Thursday 4th August 2022

Thursday 4th August 2022

We planned a walk for today - it’s exciting being back in the Brecon Beacons area surrounded by beautiful countryside and hills! We caught the bus to Abergavenny this morning, arriving there for 9.15am. We got some advice from the tourist information office about the best way to walk to Sugar Loaf. 

It was a lovely walk! It took us about an hour and a half to walk up to the top, with lovely views all around, as well as Abergavenny down in the valley. Someone walking up said it was their 163rd time walking up! We could see Pen Y Fan in the distance, and the sea. It was quite exposed at the top - very windy, so we had our picnic on the way down in the shade. 

We finished the walk in time to get a bit of shopping, and in time to get the earlier bus too so we could catch up on a few things back at the campsite. We plan to walk to Skirrid tomorrow, which we could see from the top of Sugar Loaf. 

Monday 1st - Wednesday 3rd August 2022

Monday 1st August 2022

Up early this morning for our last shift for Oxfam. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning about where to meet the supervisor, but it was soon sorted out. Our main role was to ensure that everyone was alright, to give directions if needed, and that the fire lanes remained clear. The campsite was for Park and Camp and for Live In Vehicles, meaning that everyone was leaving by vehicle only, which made it easier to know where to direct people. It got quite hot due to being very sunny and we were walking up and down, so did a lot of steps! However, our role changed about half way through when traffic began to build up with everyone trying to leave at the same time and also due to a broken down lorry on the main road, so we were instead just dealing with the traffic control between fields where vehicles were queueing. By 2pm, nearly everyone had left. We finished at 3pm, and signed out handing our tabards back.  We left the festival at 3.30pm, and it didn’t take long to reach Cirencester. We were exhausted this evening!!! We have done so much walking over the past week, averaging 9.6 miles each day, so looking forward to a rest and to getting sorted with everything in the van. But it’s been a brilliant experience!!! 

The field at the start of our shift, around 7am

About 1pm, after the big rush to leave the site!

Relaxing at the campsite!

Tuesday 2nd August 2022

Our day was mostly spent doing all the washing from WOMAD, and other chores that we were too tired to do yesterday! We walked to Cirencester this afternoon to have a look around the town, and get some food shopping. It was a really nice walk to town from the campsite, through a park. We move on to a campsite near Abergavenny tomorrow, in Pandy. Looking forward to some long walks around the area, we loved the Brecon Beacons so glad to be returning! Still feeling very tired from the festival at the moment though!

Wednesday 3rd August 2022

Yesterday, we had seen that there was a Roman Amphitheatre in Cirencester that was a short walk from the campsite, but ran out of time (and energy!) to go. So we decided to head there this morning before leaving.

The distance was further than we expected to the next campsite, but we timed it well and got there just before check in time at 1pm. The last campsite had 211 pitches, so this is quite a bit smaller with a total of 50 pitches, although it still feels quite busy. 

After some lunch, we decided to go for a walk up Hatterrall Hill. There were some really nice houses in a great location - how lucky to live there! But unfortunately we never made it to the top - we found a lost dog so spent some time finding the owner. Never mind, we had a good view of the valley anyway and it saved us from walking too much today! Hopefully tomorrow we will be going to walk up Sugar Loaf from Abergavenny. So many walks to choose from around here! 

Sunday 31st July 2022

Sunday 31st July 2022

We still felt quite tired from the night shift but had lots of things on today to look forward to at the festival! The morning was spent having a wander round the arena and Arboretum. 

At 12pm, there was a Poetry Slam scheduled! I’ve never been to one before, as we were on shift during the one at Glastonbury but have always wondered how it works, so finally got the chance to see it today! 

It is an interesting event - 12 participants are split into two heats of 6 each, performing an original poem of no more than 3 minutes. There are 5 judges, mostly volunteers from the audience and a crew member from the Hip Yak Poetry Shack. All of which should hopefully have no connection to any of the poets and therefore no bias. The top two highest scoring poets go through to the final from each heat, followed by one runner up overall from the rest of the participants. If they had gone over the 3 minute (and 10 seconds to be nice) time, a point was taken off their final score. For the final round, the poets had to perform another original poem of no more than two minutes in length, with all of the same rules applying. 

The Poetry Slam was such a great event to watch! All of the poets performed interesting poems in completely different styles and themes. The winner won a free ticket to next year’s festival and a 10 minute performance on the Poetry stage, so stakes were high! It was nice to see a range of ages taking part as well, with the youngest being 17. In the middle of the competition, another poet performed whilst the hosts were working out who went through to the final. Her name was Bambi, and she was amazing - made mum and I cry. A very very talented poet, especially as we found out when talking to her afterwards that it was all just written in her head and not on paper. The whole Poetry Slam took two hours in total, but so worth it to stay and watch! 

