Dear Reader, 

‘Where have you been?!’, I hear you ask. I know, I know… it’s been a whole month since my last musings. But my goodness, how busy we’ve been!

You may recall from my last post that we were getting ready for Sunrise Celebrations Festival. We set off from Suffolk to Somerset with such optimism. It was glorious sunshine all the way. Plus we got to drive down the A303 AND it happened to be the Solstice – how much more magical could it have been?!

Betty, Biddy Bam Bam and yours truly were singing ‘The Age of Aquarius’, at the top of our little lungs as we were coasting past Stonehenge. We enjoyed some admiring glances from the New Age Travellers, Hippies and boys in blue. Unfortunately the Druids didn’t seem best pleased by our efforts. (My advice: try to keep a sense of decorum in the presence of Druids, because I don’t think they appreciate perceived silly/bizarre behaviour.)

However, our excitement and anticipation of a sunny and hot festival were washed away within five minutes of arriving on site. It rained and poured and then showered down upon us, non-stop for three days. It was sooooo muddy that the main stage had to be shut down and we had to be towed off site by a farmer in his huge tractor.

Unfortunately our beloved vintage caravan had the back ripped off as a result of being towed through a 3 foot river of mud. However, we were so relieved to get off site we intimately embraced the man who had just destroyed our little home of splendor and rewarded him £5 for the privilege. (He claimed that was the most anyone has given him for towing them off site… Either festival goers are a tightfisted crowd or they spend all their money on organic falafels, chickpea curry and kaftans?!)

The reason we were so intent on getting off site was because we had a posh summer ball to get cleaned up and ready for. This is one of the things Betty & I love about the Pop-Up Photo Parlour. We get to experience such contrasts. So in this case we went from this muddy field at Sunrise Celebration in Somerset:

To this rather magnificent pile, that is Culford School, in Suffolk:

To be honest, slipping around in the mud or lording it at some high brow event is equally as much fun!

Did you hear me – Great British Summer? You can’t get me down with your relentless rain and thunder… Bring it on you bad boy!!!

A Meteorologically Defiant,

Bertie xx

PS Just received this email which was rather nice:

Dear Bertie,

Thank you so much for all you did at the Summer Ball – the feedback has been fantastic.  I knew the pupils would love it but I think the parents are the ones who really had the fun judging by the photos!!

You were without a doubt a highlight of the evening.

Many thanks and hope to see you soon.

Johanna Cooke