At the weekend ALBOS were lucky enough to be invited to spend our second year attending the amazing weekend-long Just So Festival.
Each summer, for the past ten years, Wild Rumpus has lovingly put on the Just So Festival, pulling together artists and activities to delight families at their HQ at Rode Heath Hall, a 20-mile drive up the A34.
As this was our second year (Read our first-year review: Just So Festival, a phantasmagorical adventure!) we had much more of an idea about what the festival was like and our whole family had been looking forward to coming again since the moment we left the year before!
We spent time in the run-up recalling our experiences from the year before and chatting enthusastically while wondering what would be on offer this year. What we hadn’t previously experienced or thought of was the torrential rain that welcomed campers on Friday afternoon!
In our first year, the arrival had been a relatively speedy process, but with the rain the Wild Rumpus team took a conservative approach to parking the vehicles, letting a single car down at a time to ensure it didn’t get stuck in the mud! Having arrived just after 12pm we queued for 45 minutes to access the site and to pull our caravan onto our “pitch”. Facilities are good on-site; there are portaloos, chemical waste disposal and fresh drinking water, for the campsite there’s also dishwashing facilities and showers. There’s no electricity available on site so we ensured we had sufficient gas for our fridge and battery power banks to keep our phones charged up, a must for capturing the magic of the weekend although it’s nice to “unplug”!
Once on-site, we spent some time putting our awning up, getting fresh water before we decided to get ready to head out into the rain! The weather was warm, and so I chose the only sensible option, shorts and crocs, something my wife thought was both hilarious and crazy! The rain may have been falling but once through the Just So entrance we were excited to explore the 2019 areas as well as the food and drink on offer! Like 2018 we once again decided to be part of team fox (read our first-year review for more details on the tribes). A big part of the Just So Festival is the dressing up, you by no means have to participate but some people make a huge effort to dress as their tribe and it’s amazing to see the talent and sheer brilliance that some people put into their costumes
We had scoped out the programme in the weeks leading up to the festival so knew we had some must-see items as well as some things we were just curious about! After exploring the festival site, we headed into the Spellbound Forest, a place where we’d spend a lot of time this weekend! The trees gave some nice shelter from the worst of the weather and the bonfire and campfire stories kept our children spellbound…..a good name for an area that! Our children absolutely loved it in the forest and it’s so lovely to see your children revel in being outdoors and take enjoyment from something as simple as having a stick and looking for bugs in a rotten part of a tree. The festival programme is filled with things for you to see and do but it’s also lovely to sit back, relax and just see how much the simple things delight your children too.
We decided that as the weather was pouring down and it was due to be sunny over the Saturday and Sunday that we’d head back early on the Friday night, we grabbed some festival food, toasties and the thing our children were most looking forward to… massive corn on the cobs, pasta for daddy and a steak meal box for mummy! Food prices were quite reasonable, comparable to a farmers market, the corn was £3 per cob, the pasta £8 and steak box £10 including chips. Once back at our caravan it was plain to see how much chaos the weather was causing in the surrounding fields/carparks! We watched in absolute awe of the Just So staff working tirelessly to help stranded day ticket holders get out of the site by literally pushing cars through the mud! Those they couldn’t move were pulled out by a tractor. At no point did the atmosphere turn black and we marvelled in the fact that the staff were covered from head to toe in mud yet they still had smiles on their faces and kind jolly words for all. Something the staff kept up over the entire weekend, they were absolutely fantastic and worked so hard in awful conditions!
Saturday we awoke to the sun shining through so after breakfast we made a beeline for Roll Up Roll Up, the destination for circus skills and clowns! Our eldest absolutely loves clowns so our first show of the day was “Clown About Town” by the fabulous Hocus Pocus Theatre, our children loved the show, as did the surrounding crowd. We then headed into the big top for circus skills which kept our children entertained whilst mummy and daddy made plans for lunch! Roll Up Roll Up had a selection of catering trucks, our children enjoyed child-sized halloumi tacos with loaded nachos box meals whilst mummy and daddy had chicken wraps, again the pricing and portion sizes were comparable to other events we have been to.
