bowlie and beyond

Oh dear blog it's been a while and there haven't been many words flowing, this shall be remedied. There are a few things that need laid out just now.

I have just returned with my husband from a holiday to Butlins. Not just to Butlins though, to Bowlie 2 - a music festival curated by Belle and Sebastian. I really can't be bothered typing in the history of this event for two reasons, one being I have just added hundreds of covenanters to my database this afternoon and my fingers don't want to type anymore, the other being I didn't know about the first Bowlie and it did not subtract from my enjoyment of the event. I really dislike those people who think they are better than you because they were at the first one, or they knew the band before the band or they saw the famous concert. Whatever. So basically Bowlie 2 is/was a music festival at Butlin's Minehead where you get a chalet and can do all the Butlin's stuff as well as see three days of gigs, it's pretty good to be sure.

We decided to drive there which was I suppose our only logical option seeing as the train station is still ages from the venue and 9 hours on a bus? No thanks. So we we had to decide between taking Hamish - Stuart's car - who is new, safe and not so fuel efficient and the Bug - my car - who is old, rattly but very fuel efficient. We took Bug. Stuart wasn't insured but that was sorted and we managed the trip from Glasgow to Minehead on only one tank of fuel per journey which is pretty amazing. The trip consisted of driving a little too fast on those straight bits of road which in our defence offer you no option but to do it, you feel you have to keep up. It also consisted of ridiculous car games such as eye spy where the thing spied kept on dissapearing out of view too quickly due to speed and became basically something beginning with: R - Road; T- Tree; B - Bridge; or C - Car. We had slightly more success with naming through the alphabet with a specific catagory (e.g. Cars, A- Astra, B - Bugatti, C - Clio etc) but we quite speedily started choosing categories such as "stationery" and ended up putting Abacuses and Underwear on our metaphorical desks to fill in gaps. By the time we resorted to the number plate game it was hour 5 of the journey back up and we were just shouting words as they came into our heads - JOP "JIM ORANGE PIANO" GDR "GOD DILLPICKLE RAG" - or even worse we were simply dipping into the profanity bag and pulling out these beauties - SAP "STUPID ARSE PISH" BJB "BIG JOBBY BAWS" and so on. We did make quite good time though. Traffic impeded us on the way down but on the way back we made 7 hours INCLUDING breaks, at the end of which I think I may have started seeing things but that's neither here nor there as the Bug bombed along the straights of Abington and Lesmahagow.

The festival itself was brilliant. It was so grown up. I can illustrate just how pleasant it was with these comparisons between it and my other main festival experience of T in the Park 2005: Tents become Chalets. The ground becomes a bed. A plastic cupboard of diahorrea becomes a neat bathroom. A bottle of water and a tictac becomes a shower and toothbrush. Cheap boxed wine and £5 falafels become Coca Cola and soup. Grass and mud becomes fancy carpets. Getting pissed and falling over in a puddle becomes swimming in a wave pool with space bowl flumes. 500 feet from the stage becomes 5 feet from the stageCrushed bones and elbows in your ear become clean people maintaining your personal space. And most importantly, distorted and vague sounding bands become perfectly sound checked and levelled hand picked bands.

I'm not going to go into immense detail of the performances, only to note the following bands as either brilliant, or a good surprise: Belle and Sebastian (especially Judy and the Dream of Horses and Sleep the Clock Around), The Go! Team (especially Ice Storm), Sons and Daughters (especially Rama Lama and Taste the Last Girl) and Dirty Projectors. See my tumblr for photographs and videos. The other amazing thing at this festival was the laid back nature of the bands and the security. I don't mean laid back like lots of crap happened, I mean the bands staying in the chalets too and wandering about all the same as us. Us being allowed to wander through the venues as bands sound checked and rehearsed was another plus.

Aside from the music, there were other things to do including swimming, walking on the beach, and specially selected television programmes by ATP or Belle and Sebastian in your chalet. Here are some of the highlights of the weekend for me. Writing postcards on the floor in the Pavillion while Belle and Sebastian rehearse in front of us on stage. Swimming in the pool, jumping 7 foot waves, crazy flumes. Going under the water with Stuart and singing a sing and guessing what it was. Eating supernoodles with bread sticks. Taking oranges with me everywhere. Alex Kapranos's obvious envy of my fuzzy hat. "winning" 10p (and losing like £2 of 2ps) on a penny falls machine called Hot Dog. Losing at air hockey. To be honest the only dissapointments of the weekend were when the candyfloss machine took my £1 and never gave me the floss and when the machine that takes 1p and stamps the words "I love dinosaurs" on it was jammed and I couldn't use it.

ANYWAY

I feel I need to tag this on here too so I don't forget. Last year I made New Year's Resolutions. I do every year, some times with more vigour than other years, but after a completely dismal 2009 I hoped that acheiving these would stop a bad streak and turn over a new leaf of luck. I did this in response (aka copying) my friend Jenny who has done the same on her blog Another Year's Words. Seeing as 2010's demise is nearly upon us I intend shortly, probably in my next blog, to give a round up and review of the year structured around my resolutions and the new outlook I have on life, which I never seemed to seek, rather it sought me. For now, here are the resolutions as well as I remember them, and we will see how well I have done.

Play with Molly and Maisie more so Molly isn't too fat
Ride Mary-anne more.
Run a 10k.
Get Married.
Graduate.

For the end, soon.