I don’t know about you, but I spent last weekend glued to my TV screen watching the Glastonbury channel.

It wasn’t just the TV, though. My social media feed was filled with memories of Glastonbury too, reminding me of all the best parts of the festival in years gone by.  

Kicking off the summer

Forage has been trading at Glastonbury for 13 years, and each year it has marked the true start of the summer for us! Each year, we’d spend days bumping into so many familiar faces we first met in  India, on the festival scene, and across various places we have lived around the country. I could guarantee that there would be so much laughter, so many hugs, and so much smiling that my face would hurt by the end of the day! 

Glastonbury usually marks the start of our summer adventures. The creative and wild community of festival folk who would form our strange travelling city would settle in a different field from one week to the next, as part of the vibrant community that is the UK festival scene. 

Our Festival Family

We swore that starting a family wouldn’t change our lifestyle, and in 2014 after having our baby girl, we hit the road when she was just 3 months old to embark on a festival season of 16 events back to back. We loved it! It had its challenges, of course, but that summer was as full of magic, just like any other season we had done, and even more so as we were experiencing the whole thing in a completely different way!

As the years went by, our needs as a family did start to change and the desire to plant a garden and watch it grow became stronger and stronger. We felt the pull for stability and community begin to overtake the craving for adventure and travel. 

Planting our roots

We decided to plant our roots in Bristol. Since our son was born in 2017, we have settled into a very different way of life. A smaller one, that exists in those day to day moments around the dinner table, watching the seasons change through the eyes of our children and enjoying the blessing of silence on the rare occasions that we get it!

We have reigned our festival season in over the last couple of years, choosing just a few exclusive events to bring the stall to. 

The whole thing is still utterly exciting! Preparing the stock, loading the van and heading off on an adventure is all part of the experience. There is nothing like the tingle you get as you approach a festival, knowing that whether it’s full sun or squelching mud, you are about to spend a week exploring a unique landscape of unrivaled creativity, with a strong sense of freedom and connection: with our family, friends, customers, and of course, completely fabulous strangers! 

 Watching the highlights from Glastonbury festivals in seasons gone by, this is the first summer in 15 years we won’t be embarking on our pilgrimage around the country, and joining our community of wild and wonderful people. That is what hit me over the weekend.

Creating some space

Here is an opportunity to do something a little differently. This summer, we will have the time to nurture our online business, something that has had to pause in its tracks each year when the events season starts, and we’ll put in as much love and energy as we would if we could see our customers face to face at our stalls.

It’s also a chance to enjoy some of the more simple pleasures of growing vegetables and sitting in our garden, looking for inspiration and  planning wild camping trips for when lockdown lifts. I’m sure we will spend some time on the road, even if we won’t be  amongst the crowds of a festival environment this time. 

I will miss our festival fun this summer, but I choose to l take full advantage of the space that it creates in our life, and plant this unexpected seed to see what grows.

Connecting with you 

To mark this official start of this year’s festival-free summer, we are honouring festivals-gone-by with an exclusive sale! It will launch on Saturday 4th July and will run for 24 hours only,  involving a fabulous giveaway, plus some amazing first-come-first-served deals that you won’t want to miss! 

The best you have of winning one of our highest discounts is by signing up for early access to the sale , you can do that by clicking here!

Can't wait for the fun to begin!