Finding festivals on the doorstep

Writing on the subject of festivals from a Ringmer perspective is a bit of a challenge. Well, I really don't want to embarrass any of you Lewesians with the wealth of riches we have next door. The Lewes Live music festival? I reckon that’s almost entirely our side of the parish boundary. Glyndebourne Festival? Definitely closer to Ringmer than it is to Lewes. Love Supreme? Yup, same again. And that's before I start talking about Ringmer's scarecrow festival, the football festival, the dance festival and the earwig festival. (Okay, I made that last one up but I’m hoping for a sizeable percentage of t-shirt sales if it ever happens.)

Curiously, we also manage to promote our events without reverting to what's become a ubiquitous means of communication across Lewes. Whilst we Ringmerites stay in touch by phone, Royal Mail, newsletter, text message, Whatsapp, Snapchat and semaphore, it seems the only way to get your message across in Lewes is by printing it on a piece of A4 paper, laminating it and fixing it to a lamppost with cable ties or plastic ribbon. These notices are often seen hanging in place long after the relevant event has passed, with nothing but acid rain and casual vandalism to help them degrade. In the aftermath of the forthcoming robot apocalypse, when automated microscopic vacuum cleaners have tidied away the last remnants of humanity and the only remaining lifeform on the planet is a cockroach crossed with a Jack Russell terrier, I reckon the bus stop outside Waitrose will still be festooned with rainbow-coloured printouts advertising a pop-up Shamanic yoga weekend.

And then there’s the fashion. As far as I’m concerned, wellington boots are practical – albeit occasionally uncomfortable – footwear for especially wet or muddy situations. You put them on when the weather demands it… and you remove them when they’re not needed. Wellingtons are no more suitable for all-day wear than pyjamas or mittens. How they’ve become some kind of festival uniform escapes me. Yet switch on any TV coverage of summer festivals and you’ll see crowds of people wearing little more than beachwear but accessorising it with rainbow-patterned plastic boots and a crown of plastic flowers. Inexplicably, there’s even a trend for getting married in this sort of clothing. (Just search for ‘festival wedding’ on your favourite tax-paying internet search engine and you’ll see what I mean.) Personally, I think it’s actually an excuse for scaring elderly relatives away.

Still, enough of my ranting. Festivals are supposed to be about celebration. I may not understand your desire to carry a fluorescent pennant on a five-metre bendy flagpole but I shall rejoice in your decision regardless. Just as long as you’re not standing in front of me. I’m the guy in the dinner jacket, obviously.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 116 May 2016

A snail's space

I’m tiptoeing across our patio in the dark. Silhouetted in the moonlight, I cast a sinister shadow rather like a Scooby-Doo villain. An ominous rumble accompanies every step I take. It’s Sunday night and I’m moving our wheeled bin onto the driveway, ready for it to be emptied in the morning. However, my caution isn’t an attempt to keep quiet. It’s prompted by the large number of snails that inhabit our garden. You see, I have a particular fondness for snails, although I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it’s the childhood trauma of having stood on one. Perhaps it’s the graphic description of snail farming that our French teacher gave us at secondary school. Either way, I don my outdoor slippers and tread very carefully whenever I’m in the garden at night. If I didn’t, there’d be a lot of crunching.

Actually, I’m not sure if tiptoeing is a smart move. Although it reduces the size of my footprint, it increases the pressure if there is any unfortunate snail-related incident. Maybe I ought to wear bigger shoes to disperse the impact. I wonder what size of shoe I’d need to ensure the safety of the average snail? A quick internet search reveals that dancing en pointe in ballet shoes can double the pressures acting on a foot. Therefore, strapping a pillow to each foot might be enough – but my A-level physics fails me at this stage. I’m tired and it’s time for bed.

Just a few minutes after my head hits the pillow I’m drifting off into a world where snails are telepathic. They’re trying to teach me something about Newton’s Second Law of Motion. Julia Bradbury is there, too. Perhaps she’s making a TV show about my pillow-shoe invention. She smiles at me and… hang on, Julia, I’m a married man. My wife…

My wife’s phone wakes me with a beep. She picks it up from the dressing table to see who’s sent her a message. “Sorry”, she whispers. I’m relieved it’s only the dream snails that are telepathic. The message is a casual inquiry from her daughter, whose five-month-old son is yet to adopt conventional sleeping. Anything that involves our nocturnal grandson is forgiven, of course. He’s a delightful chap to whom I’ve already promised an action-packed trip to the zoo when he’s a little older. After all, if a grandparent's role is to indulge their children's children, then a step-grandparent's role is surely even more anarchic. I’ll need to behave like some kind of louche character that might be portrayed on film by Hugh Grant or Bill Nighy, arriving at every birthday party on a Harley Davidson and wearing a smoking jacket. But there's one thing I haven't decided yet. Should I accessorise with pointy-toed slippers or extra-wide soft-soled shoes?

