Winter Solstice 2013 at Glastonbury

This year, the Winter Solstice happened to fall on a Saturday, so we took the opportunity to head to one of our favourite landmarks – Glastonbury Tor – to watch the sun set. It was a close call as the sun was already on its way down as we drove into the town.

With no time to spare, we headed straight up to the Tor…

Walking up to Glastonbury Tor

And we made it just in the nick of time!

Glastonbury Tor 400

For days, we’d been experiencing torrential rains and gail force winds here in the South West, and it had rained for most of Saturday too. However, just as the sun was setting on the Winter Solstice, the rain stopped, the clouds disappeared and we experienced the most beautiful sun set. It truly was a magical moment

Winter Solstice at Glastonbury 2013 1

As soon as the sun was down, the clouds came over and the heavy rain returned!!

We carefully made our way down from the Tor, trying not to get blown over in the gail force winds! Back in the town, we stopped for a warming drink and a quick browse in the The Speaking Tree before it closed. All three of us came away with a beautiful book…. mind you, it’s very hard to come away empty handed from that shop!  As we made our way back to the car, we stopped to admire all the amazing window displays.

Glastonbury Shops

Glastonbury Shops - December

Glastonbury Shops - December 5

Glastonbury Shops - December 2

Glastonbury Shops - December 3

Glastonbury Shops - December 4

I loved that little hedgehog!

Well, it’s Christmas Eve now and I still have a few more things to finish off, including Christmas cards and decorating the Christmas Cake, but I’m nearly there!  M and Lil’ L have the next two weeks off, and I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with them. This will be my last blog post for a while, as I’m going to ‘unplug’ for the holidays to give the family my full attention 😉

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
I look forward to catching up with you in 2014 xx

 

Glastonbury!

This weekend I went to Glastonbury Festival for the first time in my life.  It was an amazing experience and I’m glad that I got to see the craziness that is Glasto. 

 The place is so vast it’s mind blowing! 

Thousands upon thousands of tents... pitched in the mud!

It was very, very muddy.  I tried to not be too much of a princess about it.  I didn’t complain (much) and just concentrated on plodding on and not falling over.  Lil’ L managed to fall over 3 times in the first half hour!  It’s hard work wading through mud for hours, but at least it gives your legs a good workout. 😉

Glad I bought some boots!

My favourite area of the festival was ‘The Unfairground’.  This zone invites you to the dark side of the world where plane wrecks, mutants and freaks all groove to Bez’s Acid House.  I fitted in well there 😉

The plane wreck below was actually a tequila bar!  You had to pick your way through the debris, then prop up the bar in the company of a blood drenched aviator.  Lovely!

Lil’ L was a bit in awe and a bit freaked out by The Unfairground!

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Shangri-La – the “futuristic and dystopian wonderland”… as it didn’t open until 11pm 🙁

Block9 was another late-night wonderland that we missed, but we did manage to see the incredible ‘London Underground’ – a 50ft tower block with a life-size, Tube train-cum-night club.  I would have loved to have seen it at night time when it was all ablaze.

The London Underground in Block9

I also loved the Greenpeace field.  Greenpeace is celebrating its 40th anniversary and it was great to join in the birthday celebrations with them.  There was cake, party games.. the whole sherbang!

The fish-cum-cafe below was actually made of old CDs!

There were some great installations by Greenpeace.

There were tons of vegetarian and vegan cafes and eateries at the festival.  We sampled the veggie burgers, falafel pittas and paella.  It was all delish.  My favourite refreshment had to be the fruit smoothie which was blended using pedal power to generate the electricity for the blender!  Very cool and fun to watch!

Blending smoothies through pedal power!

All in all, it was a great experience… and I didn’t get THAT muddy!!!