With three days of activities we couldn’t squeeze it all into the general Just So Blog post. We needed to point out the parts that the kids and ourselves loved the most. So join us on our run down of the highlights of our first Family Festival.
Festival Food
Corn
After camping for nearly a week we were looking for something different and one of the food highlights for us was… Corn! A simple snack / meal that lighted us up. The Corn was served complete with it’s husk of leaves. Which probably added to the novelty factor too.
There was a choice of 3 flavours. Butter, Chilli and Lime or Garlic and Coriander. As simple an offering as it sounds… it was delicious. Abigail loved the corn so much she had 2 plain butter ones (over 2 days) and I had the Chilli and Lime.
Candy Floss Faery Floss
Imogen keeps talking about the Candyfloss that she got. While queuing up the fairy winged sugar spinner, explained that the sugar was flavoured with natural flavourings. The choice was Blueberry, Mango or Strawberry.
While thinking about the choice Imogen and Abigail were offered a dusting of Faery Dust. Why not? Their hair was already coated in allsorts of festival goodness.
The chose Blueberry and witnessed the magic of blue sugar turning into loft insulation. It truely is quite magic when you think about it. It was a portion larger than the size of your head! Which kept them happy and sticky for the next 30 minutes.
Gyros
I’ve never had a Gyro and wasn’t really sure what to expect, So Cat and myself had different ones. She chose “The Jack Sparrow”, a marinaded Lemon and Herb Chicken filing. I chose “The Ben Gunn”, Halloumi Cheese filling.
It had been ages since I last had a mouthful of squeaky cheese and it was just as I remembered it. The Gyro was a warm flat bread filled with salad, the titled filling and a squirt of Tzatziki. Mmmm Mmm Mmmmmm!
Usually we would share our meals, but this time it was every festival goer for themselves.
Entertainment
Gacko
We stumbled upon Gacko by chance. It was raining and just like many people who followed us into the tent, was looking for shelter.
Gacko is a Ukulele showman with the gift of being able to entertain kids and adults alike. His show is based upon story telling with musical influence, but there is a twist. He gets everyone involved. His first song / set was getting 8 kids out of ten audience to play a show stopping overture, without any rehearsal. This followed on to a audience participation song / story, where a lady from the audience was asked “what happened next?” in the story. Gacko, used this to finish off the song. We really enjoyed the show.
What we didn’t realise was that Gacko was also doing the Ukulele workshops later in the day. Abigail had dragged her Uke around all weekend as she really wanted to do this. Bare in mind that none of the Hoopers can play Ukulele… yet! It was one of those proud father moments hearing Abigail singing and playing her tiny stringed instrument. It inspired me so much that I have now got my own light Blue Uke and a couple of “learn yourself Ukulele” books. Watch out for Abi and AL on “Britain’s got desperate for talent”.
Professor Kelso
Professor Kelso was hidden away in a woodland stage, where missed the beginning of his show. The Theatre was set in a muddy hollow, with seats cut into the walls. It was difficult not to sit in the mud, but we did manage to keep our shorts clean!
His show was presenting Strange and Unusual phenomena. He did a little magic, a bit of mind reading and an explanation of palmistry. If you wanted to find out more about the Palmistry Prof. Kelso was holding a workshop on it later that day.
One of my secret hobbies was Magic and Illusion, which sort of spoils these sort of performances for me. I know how the majority of the tricks work and with a little logic thinking the rest can get solved. However its the kids that experience the true magic and I love it when they are totally baffled by the performance.
Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers
This is a band that needs to be experienced. We listened to the Festival CD on the way to Just so and their track stood out a mile. It is entertainingly musical, but he lyrics are so witty. The Track “My Mysterious Uncle”, talks about that person that always shows up at family occasions, but no one really knows who they are. The lyrics were perfect and hit the spot.
This was followed up with a song about David Attenborough (to celebrate his 90th birthday). Another bizarre hit for us was Seaweed under the sofa. View the video as it was the type of seaweed that I wasn’t expecting.
We bought the CD and got it signed at the end of their set.
Many Many More
There was many more events and activities that we took part in over the weekend, including Willow Lantern making, a Lantern Parade, hunting down a Trophy Thief, Solving coded clues, witnessing a Zombie Conga Line and chilling out with the family. Overall it was an amazing weekend and we’d love to go back in 2017.
Early bird tickets for Just So Festival 2017 (18 – 20 August, Rode Hall Estate, Cheshire) are on sale from Friday 26 August at www.justsofestival.org.uk at special early bird prices of £120 (adults), £45 (child) for weekend camping, £70 (adult), £25 (child) for 2 day non-camping, £40 (adult), £15 (child) for day tickets. Under 3s free.
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