15th July: Latitude



            Last year Georgie and I spent a couple of weeks in Italy using AirBnB.  I wrote about the experience and it was published in The Leicester Mercury.  I didn’t get paid for the article – what, you want money as well as a holiday, don’t be so deluded - but the nice folk at AirBnB gave me a voucher for a future trip.  And now, my friend Sandy and I are about to use it at Latitude, the festival at Henham Park in Suffolk.  It would be entirely logical to stay in Lauren but it’s not ideal accommodation for two heterosexual unrelated women, especially when there’s the option of a gorgeous free cottage with a bath in Walberswick.  It also means we will just be using the van as a car to get us to and from the festival; this decadence feels almost illegal. 

            Sandy has driven from Bristol and we rendezvous at Bury St Edmonds, leave her car there and head up thorugh skfbf ksfjfk akfj to Walberswyck. Last year my best bit at Latitude was watching, nay participating, in ‘Marcus Brigstocke Hosts Prince Fest’ that included him, his mates and a full crowd in the Literature tent lip-synching to an hour of RIP Prince’s hit songs.  There were feather boas, attitude and of course one hundred raspberry berets. At one point I was helping support a guy in a gold sequinned shirt to crowd surf.  Yes, fifty is the new twelve.

            Our AirBnB host is charming, blonde and beautiful and is part of the two per cent of pilots in the UK who are female.  Sandy and I speculate on her age – how much younger is she than us?  On discovering that she’s a grandmother we walk down to the beach, fold up our clothes, hold hands and walk into the sea never to be head of again until our bloated green bodies are found on a Norwegian beach.   This is after we drown our sorrows with a couple of pints at The Swan in Southwold.

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