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 110 November 2015

Stepping out in style

I'm getting ready to head into Lewes. I've put my shoes on and I'm already slipping my left arm into my coat when I realise my wife has a kink in her eyebrow. I know what this means. I double-check my outfit. No fluorescent socks. No breakfast on my trousers. I give up. "What?"

"You're not wearing a jumper.” Indeed I'm not. I am, however, wearing a navy blue shirt. Dark colours for winter, pale colours for summer. Surely darker colours are warmer. But I can’t possibly explain this to her, so instead I choose the sensible option. "I'll just grab a cardie. Won't be a moment."

As a child, I was encouraged to wear a vest, despite the unfashionable nature of the garment. I rebelled for a while. These days I've progressed to something that calls itself a 'technical layer'. Technically it is a vest, although I convince myself I’m dressed like a mountain-climbing athlete when I wear it. Most importantly, no-one can see it. Despite having grown older and theoretically wiser, I still don’t want to look un-cool.

You see, many people make fashion mistakes by choosing clothes that wouldn’t really suit anyone. That’s not my style, if you’ll forgive the pun. Whilst I know it’s best if I stay away from flared dungarees and leather trousers, it’s taken me a while to realise that everyday clothes can also be worn in the wrong way. When it’s done deliberately – I'm reminded of a school friend who subverted the dress code by wearing two ties – the results are intentionally amusing. My worry is inadvertently breaking the unwritten rules of good taste. Since my teens, I’ve discovered that a perfectly serviceable pair of socks must never be paired with an equally serviceable pair of sandals. I’ve learned that Suzi Quatro is the only person allowed to wear a denim jacket with jeans. And I’ve realised that a tracksuit is intended for use on a track, not as a suit.

Yet there’s still one area of fashion that I’ve not quite mastered: holiday clothes. I’ve noticed that we Brits really seem to choose dramatically different dress when we’re on holiday, even when our destination isn’t that far away and our lifestyle hasn’t changed. Suddenly we’re donning storm-proof cagoules. Camouflage shorts. Climbing boots. Sarongs. All just for a trip to the shops.

There’s one problem. When I come to Lewes from my home in Ringmer, I'm a visitor too. So is it wrong to turn up in my regular clothes? Would it be better if I identified myself as a tourist by wearing an arctic explorer’s fleece and eating an ice cream? On second thoughts, forget the cardigan. I need a pair of plastic clogs. Accessorised with ski socks, naturally.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 102 March 2015.

Having a wonderful time…

We're on holiday in Cornwall, leaving Ringmer free for Cornish tourists to visit. "What do you write in a postcard?" says my wife, as we shelter from the drizzle. Sadly she's not asking because she needs my literary skills. No, she doesn't see me as Hemingway in a Hawaiian shirt or Oscar Wilde with a suntan. It's purely practical guidance she's looking for.

Quite simply, she wants me to provide a summary of holiday highlights. But what have we done? We've eaten out a bit... but that's hardly unusual. In fact, there's not even a branch of Bill's around here, despite the company's recent expansion rate being equivalent to a culinary Big Bang. Perhaps my wife and I have been indulging in some holiday vices? Nope. Admittedly my pasty consumption is up, yet my coffee and cake consumption has dropped. No overall gain, I say.

I struggle to think how our behaviour has differed from any other day away from work. Let's see. Sometimes on holiday I wear trousers that convert into shorts. They seemed a good idea at the time. Instead of doing what non-holiday people do - checking the weather forecast before they leave home - I have trousers that contain a plastic zip below the knee. One day some enterprising sportswear manufacturer will probably create a jacket that transforms into a waistcoat and then a vest. I may buy one, despite the risk of ending up with just a single sleeve.

My wife was prepared for the rain and is dressed in a heavy-duty waterproof jacket. This is her sartorial antidote to my convertible shorts. It's a remarkable garment that appears to intensify her annoyance with the weather, compressing and focusing it into a glum laser burning from underneath the peaked hood. The result is like having a water-cannon aimed at your soul. In this coat she's barely recognisable as the woman I married, although I hardly dare look at her in case she turns me into a pillar of salt and then washes me away.

Anything else? Well, because I've been wearing shorts and sandals, my ankles are now sunburned. Under any other circumstance, a potentially carcinogenic injury that caused my skin to peel off would be treated as a medical emergency. Yet, from a holiday perspective, tradition dictates it should be viewed as somewhere between mildly annoying and hilariously funny.

I'm about to suggest this as a starting point for the postcard when there's a commotion down the street. As I turn to see what's causing the fuss, I notice a seagull fly out from a crowd of people. Adults are shouting at it. Children are laughing. The seagull displays a mouthful of stolen chips as it passes.

I steal a glance at my wife. She seems to be smiling. I wonder if she's amused by the seagull's antics. Then I see she's just written the phrases 'pink ankle' and 'comedy trousers' on her postcard.

First published on VivaLewes.com 14th August 2014