Another Chill shot

I quite like this one - for me it captures some of the peace of being outside at a festival at night as well as some of the excitement of being inside one of the tents. This is the Coop, although why they didn't just call it the club tent and be done with it I don't know, because that's what it was. This is where the Horsemeat Disco team did their thing after Orbital had rocked the whole festival on Saturday night. HMD are into their good-time, old-school dance music - they played some Michael Jackson and some famous (and some obscure) late-70s disco as well as some more up to date stuff. Most of it worked a treat, although even my Catholic tastes were stretched to the limit by their finale: Down in Africa by Toto. Hmmm. If you ask me there are some guilty pleasures, then there are some tunes that really ought to be allowed to rest in peace. Down in Africa falls into the second category, no doubt about it.

Woodland mystery

Where could this lead I wonder... Well actually I know, but I'm going to let you guess. I found it in the woods within the Sussex Wildlife Trust's grounds near Henfield, where the kids were learning how to wreak bonfire havoc with minimal parental help. I still can't quite believe we paid for this privilege but there you go...

Zombie wickerman

We went to the Big Chill at the weekend. I've been at least five or six times over the years but never to the current venue - Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. It's grown a lot since I last went. There's capacity for 35,000 people these days and it never used to be more than 5,000 or 6,000 as far as I can recall. I worried that this might be a bad thing but it's not. The variety and vibrance of a festival that big is always going to be more interesting and they've been going for such a long time now that the organisation is pretty much perfect. We barely had to queue all weekend, everything happened when it was supposed to, getting in and out was incredibly easy... all the little incidental things that can erode your patience and start making a difference to the amount you enjoy a festival were very well taken care of. The kids had a great time and, thanks to a free pass on Saturday night from my saintly and awe-inspiring wife, so did I. I'm paying for it now a bit but that kind of comes with the territory. At least I haven't got Monday morning in the office to worry about.

This is a picture of the enormous zombie wickerman effigy that was burned on Sunday night, after we'd gone home. There was a zombie theme this year, which we didn't know about and which very nearly derailed the whole thing as it freaked out the kids to the extent that they both wanted to come home pretty much straight away. But hey - that was never going to happen.

Just dessert

This is a turning point dessert. It's a decent sized bowl full of chocolate brownies covered in hot chocolate sauce and rich chocolate ice cream, with a desultory raspberry on top that seems to be laughing in the face of healthy eating. I ate this at lunchtime yesterday. I ate it quickly and without guilt. I knew it was wrong but I ate it anyway. "Today is the first day of the rest of my life", I said to myself (rather pleased with my originality). "If you're not allowed to eat something like this today then when are you?" I didn't take much persuading.

And yet ever since I licked the last little smudge from the least accessible corner of the bowl I've been feeling slightly sick. At first I thought it was just a momentary blip -- my body issuing a well-intentioned warning not to consume desserts like this too often. But then I went for a walk, then a bike ride, then I ate again, then I slept. And still I felt a little sick now, more than 30 hours later. I hope I'm not coming down with some bug. But then I also hope I won't be affected like this every time I decide to push the gastronomic boat out a little. I think that would be even worse.

On my first day of freedom

I am now officially unemployed, which feels very odd. On my first day of freedom I drove the family to Hawkhurst, where we enjoyed a very nice lunch with my parents before heading to Bodiam Castle on a whim. I'd never heard of it before but it's a lovely place -- made all the lovelier by the glorious weather and the absence of screaming hordes. I don't know if we were just lucky or if it's always so peaceful there. If it is I think I've found a new favourite place for picnics, ambling around with old people, and general mooching. This one's been Photoshopped a little -- there were a couple of other figures visible, but I thought it would work much better without them.