We always look forward to our annual outing to Cropredy, Oxfordshire for the three day music festival headlined by Fairport Convention, this year even more so due to the difficult season we’ve all endured!
With everyone tightening their belts so not so many campers, the weather being atrocious and flooding the site, the computer system being less than perfect and being short-staffed, this season has not been the best. Dean and I believe we’ve worked harder this summer (physically) than when we had our ‘proper’ jobs so we’re adjusting our outlook again, as we did in 2008. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to enjoy our days off rather than sleeping through them.
Anyway, back to Cropredy… we loaded Smarty Pants (car) to the top with food, clothes, waterproofs, beds, tent etc. and set off early Thursday morning. The weather was looking promising so we grabbed one extra piece of clothing in case the sun shone, and we ended up wearing it over the entire weekend! We had glorious weather for the entire festival, a perfect tonic – fantastic music, beautiful weather, interesting company.
As we had a tiny two man tent everything was erected in no time, so we were able to enjoy the rest of Thursday wandering around the village. The Brasenose Arms had live music so we called in there for a pint – the atmosphere over the weekend is just so mellow, with everyone just chilling out and enjoying life. The festival field didn’t open until 4pm on the Thursday so we took a walk along the canal, had a mooch around the stalls, got our wristbands for the weekend.
The first night we just took a picnic blanket with us which proved to be a big mistake! We’d bought some Thermarest ‘trekker’ chair covers that transform your bed into a chair so we used them for the rest of the weekend and were in heaven. Dean can be seen displaying the chair in the picture below, when he was cooking breakfast Friday morning!
My mother joined us on the Saturday – we’d told her to bring a chair…she bought one of those three-legged stool things – fine for the odd squat but no good for sitting for hours at a time! Dean gave up his chair for a while to give her some respite – honestly, parents! 
The line-up of music wasn’t the best in our opinion but it was really relaxing just listening to the music, children having fun in the fresh air, reading, eating, chatting – all the good things in life. All too soon though it was over for another year – see you next year Cropredy!
