Postcard from Wales
Posted by Rufus on August 21st, 2008After reading Lucy’s Flavorpill post on the blog yesterday, I started thinking about events I’ve been to recently, and the British festival season popped into my head. There’s not another country in the world in which wandering about in sheeting rain and eating food prepared by people with hands grubbier than a mole would be considered a desirable leisure activity. But thousands of us in the UK do exactly this every summer. Sure, when we book those tickets for a music festival, we’re hoping for blissful evenings stretched out on Sancerre-dry grass, but no British festival-goer would leave home without ensuring that wellies, cagouls and a sturdy hat are in the boot of the car alongside the wet wipes and cans of cider.
But all those who’d never sanction the idea are missing out, though. I’ve just got back from one of the wettest weekends in my life – at the Green Man Festival at Glanusk Park in Wales’ Brecon Beacons. And I had a brilliant time. I saw lots of great music – Laura Marling, King Creosote, Spiritualized, even Rhys Ifans’ shambolic Welsh soul outfit the Peth – and spent lots of time in the sort of fresh air that most Londoners have forgotten even existed. And all this against the backdrop of those mist-wreathed, sheep-dotted hills that make the Brecon Beacons so special. How green was their valley? Proper lush it was…
I slept under canvas, eschewing the boutique hotels that as Mr & Mrs Smith editor I’ve got very used to, but there’s no reason you have to. The New White Lion in Llandovery is just a short drive along the A40 from the Green Man site, providing a gorgeous, intimate shelter from all that rain and booming basslines – and it comes with flatscreen TVs and Egyptian cotton sheets, too. Book one of its six rooms for next year’s festival. Actually, make that five rooms – one, I can reliably inform you, will already be taken.
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