Timber - practicalities

Camping, eating, and, of course, festival toilets

The organisers of any festival are hoping that you'll head home having had a wonderful time. They can set up the inspiring talks, line up the music  but, no matter how good these are, the practical, down to earth things contribute just as much to having a good weekend. Last year I could only attend for a few hours each day, so I talked about the practical aspects from a middle-aged day visitor's perspective. This year I was invited back by Wild Rumpus, and could go along for the full sleepover experience. So here are my thoughts on a weekend of camping, eating and festival toilets.




We aren't seasoned campers and it's a while since we've been out and about with the tent - in fact Curious Arts Festival in 2017 was the last time - but we were fairly certain we'd remember how to do it. We had a little run through at home first though to make sure (you don't want to look totally confused in the middle of a campsite where everyone else looks like an expert)




The airbed had seen better days, so we bought a new one - two actually, as putting a double-sized bed in the middle of the sleeping section left nowhere to stand up. As an unexpected bonus, the new beds came in really useful boxes that saved us having to buy bedside tables for phones, glasses, festival programmes etc. We still had a couple of difficulties - my bed was too hard the first night - deflating it made it much more comfortable - and the spot we'd chosen wasn't quite as level as we thought, so there was a tendency to roll off the bed. No doubt more experienced campers have a better way of judging a campsite.

One problem we've had before was spotting our tent from all the others of the same type, so I'd turned some scraps of material into bunting - no more mistaking my tent in the middle of the night, and it hopefully makes the guy ropes a little more visible to other folks.

Another 'new investment' was (fixing) a sack truck. Hard work had ruined its wheels but some new ones had it ready to roll (sorry) again. It proved very useful as the campsite was a walk from the car park - a bit troublesome if you had to carry all your gear. Lots of people had the sort of truck you can buy from outdoors shops, or those children's wagons like tiny wild west caravans, but looks aren't everything and ours did the job. If you didn't have some sort of cart, volunteers were on hand to help, and you could even get your gear transported by horse and cart.



Despite the precariously balanced appearance of the sack truck our camping equipment is quite minimal - somewhere to sleep, somewhere to sit, no where to cook, but as we use the tent solely at festivals this isn't a problem (until someone close by starts frying bacon for breakfast).
The site was away from the main festival area, so fairly quiet at night though the music could be heard in the distance. There was generous provision of toilets and showers (more below), stand-pipes for fresh drinking water, sinks to wash pots, and recycling bins for rubbish.

Tent up, it was time to head to the festival itself ...




Almost the first thing to catch my eye on entering the festival site was a stall selling crepes, savoury and sweet, perfect for breakfast, but the main foodie area was closer to the stages and all the action. A welcome addition this year was a huge open marquee with picnic tables - when the sun shone it offered shade, when Saturday turned wet it sheltered me and my cheese and bean toastie.





Short of eating constantly, I couldn't sample all the food on offer but I tried - with toasties, salt and thyme fries, hotdogs (available in more varieties than I ever imagined - I tried original 'naked' and a dressed up version with barbecue sauce and bacon sprinkles), loaded chips with chilli beans, smoked haddock croquettes with salad and pickles, danish pastries with jam or custard, sheep's milk ice cream, and bacon butties (so our camping neighbour was forgiven their morning fry-up). There were so many other options - from Thai food to Greek to baked potatoes - but just not enough time.

Lastly, that item that always seems of foremost importance at festivals - toilets. Whenever I mention going to a festival no one asks where? when? who's appearing? which bands are playing? No, the first question is almost always 'what about the toilets?' The answer? - they were fab. Maybe not 5star hotel fab, but, given the constraints of a temporary site out in the countryside, you couldn't have found better. At the main entrance and on the campsite there were real flushing toilets with handbasins (though sometimes the taps' water pressure gave up). In case they weren't enough, this row of standard portaloos were waiting though I never saw them in use.

In the main festival area the toilets were more adventurous - compost loos. Designer eco-houses on TV have them, so why not a festival site? There's no heavy disinfectant masking smells, just a long drop ('Don't look down', I heard one father say to a small child) to a pit of sawdust, and the 'by product' is taken away to become fertiliser. Occasionally, on the third day, I caught a slight odour when walking past them but nothing noxious. Maybe they could have been positioned a little more out-of-sight, but not so far that they couldn't be found. I found the steps up and down a little daunting, as in any situation where you can slide and look foolish I generally do, but I survived. Again, there were traditional portaloos if you didn't want to use them.
I don't quite understand non-festival goers hang ups about toilets. I'm been to other different outdoors events - garden shows, summer fayres, horse shows - and encountered worse. Festivals just seem to have acquired a bad press, which is a shame.


After a long day out in the sun you need to cool down, in the morning you need something to wake you up, and the campsite had hot showers ready for either. Again, don't expect 5 star luxury and you won't be disappointed. The water was set to a good hot, but not scalding, temperature, and was unlimited. A shower curtain divided each cubicle into wet and dry areas, so no wet clothes and towels to contend with. And there were sinks with hot and cold water, too. What more do you actually need? Obviously at popular times there were queues, but there were enough showers to give them moving.

Despite being a sponsored post with gifted tickets, this (and for that matter, the other posts relating to Timber) isn't a press hand-out but a reflection of my experiences. I can't guarantee next year's facilities but this year's were definitely above average.
The festival as a whole has something to appeal to all ages; there were lots of young families there, plenty of older folk like myself, though teens maybe seemed lacking in numbers. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in ecology and environmental concerns, or just someone who wants to get outdoors a bit more, and experience a wilder side of life.