Timber festival 2019

Timber is a new festival, only in its second year, run by the National Forest, based in the Midlands, near the exotically named Ashby-De-La-Zouch. I’m into the Japanese concept of ‘forest bathing’ and trees in general so this sounded right up my street.

The festival is small, clean, and very much directed towards families. Although there is music, there are no big names. There are workshops, craft, bonfire story telling, and talks. I saw ex NME writer Stuart Maconie talk about his new book ‘Long road from Jarrow’ , a walk repeating the Jarrow March, which I bought.

I also met the gentleman pictured in the gorgeous gypsy caravan, who carves mushrooms from wood, but was also in the Special Forces and fought in Vietnam when he was 17. He is in Mi5 and often works as a male model. Wasn’t sure what to believe but that’s one of the great things about festivals, it allows access to wonderful British eccentrics. You chat shit with randoms. I love that.

Festival Food: I took a camping stove, a two burner with a grill so you can have cheese on toast. This is one of the greatest dishes ever for camping. A cooker also meant we could make cups of tea and coffee. As an Englishwoman I require tea at least 5/6 times a day and I don’t want to pay £2.50 minimum a cup which adds up to about £15 a day just on tea!

The most interesting thing I bought to eat was croquettes with fried pickles from Kroket. They were good, stuffed with mushrooms and truffle but I felt the potato surrounding could be thicker. I’m going to make some croquettes with cheese very soon so recipe coming up.

It rained on the Saturday so we sat in my friend Jim’s tent and ate crisps , Werthers Originals and did iPhone pub quizzes. Typical English day out really.

Here are some pictures from the event: