hat we wouldn't have got such a lovely view of your *fantastic hair*. *evilgrin* But you should definitely put stamina first at Glastonbury! Add that to vast quantities of water, and keep your sugar levels reasonably high (lots of starchy foods, little and often) is likely to help too.
You could also drink less alcohol, but I suppose at Glastonbury that's probably not really the point? ;)
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Date: 2003-06-09 03:24 pm (UTC)I've been having a *Big Think* about headwear at glastonbury. Somehow I survived last year without one, despite the intense sun, but now i'm wondering how???
A nice wide brimmed black hat would be nice, but i've only got two weeks to find one. I used to have a bandana thing, but I've got no idea where it is. The only hat i've got is a beret, and it's not very me (and not very covering of head, either).
Still, If i find room, i'm tempted to pack the hair and makeup and tart up a bit, maybe just for one or two days.
And I limit myself to one pint a day (at most) at Glastonbury anyway, the scrumpy is deadly, and one pint and i'm very tipsy.
Background picture
Date: 2003-06-10 09:22 am (UTC)A bit more on topic, cool that you enjoyed Strawberry Fair; this post sort of makes me miss Cambridge!
Re: Background picture
Date: 2003-06-10 09:48 am (UTC)*thankyou* for pointint out that it had vanished. Unfotunately my version of Netscape makes LJ unusable if i turn style sheets on, so i've had to turn them off, but that also means i can't see my background image, so i'd no idea it had vanished. The server (fluffhouse.org.uk) on which the image is residing is down. I'm now pointing at the correct image - let me know if it works, as i still can't see it from here!
The instructions for adding a background image are in the livejournal FAQ, look for a question on adding a background image. Theres some HTML code you cut and paste into a relevent box on your `Modify Journal' page - all you need to do is specify the correct URL of the image you want. Hope this helps. :)
I miss Cambridge too.
Re: Background picture
Date: 2003-06-10 10:27 am (UTC)Still no luck with mine; the first thing I tried was copy pasting from the faq, the second thing was copy pasting from
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Date: 2003-06-11 08:14 am (UTC)(except I couldn't buy batteries for my camera ANYWHERE and hence have no pictures of the event...) ;(
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Date: 2003-06-11 08:41 am (UTC)