Trying to find the words to tell you about our time at Camp Bestival 2014 is rather like trying to eat a watermelon in one mouthful. Camp Bestival was bright, loud, spiky, in your face, a sensory explosion. It was also calm, tranquil, fluffy, relaxed, time out from modern life. It was all of these things and more. Beautiful, enlightening and silly, we had the most wonderful of times. Family time where the adults got to act like kids and the kids got to holiday in a place where the world was as as wonderful a place as any child could imagine.
There was so much to do. From the science tent, where the boys painted fossils, to the Dingly Dell, run by Project Wild Thing and The National Trust, where the children made clay creatures and hid them in the undergrowth. We rode the carrousel several times, and watched crazy juggling by the Gandini Jugglers who created a special piece just for Camp Bestival, remixed by Rob da Bank. I danced to James with Robo Boy on my back. Wonder Girl sang the Hokey Cokey with Mr Tumble. I had a truly special time cuddling up on a blanket with Robo Boy listening to reggae music late at night (for a five year old) whilst a campfire flickered in the background.
Super Kid and Robo Boy spent hours practising diablo, a trend of Camp Bestival. It proved to be a really sociable toy, every time they started to play they ended up with diablo buddies, sharing tricks and encouraging each other. Wonder Girl spent the whole festival in fancy dress. Donning a fairy dress, or tutu, and dinosaur tail (from TellTails check out their brilliant tails on my kids in the video) she became our little dinosaur princess for the weekend.
One of the things I really loved about Camp Bestival was seeing such a large cross section of society letting loose and enjoying the festival vibe. To be honest I had expected middle class families, dressed in Boden, this wasn’t the case. What I found was people from all walks of life dancing and smiling together in the sunshine. It was wonderful.
As we are Camp Bestival newbies we ended up camping not far from the car parks, a little further from the festival than I’d prefer to be. Next year we’ll definitely make the effort to carry our stuff a little further and find a pitch nearer. It was fine though as we dealt with this by loading up our Brandon Wagon for the day and staying out at the festival all day, so we only walked once a day each way.
I was spoiled for choice with food. We enjoyed macaroni cheese, pizza, fish and chips, Nando’s, Pie Minster, pancakes and as a special treat a cinnamon bun from The Cake Shop Bakery in The Feast Collective. We spotted but didn’t try the large corn on the cobs, churros with chocolate dip, or coconut milk straight from the coconut, but they certainly looked very tempting and I’ll be looking out for them next year.
I’ve made a video montage of the Purple family at Camp Bestival 2014, hope you enjoy it. If you’re inspired to consider going next year there will be early bird tickets available at a discounted rate from the end of this week. Keep an eye on my social media channels and I’ll keep you posted about that.
*Disclosure: We are Camp Bestival 2014 ambassadors, and received tickets in exchange for my blog posts.
I knew you would love it!! Group camp next year yes?!! 😉 Love the pic vid 🙂
Yes yes yes! Group camp would be aces. Thanks.
Brilliant write up hon.. belated happy birthday..hope you enjoy the soya candle x
Thanks, and thanks for the lovely gift.
Great writeup! Love the montage video. You certainly need to try the corn and churros next year!
I definitely do!
love your video (and your bell tent!). what a fabulous time had by all xx
Thanks, I love my bell tent!
Reading everyone elses posts makes me realise how much we missed! We were there the whole 4 days and still didn’t fit in everything we wanted to.
Love your video 🙂
I think it’s impossible to do everything you want to, still there’s always next year!
Lovely post Ella, Great photos. So much fun wasn’t it. Lovely to see you again and meet your gorgeous family xxx
It was aces.
Sounds like you had as much fun as we did – roll on next years festival!!
Absolutely!
Fab post Ella – and so cool that your birthday was on the Sunday too! Those corn on the cbos were perfect hangover food – just incase you need it!
Roll on 2015!
Weirdly, despite several visits to the jam jar bar I awoke the morning after with no hangover, which was awesome.
So so pleased you loved it so much. Will you love it as much if the theme isn’t personally tailored to you?
I have a feeling that next years theme may be Purple?