Wyndstock, the Country House Party

On Saturday afternoon (26.06.11) my two friends, Heather and Emily, and I went on a car trip to the New Forest. Why? For an event called Wyndstock http://www.wyndstock.com/, hosted by the eponymous Mr Viktor Wynd (probably not his real name).

Driving through the beautiful countryside, through flat moorland housing horses with their foals, the weather was easy, breezy and wonderfully warm.   As we drove through the gates of Pylewell Park (an enormous country house, think Pride and Prejudice) I was struck by how wonderfully small-scale the actual party/festival was.   Having been to a few festivals in my time, I much prefer smaller ones, the ones that don't require a life-jacket and four days worth of pants just to get from your tent to the music.   This festival took over one field, with 500 party people, two small music stages and a food area and an amazing view over the sea towards the Isle of Wight:

We first of all chose our camping spot (away from thistles, trees, mounds and cow pats), a surprisingly tricky task.   The girls and I started unpacking our tents with gusto, but within five minutes we were all flumixed, so were rescued by some heroic country gents who proceeded to take the task into their own hands.   Once the tents were up we went for a stroll around the venue.   It seemed a lot like a private garden party, I lost count of the amount of people who asked me 'who do you know here?' 'how do you know the family?' etc. to which we mumbled rubbish about the Internet, which felt a little lame in the grand scheme of things.  

Incidentally we found out about this through The Last Tuesday Society http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/ (Viktor's events company), so, although we had paid £60 for our tickets, we felt a little like gatecrashers.   As the sun sunk, so did the social conventions of a polite garden party.   People became more friendly, and we met lots of lovely guys and gals all up for a jolly good shindig in the country.  

Included in the ticket price was afternoon tea, dinner and breakfast.

Afternoon tea was cakes, scones and cucumber sanwiches all beautifully presented on a mish-mash of cake stands and floral plates:

Dinner consisted of local venison (shot on site) spit roasted:

Licking our lips at 8pm, we joined the queue for our dinner, but, alas, it took two hours to get to the front, as the organisers had miscalculated the amount of time it would cook the food (they were doing it all themselves, which is admirable, but also perhaps slightly over-ambitious!) When we finally got to the front of the queue all the venison had run out, as had the (cooked) baked potatoes, so we ended up eating tough-as-old-boots lamb, freezing cold, raw potatoes and lentils (which were tasty, thank goodness).   By this point I was hungry and rather grumpy, so I did eat it, as, under those circumstances it would take a lot for me not to!  The evening then became brilliant, with bands playing and everyone getting down on the dance floor.   I would love to tell you about the rest of the party, but if I did, I would have to kill you ...