.: holy moly me oh my, you're the apple of my eye

Hi everyone! ((or undoubtedly no one at this point but, ahem, welcome to my blog!))

Quite a while ago now it seems, my two bestest ever friends came to stay with me for a week. I barely ever see them anymore as we live about 135 miles apart now after having lived in walking distance for about three years. The weird thing is that I feel much closer to them now than I ever did before and whenever we meet up it's as if we've never been apart. Yes, please control your tears, 'tis a tragic tale.

and here are the three amigos

One of the main reasons for luring my friends to my painfully middle class town was so that we could go to the Gentlemen of the Road festival in Lewes for the weekend. So, on Friday morning, laden with various camping equipment, the three of us set of to the bus stop to meet with my other friends who were coming with us. Mollie and Laura had only ever met one of them before but everyone got along so so so well, and it was literally the happiest I've ever been because I had all of my friends together ::)))

Once we'd gotten off the bus we had to trek to the campsite which was no mean feat omg THE HEAT AND HEAVINESS OF MY BAGS. I could have died, but I just complained a lot instead. Thankfully, our teepee had already been set up by lovely Polly's lovely brother so we all crashed out for a bit before proceeding to set up the other tent.

top left: mollie, bottom left: beth, gaby and alex, right: eloise

The time soon came for us to, very excitedly, go to the field where the festival was situated. The aesthetics of the whole place were really folky and reminded my of boy's scouts. Of course the most exciting aspect was getting a wrist band which I plan to never remove no matter how many times I dip it in my dinner. The atmosphere was just as you'd expect it to be and I was thouroughly excited to 'get stuck in' as it were.

I didn't really know any of the bands on the first night, however, we weaseled our way to the front nevertheless as Mollie and I in particular were determined to be as close to Ezra Koenig as possible without actually leaping onto the stage. Vampire Weekend are one of my absolute favourite bands and I am plagued with an unhealthy obsession with them, so I was incredibly excited at the fact they were headlining. True to my expectations they were incredibly and I ending up breaking my bag from jumping up and down too vigorously.

top left: beth, top right: mainstage screen, bottom right: GOTR welcome sign, bottom right: gaby and beth

At about 11o'clock we stumbled back to the campsite on painfully sore feet, stopped to grab a burger before going to brush our teeth. There were no shower blocks so we had to make do with a couple of taps next to the portaloos, which was surrounded by a minefield of people's toothpaste spit, so you had to be really careful of where you stood. We then spent the duration of the next couple of hours playing truth or dare, which ending up turning into just 'truth or truth'.

We all arose far too early on Saturday morning due to the unwelcome premature arrival of the sun. Feeling much grubbier than we'd have liked, we set about having breakfast and spent the majority of the morning lazing around the campsite and eating handfuls of cereal straight from the box, as modeled by Eloise below:

top right: aforementioned eloise, top middle: teepee door, top right: polly's OTP, bottom: gaby the model

The doors didn't open until 1 on Saturday, so we all wandered down to Lewes town to have a look about and grab some lunch. We all got a bit split up at this point, but Mollie, Laura, Beth, Florrie, Alex and I all had lunch my the castle, where we accidentally photobombed a poor woman's wedding photos; oops! Florrie and Alex went back to the campsite to find the others, and Beth, Mollie, Laura and I went down to the festival to lie down in the some and listen to some of the lesser known bands, before Johnny Flynn. I'm extremely glad that we did come down early as we all discovered a firm new favourite band, Bear's Den, who had a brilliant 30 minute set. This is my favourite of their songs live from the festival:

I even got to meet them afterwards, and they signed the EP I'd just brought! The rest of the gang then came and joined us we we began our journey to the front of the crowd. That day we saw Johnny Flynn, the Mystery Jets, the Vaccines and ultimately Mumford and Sons who were absolutely phenomenal. Our feet were even more sore than yesterday, plus we had a couple of bruises from middle aged men's failed attempts at crowd surfing and we were all so dehydrated that we could only communicate our euphoria by nodding quickly and smiling lots. After gulping down buckets of water it was back to the tent where we spent the night talking, much like the last.

top left: sleepy laura, top right: beth and I with our watermelon, bottom: the gang! ft mollie's photography

And then we had to leave the next day :(((( I really didn't want to go but it was so nice seeing everyone together! We all packed up the tent and had a last little 'play' in the field before we all waved goodbye. I can honestly say it was one of the best weekends of my life which is cringey and cliched but also very true! Here are the last couple of photos <33333