I’m typing this at my mum’s house because I’m down in Tamworth today ahead of my sister’s wedding tomorrow, and it’s absolute madness! I’m kind of glad I’ve only been here for one day of it, because everyone’s stressed trying to get everything sorted in time! We had the rehearsal last night, and I hope I can remember what it is I’m supposed to do! I’m giving Vikky away so I’m walking down the aisle with her, and I have a moment where I have to say “I do”! I’m sure it will all be great tomorrow, but I realised some things are still last minute when we were helping Damien write his groom’s speech just a couple of hours ago!

Anyway, I guess I should post a quick update on all that’s happened in the last few weeks since I headed down for Soul Survivor. On the Tuesday, I went and visited Ali down in Bristol and it was really nice catching up with her again. We grabbed a pizza, chatted until late about loads of stuff, and I even tried to convert her into a Myspace junkie (but I seem to have failed with that!)

Wednesday lunchtime, and it was time to continue onto Shepton Mallet, where I met up with the 29 guys, and also with Kate who did the video stuff with me there last year.

They’d moved us into a smaller venue this year, which was good because it helped make it look much fuller each night, although we were out of the way of the main venues a bit which I think meant some of the kids didn’t realise we were there until later in the week. Then for the second week, Kate had to leave because she was doing a course in London, so Andy Passey took over which worked really well. It was a great 2 weeks, and on the whole, the weather wasn’t too bad.

However, for the 3rd week, Soul Survivor was replaced by Momentum, which I was staying round for along with Andy, so we kept all the video and computer equipment in the room we’d been using as an edit suite, but put it all on the floor under the worktops to keep it out of the way of the Artshed guys who we were sharing it with.

That afternoon though, we had a major storm with torrential rain, and quite a lot of the site got flooded (although my tent was okay), but I kind of assumed the venue would be okay because it seemed above ground level. After the main meeting, I met up with Andy who’d been to the Passion For Your Name meeting in what was the Underground during the previous weeks, and he said that the water had flooded through from the back of there, right down under the stage!

Now panicking ever-so slightly, I headed off to site control who told me that the Artshed had been ankle-deep in water, and the stewards had had to rescue stuff on floor level, but they weren’t aware of that storeroom! So me and Andy went down there, and we were so lucky, because right next to the storeroom was a fire-exit where the floor dipped down a bit, and basically the river had taken that route rather than flow into the storeroom! I then hastily moved all my stuff off the floor – no point taking chances!!

You can see all the photos I took here.

I got back to Manchester at 3am last Thursday morning, and it was so good being back in my own bed after spending 15 days living in a tent! Then on Saturday, I met up with Sa and we went round town looking for items for a ‘survival kit’ for Emma who’s leaving Manchester to study in Cardiff. The original plan was to try and find some Welsh items, but we struggled to find that much (surprisingly, in England!) so the main thrust of it is things to remind her of Manchester, including a beautiful postcard we found of Levenshulme’s high street – classy! Then on the evening, Jamie came and joined us and we all watched a DVD at Sarah’s. It was nice hanging out with them both again – it’s been a really long time since I’ve spent time with these guys, and it’s great to be able to do so again, after all that’s happened.

Anyway, I need to get off here to allow my sis to book a coach ticket to bring them back from the airport after their honeymoon… I’m driving them up to mine on Sunday afternoon ‘cos they’re flying from Manchester airport early on Monday morning. Will post an update about the wedding later!