Mike's musings

Latitude

(backposting) Today we went to Latitude, a new festival held at Henham Park, in Suffolk. As I've already mentioned, we're festival virgins, so it was all going to be new to us. Our main worry, on arriving, was the discovery that the two bands we were very keen on seeing - The Zutons and Snow Patrol - wouldn't be on until 2000 and 2130 respectively: rather late for Jo.

We got there for just after 1030, which was the earliest they were planning on letting people in, and got let into the gates a little before 1100. The first thing we discovered was a kid's area, with, amongst other things, an area for little children run by the Sole Bay Team Ministry. We met the vicar of Reydon and his wife (and a couple of kids): they were seeing it as an opportunity to serve the community, and had been invited by the organisers of the festival, which I thought was excellent.

The festival was great. We caught random bits of this and that (including Mr Hopkinson's Computer and Ed Harcourt, both of which were excellent in very different ways indeed). And Marcus Brigstocke, who was very, very funny (as on Radio 4), and also very, very rude (unlike on Radio 4). Brill.

And we managed to get Jo a couple of 20 minute sleeps, which meant that we got to see almost all of The Zutons and Snow Patrol. Who both rock. Seriously good music: and you realise why people go to live gigs (we haven't, for ages, and only to one or two at that). We must try to make more of an effort. And Jo thought it was fantastic, too. To be fair, she was off the walls, in that hyper-alert state that was the only option apart from sleep. But she kept it together, and that allowed us to have a lovely day. It was our present to each other for our wedding anniversary, so that was most pleasing.