Southern Lights - Full-Fat Edition

Right.

Now that I actually have time to post a real entry about SL, here goes.

To begin with, I wasn’t going to go to Southern Lights as I was quite simply too poor to afford a ticket. Thankfully, the gorgeous Safire stepped in and offered me one of hers in exchange for hugs on demand. A fair trade. The festival kicked off on Friday the 11th, but I was booked that day to celebrate a friend finishing exams.


Friday evening went swimmingly, with a bunch of people back at hers having an awesome time. We did sort of lose track of time and before I knew it, it was light again and I had to leave to get home, pick up my stuff and run. This I did. Eventually I made it on the train, having run for it with a fairly weighty backpack containing mainly circus toys, paraffin and food. When I eventually made it to Southern Lights, the party was in full swing and I wearily stumbled up the hillside to a vacant spot on the ground to pitch my tent. No tent-pitching was done for about 20 minutes as I simply collapsed on the grass and lay there, unable to move for exhaustion.

 were around as well, which was good. The events of the following few days are too numerous to list in prose so I will make it easy - I had my arms painted in different patterns with SPF 30 theatre paints, meaning I now sport a patterned tan! - Took some amazing sunset poi photos with the help of Skins’ camera and flash gear - We had countless workshops taught by Thomas, G, Loooop and entire hours spent experimenting with things and just letting information sink in - Spent a good chunk of time hanging out on Jan’s porch, exchanging massages with a load of people which was both fun and educational. - Had a wine & cheese party while the pub quiz was happening with real Brie, Gruyère and all manner of other cheeses that had miraculously not grown legs and escaped in the heat. - Drew shapes in the dark with some LED finger rings - Ingested unhealthy amounts of sausage rolls, jaffa cakes and houmous. - Cleaned up my stalls immensely - Re-engineered my poi for extra length after playing with Thomas’ set


Eventually, things wound down and I found myself awake on Monday morning at God knows what time, *convinced* that everyone had nearly finished packing. So I feverishly stuffed all my belongings into my backpack and poked my head outside to find that nobody was up except the sun, the birds and the ever-present sheep. Cursing my misfortune, I unrolled my sleeping bag and passed out. 3 hours later, people *were* up and between packing, poi-ing and drinking with relish, gratitude and tears of joy in my eyes the steaming hot cocoa that Jan had cooked up, I managed to get everything squared away and was faced with a dilemma: whether to take the minibus to the train station and get the train to London or whether to get a lift to the station from Jan. In the end, we all decided it would be much more fun for me to lie across her back seat with 3 people supporting me all the way to London. All in all, an EXCELLENT festival and I am going again next year!