Planting poppies at the Tower of London

We had a very unusual Thursday morning today, as instead of going to work, we went to the Tower of London as volunteers to help plant poppies for their remembrance art installation for WWI called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.



There are 888,246 poppies being planted in the moat to commemorate every single British death and each poppy is handmade and then planted by us, the volunteers. Apparently there are nearly 300,000 left to plant which seems incredible given how many there were already there! Here's a short (3 minute) video showing how they're made:

It was fun to be part of, both making the steel rod/washer combos to support the poppies, and then the actual installation of each poppy. The fact that it's something so iconic is great as well, particularly given how much I enjoyed our trip to the Tower of London a few years ago - absolutely one of my tourist highlights of London. I also laughed at all the tourists taking photos of us - total paparazzi!






There are some more photos here, and if you're interested in buying one, they're selling the poppies for £25 each after Armistice Day here in support of six different service charities.

Apparently they also need volunteers to help remove them come November, so get involved!

Bestival

A couple of weekends ago we finally went to something that we've been looking forward to for months (having got the tickets absolutely ages ago) - Bestival! Bestival is a music festival on the Isle of Wight, and is basically the last festival of the season (and generally always happens on the first weekend of September).

It's got such a nice, relaxed vibe to it and generally gets lots of bands and other musicians who we like, so having first been five years ago in 2009, we headed back this year with big expectations. And fortunately it didn't disappoint! The weather was absolutely amazing - warm and sunny, although not too sunny that you couldn't sit outside for hours (which was our main festival activity of choice), and it clouded over most nights which meant it didn't get too cold. It's also got a fancy dress theme, and this year it was 'Desert Island Disco' which saw all sorts of brilliant takes on sequins and Hawaiian shirts. Although the complete ubiquitousness of bum bags was somewhat astonishing - clearly I'm way too old to know that they're in fashion now!

We went with a group of friends and because it's a reasonably small festival (unlike say Glastonbury which takes forever to get anywhere and you're never going to meet up with your friends no matter how hard you try), we managed to just run into each other most days or meet up for lunch etc. between bands which was great.

Favourite acts for me included Beck (despite him falling doing his brilliant dance moves and hurting his knee), La Roux, Sam Smith, Disclosure, Laura Mvula, Candi Staton, The Kooks (surprise guests!), and DJ Yoda, as well as the brilliant Mr Motivator - an '80s exercise instructor who got the crowd up and moving on Sunday lunchtime.

We also did all sorts of silly things like have a go on a toboggan ride, try out unicycling, learnt all sorts of cool stuff in the science tent (did you know that sounds make a difference to how you perceive the texture of the food you're eating? For example, if you crumple some crackly paper, it will make potato chips seem more crunchy in your mouth - something I did not know!), and just generally hung out and had a good time. The rest of the photos are here if you want to have a look.

Here's to more festivals in the future!