retiredmartin

September 2024. Larmer Tree Gardens. Wiltshire.

Sunday night brings my 12th End of the Road festival to an end, a middling affair with quality and diversity but little drama, a metaphor for something.

As is traditional, I succumbed to an 11:30 am pint of the local Sixpenny Best, albeit only because the Summer Lightning had sold out.

I only had a couple of pints of the cask in 4 days; you can see my reason why in the forum post I set up back home.

Once again, that Baltic Porter from Lost and Grounded was the better bet at a quid and 3% more.

This is a festival that gets a decent real ale crowd, but it’s dying (literally) by the year.

Sunday is the day to tick the gardens themselves, always a joy,

and see whether a plate of calamari can be worth a tenner (almost),

and judge whether the “five” curries on a plate can rival This & That (no, obvs).

But it’s the variety of music that draws me back,

from Girl and Girl’s jaunty Oz rock to Deary’s Slowdive tribute to Ichiko Aoba’s Japanese folk.

As night fell, James and Mrs got lost once more at the likorice stall,

and we joined a mass surge to see English Teacher, who just won the Mercury Award despite their highly politicised support for Bedford.

And on the first day of September, we head homeward to the tune of Autumn Sweater.

I told James that’s an indie classic, No. 5 in John Peel’s Festive 50 in 1996. He shrugs.