Bambi

Another stage at WOMAD is the Taste The World Stage. Here, musicians and other performers from the festival are interviewed once cooking some food that the audience can try afterwards. We only saw the last 15 minutes of Tantz on stage, but hope to see more if we come to WOMAD again, as it is a great concept. 

Taste The World Stage a few days before - it is a really nice set up

Taste The World Stage 

After getting some food, we watched a bit of music on the main stages and also saw the Children’s Parade go past, a very colourful procession with things they have made or dances they have learnt throughout the festival. Once this finished, we decided to see if the Womens Euro final was still on. We managed to watch the last five minutes so it was a really nice to see everyone celebrating when England won!

The Children’s Procession

The last five minutes of the final

Celebrations from the crowd

To finish off the festival, we got some more food and churros! Lianne La Havas was performing this evening, and she was really good, again she had been at Glastonbury on Sunday, when we were working, so I had missed her there.

We have loved our time at WOMAD - great to listen to different music and so much other entertainment to enjoy too. I hope to come back. Our last shift starts at 6.45am tomorrow, patrolling Meadow campsite. Hopefully all goes well, everyone will be packing up and leaving the festival. We will be driving to Cirencester campsite, which is quite close to Malmesbury, once we have finished our shift at 3pm. 

Saturday 30th July 2022

Saturday 30th July 2022

As some of the workshops started from 9.30am onwards, we headed to the Arboretum earlier this morning. In the Physics Pavilion there was a Make Your Own Solar Charger workshop which I thought might be good to do, but despite getting there 35 minutes before it began, all the spaces had been filled!

Big queue!

Instead, we went to the World of Words tent, where a talk was scheduled at 10am with Emma Slade, a financial analyst who, after being held hostage at gunpoint on a business trip, decided to go into yoga and eventually becoming the first Western woman to become a fully ordained Buddhist nun in Bhutan. It was a very interesting talk!

Mum got a little bit emotional when meeting her!

We wandered around the area to see what else was going on, passing Laughter Yoga (which was actually really funny to see everyone laughing so much!). The next talk at 12 was about 40 years of WOMAD, with some of the founders and directors of WOMAD from various years, including Peter Gabriel, Steve Haddrell, and Chris Smith. It was fascinating to hear some of the stories from the first few years of the festival, where it didn’t always go smoothly! 

Once this talk had finished, we got some food and watched some of the poetry focused on climate change. I went along to watch some of a film titled ‘Hostile’, about the UK and its migrant communities, although missed the first half of the film so will try to watch it somehow. 

By 7pm, we were beginning to get ready for our night shift, which started at 7.45pm. We were based around the Open Air Stage and the Siam stage, and had to watch out for any issues and rotate between the stages at the same time as a performance was on. We were lucky to be in this location, as it meant we could listen to the music whilst we were working. However, I found this shift rather stressful, as one of the jobs was to tell people to stop standing on the flag poles and bins due to an injury at a previous festival. Not a fun job when The Flaming Lips were playing and it was a great view for children! But most of the time, everyone was very understanding and did not mind, which was a relief!  

The Flaming Lips

The night shift got quieter after about midnight, but still some amazing performances on in the Siam stage including dancers and a popular band. We were pleased to sit down during our half an hour break. We had to take some belongings to lost property so it was nice to see another area of the arena and where the busy areas were around 2am! 

Our shift finished in a slightly unusual way - a problem with the water supply supplying the taps in one area of the main arena meant that water was leaking everywhere! Mum got soaked trying to stop the water from gushing out. After we had spent some time trying to figure out how to fix it with another volunteer, who had also radioed for assistance, an engineer turned up, bent the pipe, put a cable tie on it and it was temporarily fixed! Wish we had known to do that!! However, on the plus side, as Mum’s clothes were soaking, we got to finish our shift slightly early.

Feeling very tired, we slept well and were looking forward to a full day ahead of enjoying the festival, as no shifts until Monday at 6.45am. 

Friday 29th July 2022

Friday 29th July 2022

Our shift started at 9.45 this morning, finishing at 6pm. We left the campsite about 9am in order to have enough time to walk to our position in the Secret Woods. Located here, there is a large moon installation, made by artist Luke Jerram, which is travelling around the country after WOMAD. It is an incredible piece of artwork! Our main roles in this area are to ‘guard the moon’ ( making sure no one damages the moon structure by throwing anything), ensuring everyone is alright and giving directions. I was based here for about half an hour before being moved to a position on a campsite entrance! 

The new role was quite straight forward, again mainly giving directions and checking that vehicles using the gate had the right accreditation. It was getting really hot, but luckily I was facing away from the sun. I was here for a few hours, before having a half an hour lunch break. Mum had been put on Campsite Patrol for a while, as well as being based in the Secret Woods for slightly longer than I was. 

