Festival song...

Well dear ladies.  I survived...

Four days at Carfest South working with Binland to keep the site as free as possible of every type of detritus known and unknown to the Free World was our remit.  Add in weather which Noah might have had an issue with, a couple of bottles of toffee vodka, a sunburnt nose and jeans so wet they were too heavy to keep up without industrial braces, and you might just have an idea as to what the weekend was like.  

My job on Friday morning before the gates were opened to all and sundry, was to go around all the traders who were selling food and alcohol and explain to them what we'd like them to do with all their rubbish.  The husband, or Mr Bird, as he was lovingly called by Miss Mai (one of our Merry Band of Bin People), walked around with me in a 'minder' capacity.  This was the plan anyway. But by trader number thirty six, he was getting slightly bored of standing behind me and nodding at the appropropriate time, and it all came to a head at trader number 37 (he was selling gin, so had a lot of cardboard).  I was trying to tell the trader to separate his cardboard out, leaving his wheelie bin free for the less bulky waste.

'But the bin's already full', he was moaning, and it's not even 9.00'.

'Right', said the husband firmly, 'come with me'.

Lifting the bin lid, he pointed at the large cardboard boxes which had been put in the bin.  'Are these yours?' he asked.

The trader, who by now, was starting to realise that Mr Bird was not to be trifled with, nodded miserably.

'Then I suggest that you take your bloody boxes out of the bin, flatten them down and stack them as my boss has just told you' (very sensible use of the word 'boss' I felt), 'and then surprise, surprise, look how much room is left in your bin now'.  Leaving number thirty seven hauling his boxes out of the bin, I managed to drag the husband away before he started saying things like. 'I'll be back to check', accompanied with a menacing look.

Apparently, the four hours spent nagging them all paid off though, and we took a record amount of cardboard waste this year which is brilliant.  We also managed to blag free coffee and cake from some of the kinder traders.  Weirdly, none of the sellers of alcohol offered us a freebie on the way round although seeing what the husband was like sober, perhaps adding vodka might not have been wise at that point...

Binland had its own stand on Carfest which was made up of a lot of very noisy percussion instruments created from scrap and bins.  As you can imagine, by day two, there were a couple of us who had shabby heads (one of my colleagues in particular would have benefitted from some earplugs, or a head transplant at a push), so sitting with ten or so kids while they were knocking ten bells out of a wheelie bin with a rubber mallet had its moments, but we all remained polite and professional as you would expect.

The weekend was brilliant, and some images will stay with me forever...

Mr W skipping like a pixie around the hanging chimes in torrential rain and a gale force 8

Mrs S rocking the whole bin bag overcoat look 

Mr S (The Big Boss) coming to the rescue with hot chocolate and cake for everyone

The husband doing his impersonation of Michael Flatley in our campsite gazebo after five pints of cider and demanding a 'Kebabble' from the Greek Street Food stand

Cottage pie rustled up in the contractors' field kitchen for eight hundred people

Razorlight (yes, I even managed to watch some live music)

Grabbing Chris Evans

Six people defrosting on Sunday afternoon in the Wobble Box and gently steaming up the windows

Same time next year everyone?