Friday July 1st 2022
Third festival of the summer and it’s back down south to Church End near Little Hadham in Hertfordshire for the ‘Sign of the Times’ festival.
10:00 start but we couldn’t find the gold bus.
It had been booked out to somebody else so we had to settle for silver.
Half an hour into the journey and we chose our first film…
but no one could get the video to work.
Carl produced various leads from his bag…
but nothing seemed to work.
Even our manager Peasy tried to phone for assistance from our other vehicle…
but to no avail.
We had to accept that there would be no films on today and we would have to entertain ourselves by making conversation!
There were lots of hold ups on the motorway and we weren’t making very good progress. On top of that Keith had too many cups of tea that morning and needed the toilet!
We stopped at services for 10 minutes but by the time we got out, the van had moved to get petrol. At this point we’d all separated…
eventually everyone showed up by the van but Keith had gone missing!
John King put out an APB and eventually Keith showed up.
He’d been in a sandwich queue and the lady in front of him couldn’t work out how to use the barcode machine on checkout!
At last at 1:30 we arrived in Thornby where we had chosen our lunch venue, The Red Lion.
Just 5 minutes drive from Naseby, the scene of the great battle of 1645 where Cromwell destroyed the Royalist army under Charles I.
Lovely pub with good recommendations for food and drink.
We ordered 5 pints of Purity Gold
Keen followers will remember that we had Purity Gold in the Royal Oak in Crick coming back from Knebworth in August 2019.
They directed us to a room upstairs…
The beer tasted great!
So did the food!
We left as satisfied customers
We set off again, the journey to the festival would take us another hour and forty five minutes!
Before too long we realised that we would be on stage in less than an hour!
Time for Alex to start her make-up!
Eventually we arrived at the festival
We were on after Jo Boxers, we’d supported them in Liverpool in the eighties but relations were soured after Dig Wayne’s leather hat mysteriously went missing.
We were in a rush to prepare for the gig so went straight to the dressing room where we bumped into Richard Jobson from the legendary Skids!
We then found a fridge full of Kronenbourg
Strisselspalt is also named the caviar of hops by the expert master brewers around the world for its low bitterness and aromatic qualities. Its specific soil and culture technique requirements makes it rare and quite unique to the Alsace Region and Kronenbourg recipes.
Alas the vodka was slow to arrive so we had to revert to plan b!
At last, time for us to go on stage!
The crowd were brilliant!
The gig was fantastic!
Alex’s mum had come to see us and we met her back stage.
Meanwhile Peasy met our mate Alan McGee who was DJ ing the event and Richard Jobson again.
We found a craft bar out front and bumped into our mate Guy Gillo
The bar had Beavertown Neck Oil which went down a treat!
Alex’s mum Liz and auntie Emma joined us.
We had a fantastic day but after checking our phone messages we decided it was best to leave.
What a great day out!
sipadvisor 
Carl it was a great gig and brilliant festival. We tried to find you being fellow Crosbyites and An Ormyite all but must have gone to the wrong bar … think we went in the one next door in fact … glad you lot had fun too!
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