A Jolly Good Time with Joules

I spent part of last week at Blenheim Palace. Tis rather large and rather wondrous.




The library was busy being set up for a wedding reception when we went around. Oh my word. Can you even imagine how much that must cost? I shudder to think.




Guys, it's a cake palace. It's made of CAKE. Who wants to help me eat it?

In short: the palace was most excellent. We weren't there just to look around impressive buildings though. During that week in September a whole other little city sets up camp in the grounds. A horsey city! We were volunteering at Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials which has got to have one of the loveliest sporting backdrops possible.



Aside from the three phases of the main competition (dressage, cross-country and showjumping) there are tons of tradestands, a food hall, an attractions arena with loads of brill demos and displays, doggie agility, a funfair and all sorts of fun and games to take part in. My shopping mostly consisted of horsey related things and I can't in all honesty expect you to get excited about the martingale I bought (the blingy green browband perhaps - it's like Crown and Glory but for ponies!).

Gin and tonic sorbet though...



Also, Joules. We all love it, don't we?



Hello there, tempting tradestand. It's Joules' Jubilee this year, marking 25 years of deliciously colourful country clothing. As far as I'm concerned, they're are a match made in heaven for horse trials shopping. While I daren't even look at tradestands like Dubarry (eye-wateringly expensive), I know that there will always be tons of things to take my fancy on the Joules stand. I utterly lost my heart to their amazing new fox jumper.



Knowing that I was off for a weekend of horses and gallivanting around in tents and fields, they had very kindly asked me if I'd like to try out anything from the Equestrian Collection. I couldn't resist the mega comfy Hartland gilet and super stripy Cowdray sweatshirt (mine is the salt wash colourway but it doesn't seem to be available online any more).

I'm delighted with them both. There's the additional side benefit of the tongue twisting amusement of trying to say Joules gilet but even without that it'd be pretty much perfect in my book. I don't like my gilets too shiny or too padded (don't need to look any bulkier than I am!) and this one is soft, cosy and absolutely ideal for those autumnal days when the weather can't quite decide how warm it wants to be.

The sweatshirt is equally perfect for an evening sitting outside the tent reading and then cooking dinner.



Also loving the turn back cuffs. Ideal for those of us with short arms!



So what was for dinner? Corned beef mash, campsite style. I adore that little gas stove.



We had a smashing time. I can't think of many better ways to spend four days than camping somewhere beautiful and enjoying the very best in country shopping and sporting entertainment. Just to end up with a little bit of horsiness, here's my favourite picture from the weekend:



*[]*

Brilliant Blenheim

As someone who works with over 350 volunteers, I know full well that people who volunteer have a whole range of motivations for doing it. So what on earth makes me take a precious holiday day off work, give up a whole weekend and drive a round trip of 350 miles to spend three days living in a tent and getting absolutely soaked?

Well, we got asked to volunteer at Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials. Can't say no to an offer like that, can you? It's the third biggest event in the UK and only Badminton and Burghley are more important. We started out as British Eventing volunteers last February for flips sake! I honestly never expected to be rubbing shoulders with people who'd worked at the Olympics so soon, if at all. It just goes to show that being dedicated (and also chatty on social media!) gets you noticed. Not exactly a case of who you know, but more a case of making yourself known, if that makes sense?

What makes us want to do it? Well, we truly love the sport and this is an amazing chance to be a part of it (and let's be honest, the chance to exchange a few words with fitties like Oli Townend and Andrew Nicholson when they're walking the course doesn't hurt either!). Fence judging usually means a long day but it's always a lively one. We had an enormous amount of fun at Blenheim and as the teams were a little bigger than at one day events, it meant there was plenty of opportunity to mix with other volunteers. We spent most of Sunday having a fab time and roaring with laughter with the three other fence judges at our fence.

Most events look after their volunteers really well but the team at Blenheim were exceptionally good to us. We got free entry and camping passes for all four days, programme vouchers, a cross-country course walk with the course designer, all sorts of brilliant special offers from their clothing partners, a fab goody bag (honestly, the way to my heart lies through pens and post it notes), as much coffee and cake as we could manage without bursting, branded clothing for the weekend and a lovely hog roast on the Saturday night. Who wouldn't want to volunteer?! It was worth every second of that extremely tedious drive down the M6 and M40 to get there.

Let me shower you with photos:

Our fence on the Saturday. Choo choo!

Our fence on the Sunday. A water jump!

Horses, horses everywhere. I was too busy fence judging to take cross-country photos so these were snapped on the Friday whilst we were wandering around.

Shopping happened. Behold my lovely new hat. A) it fits (this is rare when it comes to my enormous head), B) it suits me (also rare) and C) it's waterproof. As it rained pretty much all weekend, this was kinda important.

I did also wear the trusty badger hat though. It was cold as well as rainy. Stupid autumn weather.

The Mothership modelling her official rugby shirt and fab new boots.

Brekkie in the Odd Socks tent, accompanied by about 7 pairs of soggy walking shoes. Did I mention it was a wet weekend?

Well, one has to keep up one's standards, even when camping.

Picnics, Tents & Horses

Catton Hall (in the top photo) is rather beautiful, isn't it? We were volunteering at the British Eventing competition there this weekend and the owners, being the super nice people that they are, let us camp in the grounds. Such a treat!



