Ops Weekend

I was looking for something to re-ignite my passion for the Greenbelt festival and luckily at this weekend’s Ops Weekend, despite being so aware of various absent friends, I think I found it. Or at the very least, a part of something, hopefully the start of something.

The feelings I shared the other day are still there, but I'm feeling decidedly more positive and engaged than I was.

BTW thanks to everyone who commented or contacted me after my mini-rant the other day - I had no idea how many people read this blog - your kind words mean so much! I still feel a need to fall in love with the festival all over again, but after this weekend I kind of think that that is at least possible, maybe even probable.

Let's hope so anyway - after all I wouldn't want to be the cause of Jude vommitting now would I?

Anyway back to the weekend:

Getting away to Dalesbridge on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales, was just bliss. It was an intensive time and quite emotional in many ways, but so good. So very, very good.

We worked, we talked, we reviewed, we planned, we imagined, we drank, we laughed and somewhere in the midst of all this I saw a flash of the thing I love, the thing that motivates me to work ridiculously hard to ensure that thing thrives.

It’s hard to put into words, but there is something so special about this group of people and the festival as a whole. A vibe, a feeling, a light, a dream, a daringness, a heart, a warmth, an ache to let the other in.

Then again these feelings could just be a result of the vodka and Baileys that I consumed (I’m blaming George!).

"Greenbelt Ops – drinking our way to successful planning!"

After all what other explanation could there be for us all agreeing that the festival needed to be more of a bagel and less of a baguette? It all seemed to make sense at the time...