Healing

I managed to have a shower and it wasn't freezing cold!

I was on the afternoon teaching shift today so spent the morning exploring parts of the site I hadn't already seen. In contrast to the glorious urban madness of the South East corner, most of it is a beautiful rolling landscape. From the hills are views over the woods and fields, and the copses have been made into quiet havens with benches, sculptures of wood and willow, and hanging decorations, some of which are illuminated at night.

I took a slight detour past the Pyramid stage on my way back so I could hear a bit of Squeeze for old time's sake.

Two sisters I taught yesterday, aged 6 and 10, came back, both hugely excited about carrying on with the violin. Almost inevitably, with more dexterity, the elder one progressed faster. The younger sister's enthusiasm turned to distress and she curled up in her mum's lap for consolation. I was upset to see her crumble. The parents didn't blame me - they even asked where I taught violin and said it was a shame when I told them I didn't - but I wished I could have worked with the younger one on her own. I put them in touch with Ben, who happens to teach violin near where they live, and I really hope both youngsters carry on.

This evening, a group of us managed to stay together for almost five hours, quite an achievement, with lots of laughter and dancing at a series of radically different bands. For the record:
- Aurora at Park
- Heilung (my blip) at West Holts. A quite extraordinary bit of musical ritualistic theatre, described in Wikipedia as an experimental folk music band with members from Denmark, Norway, and Germany. Their music is based on texts and runic inscriptions from Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Viking Age. Heilung describe their music as "amplified history from early medieval northern Europe".
- Faithless at Glade. Impossible not to dance.
- Skindred at Avalon - much better live than recorded

Once again, at midnight the middle-agesters then went on for their wild night out while I headed back to sleep. But I got distracted on my way by
- Haila (Mompié) y su Orquesta at Glasto Latino, then
- Fulu Miziki at Carhenge again - a good find,
then exploring Terminal 1. Its signage has come from Terminal 1 at Heathrow airport and to get in you have to go through a UK border post and successfully answer a question from the UK citizenship test which, of course, most native Brits can't do. Clever. The stage this evening was being hosted by Notting Hill Carnival playing a lot of reggae.