Glorious Mud!

I've just come back from Greenbelt Festival. Every garment I've worn is splattered with mud, and you should see my wellies. (It is possible to do that now that I've chipped the last layer off them.) It was the wettest Greenbelt in at least fifteen years, we had thunderstorms and pouring rain, and if you want to look at the Greenbelt site you may find some pictures. Was it worth it?

Greenbelt is a festival about Christian faith, justice, music, arts and ecology. Since Friday I've been to some thoroughly stimulating and brilliant talks, especially by Prof Sir Diarmaid McCulloch (who was one of Tony's tutors at college, and has written the most thorough, enlightening and readable History of Christianity.) Diarmaid's talk was one of the highlights of my Greenbelt this year. So was a silversmithing workshop (I'm wearing the ring I made!) Tony singing in the choir, the Proclaimers on mainstage, the Taize service, a brilliantly funny, witty and thoughtful play called the God Particle, and meeting up with the godfamily. We danced, we sang, we prayed, we listened, we learned, we laughed, we were challenged. My wellies started letting in water.

The Golden Child was making new friends and having a wonderful time. Other small godchildren danced around the mud and fell in, and didn't mind a bit. By the time their big sister and I had sluiced them down and changed their clothes we had to unblock the sink.

Just when I thought all was drawing to an end I disovered that one of my author friends, the brilliant Meg Harper, was there, and we drank coffee and talked for over an hour while Bellowhead played the closing set and people danced in the lake that had formed in front of Mainstage.

Was it worth it?

Here's to Greenbelt 2013