Blog: Dinosaur Planet At Green Man

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The Moisture In My Mud and I set off last Thursday for a GRATE ADVENTURE, which would feature Mountains, The Green Man Festival, and quite a lot of pubs. It all began with a night in Abergavenny, which somewhat to my surprise was ACE. We had a LOVELY B&B (Blorenge View, we HEARTILY recommend it) and spent a fab night in local PUBS drinking local a) beer b) WHISKY (Penderyn, it was NICE) also CURRY, and when we got home Christine The Landlady had waited up to check we were OK. Next morning she made us breakfast too, it was GRATE.

On Friday morning we got a taxi to Crickhowell, the village we were going to be staying in for the week. We couldn't get into our cottage until later, so left our suitcases round the corner in an OUTHOUSE belonging to the person we were renting from, then headed off to the festival site. I'd read online that it was only about a 20-30 minute walk to the estate and had heard rumours of a SHORT-CUT via the river, so when we found a sign saying "Footpath To Green Man" we took it with Glee. This would be easy!

IT WAS NOT EASY!! We were carrying the bag of costumes (LARGE), Mr Squish (big green dinosaur), two rucksacks of STUFF (inc. Merchandise) and a guitar across what soon became VERY MUDDY TERRAIN in the POURING rain. It wasn't an awful lot of fun, and it took us nearly an HOUR AND A HALF to SCHLEP round to the Artist's Box Office. Things weren't helped by someone saying "Nearly there!" about 40 minutes in, but they WERE helped by the fact that we'd found time to buy some WELLIES from Leytonstone Homebase the morning before coming. MAN ALIVE but we were grateful for those wellies!

EVENTUALLY myself and The Shelter From My Storm got our wrist bands and made our way to The Solar Stage, where we were VERY happy to discover that the backstage area was a TENT where we could shelter, and I could WRING OUT my t-shirt - not from rain, but from SWEAT. It had been a LONG hard trek!

Mr S Hewitt had camped the night before, and when he arrived things started to improve. I got some BEER, bumped into Mr J-B From Carter, and it was soon SHOWTIME.

I'd been REALLY worried about how this would work, but actually it turned out BLOODY GRATE! We did the new improved (shortened) version of Dinosaur Planet and by jiminy it WORKED. To be honest I had an inkling it might beforehand, when I heard a small boy singing "Theme From" in the TOILETS, and throughout we had a rank of 6-7 similar small children paying VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the story, and occasionally SINGING ALONG. A large adult crowd came along, apparently on PURPOSE, and STAYED (helped by the rain, for the most part, holding off, tho one small child DID get hilariously DRENCHED [NB he thought so too] when the stage covering tipped onto him) and all through I could see people dashing over to see what was going on. It was HUGE fun - even the Van Morrison Guest Star NEW BIT - and we were both VERY HAPPY with it. HOORAH!

Afterwards there was time for Merch Sales (which went so well i SOLD OUT of CDs and even flogged a couple of t-shirts!!) which was especially nice as people were sending their TODDLERS over with fivers to buy stuff, and also some PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES, before going for some more restorative BEER. I had thought about staying to see Dexy's but i was KNACKERED and the weather was HORRID, so we decided to head back to the cottage for the evening.

This turned out to be a GOOD IDEA - I'd been somewhat afeared that we might have to WALK again with all the gear, but as we exited the site I saw a TAXI pulling up dropping someone else off. "Could you possibly take us back to Crickhowell?" I asked, and LO! like an HANSOM ANGEL he said "Of course!"

It was MAGICAL, and soon we were IN out cottage - very nice, if somewhat upside down in layout, and also fully kitted out with A MILLION HAND WRITTEN NOTES from the owner ("Do not put glasses in dishwasher", "Wipe window shelf with cloth", "Firmly pull flush", that sort of thing) where we both WASHED before heading out for Light Shopping and BEER.

It was a marvellous end to an EXHAUSTING yet SUCCESSFUL day. There was more ACTION to come though!

posted 25/8/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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