Greenbelt

I seem to have missed off blogging about Greenbelt this year.  Not entirely sure why.  Maybe it's because I didn't feel I needed to provide Squeak with running commentary as she came as a punter.  Maybe my mind is on other things.  Maybe there was so much water in the form of rain that I was worried it would short circuit any equipment that could access the internet.

Whatever the reason, it was a good year.  As always it went too quickly.  A blink and it was over.  Were there any highlights.  Well, in no particular order:

1)  The campsite sweep - for certain reasons we ended up doing a sweep of the main campsite.  In previous years it has fallen to our team to sweep the helicopter field on the Friday night.  Slight change this year so we ended up doing the central racecourse.  Never again springs to mind.  The helicopter field is a nice rectangle.  Easy to plan, easy to sweep.  The central racecourse is completely out of shape.  Trying to ensure that the sweep is in a straight line, well spread out, and all areas are checked is next to impossible.  No wonder we didn't finish until nearly 0400 hrs.  And to cap it all we didn't get to use the golf buggies!

2) The team of doom - they know who they are.  An all female pairing which worked together for two nights.  They didn't even need to go looking for things to do, trouble came to them.  We'd turn our attnetion elsewhere for 5 minutes and the Team of Doom would pick up yet another shout.  Even when all else was quiet they were managing to find lost children, burning installations, and just general chaos.

3)  Chinese lanterns posing as the ISS - there were a lot of chinese lanterns being let off this year from around the campsite or from outside the campsite.  One team seemed to make it their sole purpose to report these.  However, in an interesting twist, when they were actually asked to investigate one such incident then they quickly decided that it was the International Space Station passing overhead.  Which led to the classic retort from Control "only if its on fire!" 

4)  A thank you card from the team - Zippie and I were both given a card signed by all the members of the team.  A lovely gesture and, don't tell them, really meant a lot to me.

5)  The team - we were missing a few old hands this year.  But we had some new ones, and also one of the grand originals returned (hard to beleieve that the Support Team is in its tenth year).  And they all did really well.  It becomes very easy for Zippie and me, we get bathed in the reflected glory of a job well done by our team.  I am proud to work with them.

6)  The weather - I don't think I have ever tried to put up a tent in as much rain.  And then discovered that the new tent is poorly designed and gets very damp.  Despite this, the weather improved for the festival itself rather than the set up, and we ended up with sun, plus the most incredible rainbow.

7)  Being accused of stealing the FOMs vehicle - on the second day I was approached by a FOM (Festival Operations Manager) to be told that I was using their vehicle.  Turns out they were sulking because I was using a Nissan Navara whereas they had a beaten up Landrover.  Pleased to say, I kept the Nissan!