Saturday, 8 November 2003

Greenbelt

Let's hold a festival

GB 2004

Today, the familiar sight on my doormat of junk mail. But today's junk comes from Greenbelt. "GB2004" it proudly declares. It's the first public declaration of next year's festival. "You know what?" I imagine someone saying, "This year's festival was fun. Let's hold another next year."

Of course I know better than that. For the past few years I've been deeply involved with Greenbelt. Today, a dozen or so of us will congregate on a farm in the Cotswolds to start planning, scheming and dreaming about GB 04. Perhaps over dinner we'll figure out what the theme will be... heaven@earth.com, Eternal Echoes, Kiss of Life, Diving for Pearls; what's next in this sequence?

But right now I'm thumbing through the leaflet that came through my door, filled with the excitement of my punter days. I'm scanning the photos to see if I sneaked into any of them. I'm reading the quotations and seeing how many I identify with. I see so many things I missed (the inflatable church, The Venerable Beads, the dance) and wonder whether I'll get to see more this year.

And as an organiser I see the clock on the Greenbelt website start to count down. 293 days to go. But first, a weekend in the country.

Posted by pab at 08:35