I fecking love camping. The tent held up exceedingly well to Friday night's heavy rain and Saturday night's wind and we were v. cosy inside.


Horsey bag by Cath Kidston, Bambi washbag by H&M, camp blanket by me.







Saturday saw us in a woodland clearing at the top of a massive hill. Alas, there was no real opportunity to take photos as I was too busy doing the normal fence judgey things as well as operating a video camera thingy for someone else. Still have no idea how it worked but I had to hit the big pink square on the iPhone when a horse was coming and it spoke to the video camera and did the rest itself. Very clever!


This is my fence judging face.

I am shit hot with a radio, whistle, stopwatch, clipboard and red flag. Read this post if you want to know more about why you need all those things for a day of fence judging but carry on with this one for epic picnic photos. And grey horses.

Our Sunday fence was also in the woods (a different part - Catton is very woody), where the midges promptly attacked me. I now have a HUGE insect bite on my arm which is all red and revolting. Wish I wasn't so attractive to the stupid things.  Other than that, it was lovely! Hurrah for being able to sit and watch fantastic sport all day, especially whilst eating a giant picnic. I'm all about the picnics.


We did have proper food too. It didn't consist entirely of gluten and dairy free millionaire's shortbread and sweets. Honest.


Look, I made g/f d/f scones too!


And we had mini wine. Mainly cos the bottle made me go "HAHAHA" in the middle of Morrisons but it does taste quite nice.

As we weren't needed for the final couple of classes on the Sunday, we ambled down to the water jump on our way home and I took a few splashy photos.  I'm still saving up for a better lens for sports photography but I'm pleased with how this one turned out.



One day we'll get to fence judge a water jump. The wellies remain in the car on the off chance...

Echo Falls and Bestival

I spent last weekend at Bestival, courtesy of Echo Falls and their Take A Moment campaign.  I had never been to a festival before so I was a tad apprehensive about how I'd find it but people were v. helpful about suggesting festival essentials in advance.  I packed my enormous rucksack with tons of stuff including lots of baby wipes, bin bags and sun cream and set off to the Isle of Wight last Friday.  I needn't have spent so much time worrying about it beforehand: it was wonderful.

Big, isn't it?!

We camped in fine style.  Charlie, Phil and Simon had done all the hard work for us and set the tents up, complete with airbeds and sleeping bags, plus a fab gazebo area in the middle where we loafed around and ate cake for breakfast.  The weekend was ours to explore and enjoy and I think we all did a pretty good job of it!

We accessorised our tent slightly with some vintage bunting that Lucy made me and some solar powered ladybird lights, plus a lot of mess (mostly mine).

It turns out that the battery on an iphone lasts a surprisingly long time when you turn off the wifi, 3G and data roaming.  Who knew?  Not me: I don't think I've ever done it before.  I usually have to charge mine twice a day I use it that much.  Handily we had a spot at the back of the Echo Falls Social Boutique tent to charge our phones and use their free wifi for the odd Twitter and Instagram update. It was so much fun in there - amazing face painting/ eyelashes/feather hair extensions were on offer, plus a photobooth!

Ed and Ellie looking amazing in their bird costumes and makeup.

Why I do suit moustaches?  It's really odd!

I'm a bit sad that we didn't get a massive group shot but there's no way everyone would have fitted in.  We just about managed to squeeze half of us (me, Kelly and her partner, Sarah, Steph and her friend, Gem and Char) into this one.

The thing I liked so much about Bestival is that there was so much to see, do and explore.  We saw lots of live music - I particularly enjoyed Gabrielle Aplin and Friendly Fires, massively different as they are - but it was far from just being a music festival.  Take a path through the woods and this was your view:

Even the things in plain sight were unexpected. We walked past a normal looking marquee and then five minutes later were sitting down enjoying afternoon tea with proper old-fashioned waitress service whilst we were entertained by a burlesque show! 

I'm not showing you semi-naked lady photos so cast your gaze upon this cake instead.  Dairy free - hurrah! - and utterly divine.

I'll share my costume with you later in the week but here's a sneak peek of it and a few other Wildlife themed photos:

Sarah and Gem looking amazing in their animal inspired accessories.

This made me laugh so much: an actual zebra crossing.  Those boys were putting the effort in! 

The whole weekend was tremendously good fun from start to finish.  The weather was perfect, the music was brilliant, the food was marvellous and the company was even better.  There really is nothing like spending time with people you really like, even if in some cases you've only just met them.  Isn't blogging brilliant for that sort of thing?

A little bit of Portaloo philosophy

I'm so, so grateful to Echo Falls for inviting me along. It was a fabulous treat to be a part of it and to be allowed to share the moments with some of my favourite blogging pals.  I'm a lucky woman.

The only bad thing about Bestival? (well apart from nearly turning into an icicle during the night?  It was so cold!)  It's a long way from Liverpool.  This was how early we had to get up on Monday morning to catch the first ferry off the Isle of Wight and head home...

Totally worth it though! And given the tragic things that have happened to some Liverpool festival-goers on their journey home, I absolutely cannot complain about being a little short of sleep.