Big Bertha

"Snoop Dog was fantastic," reported 15 year old Revered Son on his mobile this morning,  "but the hurricane has blown down all the floodlights, and the campsite is such chaos it looks quite funny.  The campervans are OK though."

He had saved up £180 from somewhere to join every other teenager in the south west, from the local butcher's apprentice, to good girls from safe schools, to posh cool kids from avant garde schools like my son and  his friends, to descend on the Boardmasters Festival at Watergate Bay, Newquay.  And now the second day of festivities was to be abandoned, thanks to Hurricane Bertha. 

The most interesting thing about this Festival, in my opinion, is what happens regarding sexanddrugsandrocknroll.  There had been considerable emailed  correspondence amongst the Mums of my four boys,  in advance of the Festival, working towards a united approach on alcohol consumption.

This varied from "We will impose a complete ban on any alcohol and trust them to keep to it," to "We will allow them a couple of bottles of lager and after that they will be left to their own devices as to how they are going to source anything else." 

I was responsible for delivering the boys to the site, and I reassured the Mums that I would collect them direct from the station, bring them home, and then take them straight on to the festival, so the only supplies they could have access to would be from the sheep outside, or my cellar of plonk.

The Festival organisers, we understood, had imposed a complete ban on spirits, and a maximum of 12 cans of lager per adult, and no alcohol for Under 18s.  Meanwhile the social media were alive with ruses for smuggling in booze and that ghastly NOS stuff - what us Mums are used to taking during childbirth, and it jolly well didnt make me laugh. 

Have you seen those pictures of pretty teenage girls in their LBD's breathing in and out of coloured balloons to enjoy a brief, legal, and apparently relatively safe and inexpensive high?  They look absurd.  The suppliers describe and sell the equipment as being useful to make whipped cream.  What's wrong with an egg beater?  Bonkers. 

Anyway, apparently the way you smuggle NOS into these festivals is to stuff the canisters up the hollow metal legs of your picnic chair.  Bottles are incorporated into a carved out loaf of sliced bread, and vodka in a punctured coke can re-sealed with a glue gun.  My feeling is that these adolescents are more excited about how to outwit the security men than in the taste of alcohol, or breathing in nitrous oxide.

On the way to the Festival I had to buy some croissants from Morrison's, some sausages from the butchers, and collect the laundry.  "You can all buy your lunch while I collect the croissants," I merrily trilled to my young passengers.

I reached the till.  Oooops.  What had I just done?  I'd proactively delivered the fearsome four into what to all intents and purposes was an offy!  "You see those four boys over there?" I hissed to the till assistant.  "Well they're all 15."

Hah - Got them! 

She pressed a flashing light and pointed to her badge which stated that anyone appearing under 25 would be asked for ID.  "I would have stopped them anyway," she said.  So all they came out with were some sandwiches and a packet of crisps.  Phew.

Meanwhile yesterday, after cooking breakfast for six B&Bers, clearing it all up, and then preparing rooms for six more - missing the local fete as a result - Beloved Daughter and I finally reached Widecombe to walk the show-jumping and cross country courses at about 6pm, while young Maggie plaited up the horses back home for £15, ready for today's One Day Event.  I was so tired I could hardly stand up.  How Sashka does it day after day I have no idea.

The show jumps came up to our ankles, but the cross country course was quite a different story.  Several of the jumps were too large for me to step over.  Terrifying!

Finally, as we reached the brow of the hill, having walked two miles up and down vertigious hills, a cry went up.  "It's been cancelled!"

Thank God, in a way.  Breakfast for six again this morning and I am a walking zombie.  I think three rooms, or six guests, is too many if you are operating a B&B on your own, are over 50, and trying to do anything else as well.  I have no regrets regarding my decision to restrict myself to two rooms in future.

Three rooms and it's no longer fun.