Camping at the IWA National Festival

This year, for the first time, we brought our tent and camped for the IWA festival. We arrived at the site on Friday evening after a long, tedious journey from Norfolk with lots of traffic and frequent heavy showers of rain. She-who-must-be-obeyed (the voice of my satnav) took us through the middle of Grantham during the afternoon rush hour. This was a mistake. I should have remembered the last time I came this way, when I'd consulted a map, and found the way round the town via the A1. (Interestingly, on the way back, the satnav took me on this better route.) It's just so tempting - once you've discovered that, yes, the satnav really can get you from A to B - to trust the machine blindly (so to speak). After skirting Nottingham we were soon passing the huge pile of coal outside Ratcliffe Power Station, and, no, I didn't obey the satnav and turn into the entrance (the postcode given for the festival site was that of the power station). Just after this point we picked up the temporary signs for the festival, and were clearly directed onto the campsite.

Signing in was straightforward, despite not having pre-booked (we had been told there was plenty of space), and we were shown to our pitch. Conveniently close to the showers and loos, but not so close that we could hear the diesel generator nor smell anything nasty. And what a pitch! What a location! Just behind us was the river, with boats moored both sides; and in front ... What could be more dramatic than the vista of eight cooling towers and a tall chimney? It could have been an art installation. There was no smell, no noise. The wind blew it all - was there any anyway? - away from us. (Above is a short timelapse film of the scene. It has somehow got corrupted in the process of uploading, I don't know why. I tried again with similar results.) The main festival site was similarly blessed.


our tent is in the foreground on the right

We quickly got the tent up, thanks to the owners of NB Felonious Mongoose - the review of which we read in Canal Boat magazine - who helped stop the fly sheet blow away while we pegged it out. The wind was a bit of a feature over the long weekend!

Once the tent was up we inflated the airbeds and made up the beds. Then it was most definitely food time, so we went into the festival site via the boaters'/campers' entrance and had fish and chips from one of the many mobile caterers (actually only two or three open in the evenings). Excellent chips! After sampling some of the entertainment in the theatre tent, about which more later; and some ale (J. W. Lees, for old times' sake) we returned to our tent and piled all our clothes on top of our sleeping bags in an attempt to keep warm overnight.