Newcastle Green Festival

This weekend was the Green Festival in Newcastle. I had planed going along yesterday, but I made the mistake of accepting a lift. However to explain what happened I need to give you some background. Back when I lived near the coast, I became acquainted with a woman who visited the pub that I regularly drank in. While a friendship was formed, her life was far to complicated for me to become involved with her, even though it was something that appeared to be occurring. Further, as she had a young daughter, I was cautious while this woman had split up from her partner, I could see that it could be potentially damaging for the child if I had allowed anything more than a friendship develop. As it turned out by the time I moved away it looked as though I had been right to be cautious as the woman's partner was back in her life.

While I kept in touch with them as a family, by letter and later email, I had not seen them for ages. Therefore I was rather surprised when he contacted me and asked if I was going to the Green Festival. Especially as he was rather anti environment, but the woman and her daughter had been excited by the environment especially after I took them to see a Bottle Nose Dolphin that started to come into the mouth of the River Tyne.

When I first heard one had been spotted I had done some reading to try and understand the behaviour and realised it was likely to be the turning of the tide that drew the mammal in following the fish. Thus, we actually had better viewing successes than almost everyone else who were looking at random times.

Therefore I agreed to accepting a lift to the festival, ignorant of the fact that I was entering a war zone.

He turned up a little late, but there was still plenty of time to get there. But, to make matters even more complicated he wanted to drive down to Peterlee to collect his new girlfriend. At that point I should have refused the lift and made my own way there. But the mother and daughter persuaded me that I should stay.

Well, when we got to the new girlfriends home and I saw her, even I was shocked as the new girlfriend looked to be only a little older than the daughter. I was begging to realise why they wanted me there. Both the mother gave me a look that spoke volumes. I was not sure if the journey into Newcastle was going to be full of pained silence but the daughter started talking to me of her plans to go to university to study ecology, and this conversation kept the mood much lighter than I expected.

However, that was only the start of the drama. As he approached the motorway the engine died. He had run out of Petrol. To make matters worse, he not only did not have a petrol can but no money. It is best described as let battle begin. Fortunately I did have cash and my Bank card so I went off with the mother and daughter to find a petrol station. We found one, but they had no petrol cans. So it was a long walk to find a shop that sold a petrol can... Well you can fill in the blanks. Some two hours later we were back and filling the tank. But that was not the end of it as he was in a huff he slammed the door shut, with the keys in the ignition... It took another three hour wait for a friend to come down with another set of keys to get us in again. I would have just gone home but my cameras were locked in the car.

Therefore I missed the whole of yesterdays festival. However, for me it showed that I was right not to get involved in anything more than a friendship here. While it had its annoying aspects, it was rather amusing in some ways too. By the time we were able to head back home the daughter and I had instigated a phrase of; “Parents” and we were falling about laughing with just a look and mouthing of the word.

Today I saw the daughter at the festival, free of her parents, where she told me that her Dads new GF had dumped him. He had lied about his age, the daughter had pointed out that her dad would have been eleven when she was born had that been his age. It was great to see that she has become such a mature and sensible young adult, especially as her parents are so childish. Something she acknowledges herself.

We also talked about relationships, and she doesn't want one at the moment as to many of the lads she knows are far to immature (she also said like her father). I explained that I too would prefer to stay single than get involved with the wrong person.

Then as we walking round the park we noticed something that was so funny. One young woman was sunbathing. She had removed her top and this she was using to ensure that no one could look up her very short skirt. But what made it funny was that she was sunbathing topless.

The festival its self was its usual mixture of crafts, ethnic clothing, complementarity healing, and all the usual political organisations. One thing that I was glad to see since I last attended was that it was in danger of becoming overwhelmed by music. And club music at that, witch was pumping out at high volume. Now the festival doesn't allow generators to be used at the festival thus excluding the people that are just there to take over the event and don't care about the ethics of the event.

All this means that the exhibitors that needed power were using solar power predominantly but there was one wind turbine there too. Had I had the spare cash I would have bought a solar battery charger for my camera batteries, but I didn't have the money as I paid for all the petrol yesterday. But at least I know where I can get one in the future.

There were some useful contacts that I made there, and I learned some new things and you will get to read more later, but for now I want to do some more research to match the efforts that some of the organisations put into their displays and the information they provided.

Well, I need to go and feed myself now, as the with the cat feed and me now newly bathed, I am starving. And that reminds me, one of the other things that I may be doing is joining an Organic Box Service again. I have tried them in the past but often the quality was not good enough. But if the standard of the produce can match what was on display at the festival then I may have found a good one.