At 3pm, I was moved back to the Moon for the last three hours of our shift, where Mum was based. The last hour was really interesting, as the artist was giving a talk and a Q&A all about the installation, so the area got quite busy which was nice to see, especially seeing people’s expressions and interest as they saw the Moon for the first time - it is really impressive! What was really nice about working here is the chats you had with the public- asking them if they are having a good time, and how many times they have been to WOMAD before etc. The work was enjoyable, but by the end of our shift, we were beginning to feel tired. 

Tired but happy at the end of our first shift

Once we had signed out at the end of our shift, we headed to the main arena to get some food! Kae Tempest was performing at 8.15pm in the Siam Tent, and so we headed to see them. It was very busy! 

Angelique Kidjo was on the main stage headlining, with a performance of the ‘Remain In Light’ album. We stayed for most of this, before deciding to walk to see the Moon, as we had not seen it lit up at night. It looked amazing! An interesting day again, and we have most of tomorrow to enjoy too as our shift does not start until 7.45pm. 

Thursday 28th July 2022

Thursday 28th July 2022

We were able to relax today and enjoy looking around the festival, as our first shift isn’t until tomorrow. As ticket holders could decide to arrive either today or tomorrow, this morning there wasn’t really anything on, and a lot of the site was still being constructed. Some of the vendors have opened so we were able to get coffee and cake, and sat chatting to two other Oxfam volunteers for a little while.

I am really glad we did not have a shift today, as it gave us longer to get to know the site. It is a great venue - there is an Arboretum where the ‘World of Wellbeing’ is situated, including the World of Words and The Hip Yak Poetry Shack is located, as well as the Physics tent, the Taste the World stage and a lot more! In the main arena, there is the Open Air Stage, the Siam Stage, d&b Soundscape, Charlie Gillett Stage, most of the food stalls and the artisan market. We managed to find the Moon in the Woods where our first shift will be - it is very impressive !!! 

The Open Air Stage

As part of volunteering for Oxfam, we are given three meal vouchers, one for each shift. Sometimes there is a catering tent in the Oxfield campsite where the vouchers are solely used, but for this festival, we were given vouchers to spend at any food vendor. My first voucher was spent on paella, it was delicious! 

The music started this evening. On the Open Air Stage was a school project where local school children were performing on the main stage. They had a big audience with everyone cheering them on which was really nice to see. The Selector played at 8pm in the d&b Soundscape, with a big crowd watching! The headliner for this evening was Fatoumata Diawara on the Open Air Stage. 

It has been great looking around today. I’m feeling a bit nervous about our first shift, but glad we found where we need to go. The only disadvantage of the Oxfield (many advantages including nicer toilets and a lot more showers) is that we are camped right by quite a busy road, with traffic travelling through the night, so it is quite loud at night. But we have some really nice neighbours which is good! Luckily a later start tomorrow, so we don’t need to get up too early. 

Wednesday 27th July 2022

Wednesday 27th July 2022

We left our campsite in Stroud around 9.15am, making our way to WOMAD in Malmesbury, where we will be working as stewards for Oxfam again. Neither of us have been to WOMAD before, so it will be really interesting to experience a new festival! The roles as a steward will be quite different to the roles at Glastonbury too, as at Glastonbury, the shifts were mainly spent on Pedestrian and Vehicle Gates. At WOMAD, the roles vary from wristbanding to different positions around the campsite and also in the festival arena itself. 

As we are working for Oxfam, we are able to arrive the day before all the ticket holders, so there were no traffic hold ups on the way. We arrived around 10.15am and parked up in the Oxfield (Oxfam’s campsite). Registration wasn’t opening until midday, so we had lunch first. As there was a delay with the registration set up, a new notice said we could register from 2pm, so we decided to head to the town of Malmesbury. It was a really nice town, with some nice shops and an abbey. 

When we got back, we queued to register and chatted to someone who has been volunteering for nearly 30 years at festivals with Oxfam! We received our shifts: 

Friday 9.45-18.00 - The Moon In The Woods

Saturday 19.45-04.00 - Siam Stage/ Open Air Stage

Monday 06.45-15.00 Meadow Patrol

These sound good - we get quite a lot of time at the festival to explore, and can experience quite a few different roles. We aren’t really sure what our roles will involve yet though! And no one seems to know what the Moon In The Woods is! 

In the afternoon, we explored some of the festival to understand where everything is, before cooking dinner.

As the site is technically still a building site, we had to wear our tabards on inside out to make ourselves more visible when walking around

The briefing was at 7pm, explaining the role of stewards in general, as well as a few speeches by the directors of the festival. After the briefing, the rest of the evening was spent having a group picnic. This was really nice, as it didn’t seem to matter about age - everyone just chatted to everyone else so it was nice to get to know more of the ‘Oxfamily’!