FolkEast

Location: Great Glemham, Suffolk.
Project: Waveney Local Food for Thought

Summer is usually a quiet time for EastFeast. A time to sort out the tools, re-organise equipment and generally recuperate from what has been an amazing but incredibly full-on year. However, this summer we were lucky to be invited to have a stall at FolkEast, a small folk festival in it's second year of running, held on the Glemham Estate in South East Suffolk. With the promise of nasal singing, willow-wearing hat lovers and more ukeleles than you could shake a morris dancer's bells at, how could we refuse!

And so it was that last Thursday Mary and I packed our wellyboots, loaded our cars with materials and headed to Glemham. First challenge; site location...What's that you say? Between the main stage and the beer tent? By some gorgeous old oak trees?! Don't mind if we do! Done. Second challenge: construction of our new, very fancy gazebo, flags and table, courteousy of Local Food funding. Due to absence of instructions this took us slightly longer than site choice but our stall was beginning to take shape.

We settled on two activities for the weekend; labyrinth building and dreamcatcher weaving. As with all EastFeast work, we adapted a lot over the weekend. Originally we thought people could help build a labyrinth but actually this proved too fussy; having to sit and learn how to draw them was not what the majority of people wanted to do. Instead Mary and I layed out a very basic labyrinth that people could add to.

Friday and Saturday were all about the dreamcatchers. A steady stream of people of all ages came and had a go. We became particularly popular when the weather took a turn for the worse and our new gazebo was  incredibly efficient at protecting us from the elements. Every now and then we bailed out our smaller camp but by 6pm it was time to shut up shop and have a well earned beer (brewed by a local brewery especially for the festival). I had camped onsite the previous night but the dampness prevailed and I escaped home for a wash, clean socks and a dry night's sleep.

Feeling totally refreshed and ready for round 3, and spurred by brilliant sunshine, Mary and I returned on Sunday to a dry tent and prepared for what was the busiest day of the weekend. EastFeast Director, Yvoone Moores, joined us on Sunday, chatting to parents and getting contacts for further work opportunities.    

Enjoying the Sunday sunshine

Stone painting was particularly popular on Sunday and all sorts of gorgeous designs were added to the labyrinth, all to the background of Gypsy Fire playing on the main stage.

Just some of the gorgeous designs added to the labyrinth

A labyrinth, a strange character - it reminds me of the babe...

What really struck me was the diversity with which the activities appealled - over the course of 3 days I saw young children running round and around the labyrinth, teenagers engrossed in weaving, Dads totally absorbed in painting stones, slightly sozzled members of a wedding party (a 3 day event it seemed) working with willow and the man who sold sausage rolls getting excited about adding beads to his dreamcatcher.

And that's what makes this the best job in the world.

Naturally occurring: with no prompting whatsoever two young lads wrote this above the labyrinth.