After a well-deserved rest, we waded through the boggy mud to head to the all singing and dancing Flamingo Lounge! Our children loved learning the songs and dances and there were a good number of benches around the outside for those who wanted a sit-down. The fun continued as we went to see the giant balloon show on the “Village Green”, for 2019 this was definitely the Village Brown with the churned up mud. Taking place on an island of green grass the children watched in awe as the show unfolded, the climax of which was a full-size man being inside a giant balloon (see our highlights video for a clip), the audience loved the performance (as did we), everyone was clapping, singing and cheering along to the 80’s tunes that accompanied the performance
For our children, the Spellbound Forest drew us in to enjoy the rest of our evening where we saw the amazing Professor Pumbenickel, an eccentric scientist entertaining people around the campfire. We’d heard that this was a must-see show and we’d wholeheartedly agree with this…..absolutely brilliant and the children (and adults) filled the forest with belly laughs! He was without a doubt our children’s favourite performance of the festival and that’s not taking anything from any of the other performances which were thoroughly enjoyed they just LOVED Professor Pumpernickel that much!
The evening wrapped up with more forest play before toasting marshmallows on the campfire, a highlight for both our children!
After a full day we headed back to the caravan and to our comfy beds, the children went out like a pair of lights! A “few” chilled beverages for the grown-ups and we too were out like a pair of lights….what would Sunday bring!?
On Sunday we’d earmarked the Garden of Delight as a must-see so headed deep into the site to join the queue for the show, after a 10 minute wait various animal characters welcomed us to the Garden of Delight. We were told about a puzzle we’d have to solve and then headed in to hear a delightful musical story before exploring the garden in search of letter clues to complete the puzzle. Our children love animals so they enjoyed talking to the various animal characters as we made our way around the garden, the children thought it was magical.
Next, we headed back to the forest to do the giant marble run, a suspended wooden carved sectional maze suspended from ropes. Our children enjoyed placing their marbles on the run and seeing where they came out. After yet another play in the forest (we loved it in there so much) we headed over to the table tennis tables! On the games field, there were a number of giant oversized games, all thick with mud by this point, our oldest was ecstatic to find a muddy ping pong ball so that he could play a little bit of table tennis. This was hilarious as our children joined a table with another 2 children (who didn’t have a ball) and hit the mud-covered ball back and forth, and into the mud again! One of the absolute delights at the Just So Festival is seeing children just come together and play so beautifully together, in fact, its the same for the adults too! Everyone seems drawn to actually making conversation with each other and enjoying the festival experience together. People help each other, share what they have with others and have fun
By this time it was time for some lunch and so we filled our bellies, pizza and crepes were the order for lunch! Our eldest wanted to see Clown About Town again so we split up and I got to watch my son absolutely crease up with laughter for a second time while my wife took our youngest to the spellbound forest…again! We headed back to our caravan for a chilled out afternoon, our children are still young and both need a rest after 3 days of wading around a muddy festival site.
After an early dinner in our caravan for our children, we headed back out for the final evening of our weekend. After a second spell dancing at the Flamingo Lounge, we headed back into the wood, ready to laugh our heads off and hear stories from the amazing Ian Douglas, a Just So Festival staple and an absolute legend, who we could have listened to all evening
We caught the end of a musical set before Ian entertained the crowd with his comedy partner and then with his stories, a real highlight and a memory that as a family we’ll treasure! More marshmallows were toasted before we decided to head back into the festival site.
Our children were exhausted but they begged us “to do one last thing because they didn’t want the weekend to end, so we decided to check out the Fire Garden, something that doesn’t start until 9pm each evening. Although tired our children were in complete awe as the fire lit “trees” crackled and flickered as we walked through the garden.
Our 2019 Just So Festival was certainly different from 2018, the contrast in weather and ground conditions made things a challenge! We originally tried to mirror the experience that we had the previous year but getting around in all that mud was just hard work! We decided to concentrate on the things we got the most enjoyment from rather than trying to get around to see everything we could and we honestly think we had an amazing festival for it! It was without a doubt different from our previous year’s experience but it was still as magical, it was relaxing and it was filled to the brim with amazing family memories that we will cherish for years to come and that really is the magic of the Just So Festival
The ground conditions meant that we didn’t spend much time down at the music stage, Footlights, which was a shame as we’d loved sitting around listening to the acts in 2018 but it couldn’t be helped and you certainly can’t do anything about the unpredictable British summer weather, especially the complete freak weather that was experienced before and at the beginning of this year’s festival
Team Fox was victorious in the Tribal Tournament which was the icing on the cake for our weekend but the wonderful thing about it all is we wouldn’t have minded who won really as it really is all about the taking part, having fun and creating those magical memories.
The Just So Festival was a different experience this year but we came home with the same wonderful feeling in our hearts and that’s down to the absolute love, dedication and hard work that is poured into it each year!
So thank you Just So Festival for once again filling our family’s hearts with such wonderment and happy memories, we will be back because not coming back to the Just So Festival again would be unthinkable to our family!
For more details on the Just So Festival check out their website, early bird tickets will be on sale later this month – JustSoFestival.org.uk
