Friday
Friday starts early. All of the images need to be
offloaded to the laptop before I head off to The Unicorn for breakfast.
PC
running there's time for a shower, get the car loaded. I can almost smell the
bacon and eggs already
Breakfast at the Unicorn's gone up 50p to six quid and
it's no longer help yourself, but as the portions are as generous as I would
have had, there's no complaints.
An early morning
conversation with a couple of other festival goers takes an awkward turn when I
mention I run a website. Suddenly I'm being asked what might be wrong with his
e-mail inbox and could his machine possibly be being used as a bot. It's a bit
too much like the day job. I answer his first question and make an excuse to
leave as he prepares the follow up.
I get to the site with plenty of time to
spare before the first real activity of the day, the Swedish music workshop with
members of Swap.
There's a bit of early morning mist about, but it's soon
burnt off by a bright and hot sun. It looks like it's going to be a glorious
day.
I grab a cup of tea and finish writing up the Thursday review. Stage 1
is putting its sound system through its paces. There are a couple of fiddlers
playing an early morning warm up. Slowly the site is coming to life. Yesterday's
down pour is already becoming a distant memory.
It's time to head to the Club
Tent and catch up with the backstage crew. I remember to change the batteries on
the main camera before the old ones give up the ghost. Normally I don't remember
until partway through a set when they fail.
I've also been very careful with
the cards this year. Nothing gets cleared down before I'm absolutely sure I've
got two copies of each. Regular readers will remember the disaster a couple of
years back when I accidentally overwrote a load of images of a card I'd already
cleared.
The workshop is slightly late starting, but they've got a reasonable
sized audience waiting for them. I was curious as to how much interest there
would be. Judging by the turnout a reasonable amount would appear to be the
answer.
The songs are slower than a lot of traditional music and built around
a variation of three beat. The sound focuses heavily on a double fiddle
sounds.
They kick off with a few tunes (polskas) and then the actual workshop
bit starts. It's a bit technical for me, but the musicians that have come to
learn seem to be getting really into it.
It's time to check out what's
happening across the site. The first beer of the day is being drunk, but 10:30
is a bit early for me so it's banana milkshake time.
I notice the awning on
the media caravan is open so it's time to get across there and start setting up
the day.