Playgroup Festival | Three days of insanely good music, magic and miscellaneous fun!

We’re not a big festival and nor do we want to be, we’re about making new friends, being kidnapped by aliens, learning taxidermy, being part of a marching band, taking part in the worlds longest pub quiz, helping to create giant sculptures, listening the best in live Electronica, World, Folk, Reggae, Funk and Swing, and all the while enjoying cabaret, arts installations and locally sourced food in stunningly beautiful surroundings – we want you to feel like this is your personal festival, miles away from the over-saturated corporate events that we’ve all grown to hate, we don’t want to sell you anything other than a brilliant time…

Electromagnetic Field
Electromagnetic Field 2012 is a three-day camping festival for people
with an inquisitive mind and an interest in science, engineering, DIY,
technology, arts, or crafts. It will be a cross between a tech
conference and a music festival, with talks and workshops on a wide
range of subjects. A great opportunity to meet like-minded people, to
learn, to teach, to play, and have a drink with a stranger. A festival
for anyone interested in 3D printing, DIYBio, knitting, electronics,
Internet culture, music hacking, space, lockpicking, homebrewing,
robots, UAVs, mind hacking, radio, or pretty much anything else you can
think of… in a field!

Sign up at http://www.emfcamp.org/ to receive announcements of ticket sales and other key information.

My mate Simon is selling his Vango Diablo 400, which comes with the Vango Diablo 400 footprint groundsheet, Vango Large Sun Canopy in same blue, and the Vango Diablo 400 carpet. It’s 3 years old and has been fantastically looked after. It would set you back about 500 quid. First reasonable offer over 150 quid would be accepted. Collect from Brighton area.

So – you can post ads for anything to do with getting Out There. And it’s FREE. Post what you want and let us know if you need extra categories.

I always wanted one in the Roedale Valley allotments, a magical place in a hidden valley just up the road from my house but seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Last weekend I went to look at available plots and, with the help of daughter, I chose the best, a high up top half of a long thin strip of land. You can even see the sea from my plot.

You can see the sea from my allotment.

The intention is to cultivate it, of course, and to grow artichokes and asparagus and peppers and fruit and other stranger things. But also I will build a shack atop the hill so that I can sit and survey t he wonders of the world on summer evenings after my work is done. I’m ambitious for my site, but then my neighbours already have a summer house on theirs.

I’m also intent on making some art for the site, sculptures and the like. And there’s the glory of the allotments, a photographic project may take shape.

A sloping valley ...

A variety of accomodation on site

This Sunday we headed over to Laughton near Lewes in East Sussex. We went with a local into the amazing Bluebell covered Laughton Common Woods. I’m not sure it was a mapped out walk but I have found a 9 mile one on the Walking In Sussex site. The kids went Gruffalo hunting and even found a rope swing. Weather was intermittent so we headed to the Roebuck Inn, which was pretty much empty. Shame as they did a fantastic lunch and served a fine pint of Harveys, which gets the thumbs up from me. We even got a game of darts in.

UPDATE: THIS TENT HAS NOW BEEN SOLD WITH OUR HELP

Following recent help selling a 5m Bell Tent in Brighton, we’ve now been contacted by a family near Barnstable in North Devon. They’ve got a Soulpad 4000-hybrid for sale, as they want to upgrade to a bigger tent as a result of the recent arrival to their growing family. The Bell tent is 4m diameter tent with a zipped in groundsheet. This means it’s completely waterproof but can be unzipped and rolled up when the weather is fine for that ‘floating tent’ look. So if anyone’s interested or know someone who is then get in touch via hello@alifeoutthere.com and we’ll put you in touch.

P.S. Definitely think the idea of using futon sofa bed is inspired. Might try this myself, as we have gone through so many airbeds as kids seem to think they are bouncy castles.

Things have been a bit quite on the Alifeoutthere.com front for a while. I’m in middle of my MSc, my wife has just had an operation and we’ve exchanged on our London apartment. So things have been a mite bit hectic of late. But further to my recentish Wild Pottery at Wowo post, Alice Cragg has been in touch to say that they have a whole host of new courses there, including: Bushcraft from Steve Shove and Rob Fallon and their teams; Foraging with Anna Richardson; making just about anything you can imagine with willow and split log with Jon Waller; and more Basketry and Wild Pottery with Native Hands aka Ruby. You can see at full list of courses and dates here.

We’ve had an email from Claire Barnett, who’s been enjoying our suggestions for secret sites. She’s sent us a couple of photos of her my pride and joy, an Eriba Triton Caravan. Now I’m normally strictly canvas, but I’ve wouldn’t need my arm twisting too hard to swap the Bell tent for either an Eriba caravan or vintage ones I saw in Dorset. Not sure my neighbours on HPA would be too keen about me taking one of their parking spaces though. But if there’s anyone else out there checking out of site, please sent us some photos of your favourite camping kit.

About this time last year I mentioned that folks at Bell Tent UK were expanding their empire beyond glamping equipment sales and festival accommodation (Hotel Bell Tent) to become a matchmaker between glampers and landowner (see here). Well, they’ve got a new Get on my land site and Facebook page, with around 16 sites for you to choose from.

A quick search shows the the following are also included in the Cool Camping and Go Glamping guides, and one or two have also been featured in The Guardian travel section: Abbey Home Farm, Tremeer Farm Yurts, Talton Lodge Yurts & Tipis, Cornish Tipi Holidays, Safari Britain and West Lexham Glamping. I wonder what this means in terms of their original plans to be exclusive agents for the sites they list. I also wonder whether you still have to buy one of their Bell Tents to be part of their scheme.

But here’s a few ones on their list I hadn’t heard of before: Rosa’s Copse, Simpson’s Cross Tipis, Eco Yurt and Tipi Retreats, Hidden Valley Yurts, The Woodland Retreat, Grendon Glamping, Sunny South Hams, Camptivity, Tipi Algarve Eco Retreat and  The Glampsite – Bath Hen Weekend.

If you’ve stayed at any of the above we’d love to hear your feedback, good or bad. So please drop us a line at reviews@alifeoutthere.com