Lucy and I spent the weekend at Greenbelt – a festival of arts and faith in the grounds of Boughton House, near Kettering.  Spread over the site were a number of venues holding music, talks, exhibitions, workshops and worship.

We arrived on Thursday evening after a long drive – trouble on the M11 – by the time we had set up the tent, we were exhausted, so we didn’t actually do anything.  The car was a twenty minute walk from where we were pitched.

Overnight on Friday there were horrendous winds, which delayed the start of the festival.  But our tent was still standing, and the day was warm and sunny once the wind died down.

We had considered, beforehand, what we might like to attend.  A few of the events were in the venue called “The Hope and Anchor”, but it had been damaged in the wind, so we found some other talks to attend, between which we wandered around getting our bearings.  The composting loos were a revelation – a much more pleasant experience than portaloos!

The main arena was mostly music – we didn’t actually attend any of the sessions, but as we were walking around, we couldn’t avoid hearing it.  In fact, we couldn’t hear one of the talks we DID go to because the arena was so loud…

In the evening, we attended Taizé worship.  I was familiar with some of their chants, but we both felt that a whole service was rather too much.

A nice, quiet way to prepare us for a decaf tea and a quieter night’s sleep.