Ground was dry, weather was smashing on Saturday, beer in the Woolpack was magnificent, lots of jovial morris-persons.

The 8 Bells is sorely missed, but all those trying at the Vine were valiant, and the new (that's another new) landlord was amiable-ish. But the acoustics are not the same, the beer is not the same, the prices are not the same, and the flipping speaker system that annouces whose lunch-table is ready cannot be turned off. No disabled lavatories in a completely rebuilt building is really a no-no in this day and age, too. At one stage I thought that one or two splendid traditional singers were adding a verse each time there was an announcement... The Vine however does look pretty and I gather the food is not bad, for the upwardly mobile amongst you. It hasn't got the frisson that the 8 Bells had, but it may gain as time goes on. I did notice that string players (guitarists, fiddlers, banjo pluckers, guitarists, mandolinists etc) seemed thin (self excepted) on the ground and on Sunday I was the only bodhran player and there was only one spooner.

Alan Castle says I must write 100 lines (now that's a way to finish learning "Famous Flower of Serving Men"...) and they did check everyone in to central camping last year, but someone told them whose van was mine so I never saw the check.   This year the check was very efficient.

I do think that the festival could make a profit out of the central camping with one or two changes....

1. Do not restrict it to season holders and performers - the fields there would take 300 or 400 vans/tents with ease

2 Get a few portaloos in (the nearest public bog closes at night, not convenient if you have no grottibotti with you)

3 Let people know that water can be got at the station

4 Double the price. £8 for the whole weekend, even without water and loos is way too cheap

5 Bring caravans and cars in via the haulage/farm yard - it would only mean moving about 6 feet of electric fence, and campers who stayed up that end would be largely on the flat on higher ground so no getting stuck in the mud, and they'd be nearer the station water, and to the town itself.

This would mean more trade for the pubs too because no-one would need to drive out to the expensive "real" caravan sites that are way out of walking range and not well served by buses (and one of which is unhelpful too).

Just think, 400 vans/tents at £16 per pitch - over £6,000 into the festival's budget, more people coming 'cos no-one is put off by the distance of the campsites, those who come drinking more 'cos no-one has to drive so more profit in the pubs, more customers for the stallholders (why doesn't someone put in a camping sundries stall - or is there too much hassle over gaz cylinders?). Win-win!

Flora (not Gundulf's Flora) - the giantess figure - was estimable too, but the person who decided to put a viewing panel in the skirt so that the operator sould see out might have been able to predict what the morris sense of humour would make of a giant female figure with a hole cut in her skirt at about giantess-pubic-area level...

Shame I only discovered the genuine curry stall much too late. I could have given that a bashing on Saturday... (in stead of the fish-shop that was shut on Friday when I got peckish by 10 pm and was out of rock and out of curry sauce when I was peckish at about 8 on Saturday. I'm not sure the curry rolls agreed with me...