Wednesday 31 August 2011

My First (proper) Festival

Though the festival season in the UK is trailing off now, I was very fortunate enough to go to one last weekend with The Wonder Thing and his family. Festivals in the UK tend to mean three things:
Great entertainment, Porta-loos (that have transformed into Porta-Grossness by the last day) and a notable lack of showering. When I usually go to a festival, I'm working, but this time I was going to be able to have fun!

I knew it was going to involve camping, and probably rain and not enough time/resources to 'nurture' my hair properly.

So my initial plan for Friday went like this:

- Wake up at 6
- Shower, wash and condition hair
- After drying slightly with towel, apply some wheatgerm oil
- Section hair into 24, apply leave in
- Dry hair in Curlformers (and to have done all this by 7am)
- While hair is drying, pack everything
- When hair is dry (hopefully in 3 hours), remove Curl formers one at a time
- Twist each section with Shea Butter
- Leave house, catch bus, walk to station, buy tickets

And of course, there would be cherubs singing a celestial song as I did all this, and the edges of my vision would be all misty and not quite in focus.

I woke up at 7am, and then realised that I must've been off my rocker when I devised the original plan the original plan was completely unrealistic.
What happened instead was:

- Shower
- I run around the house packing furiously, which somehow took me 2 and a half hours because I was looking for my sleeping bag and head torch
- I start twisting at 10:30am
- I stop twisting at 11: 30am. This doesn't mean I've finished, just that I've run out of time. 
- I start running around panicking about what I may have forgotten for 10 minutes and then leave the house to walk to the bus stop
- The Littlest Sis runs after me. I have forgotten my phone (of all things).
- I tuck the unfinished section of hair behind my ear as it starts raining.
- The bus is late. It is still raining. I ponder what design error meant that my waterproof coat was made with no hood.
- Bus finally arrives. 
- Power walks to train station.
- When I arrive at train station, I am almost wheezing too hard to ask for ticket.
- I buy my ticket, leap onto the train that has just arrived, find a seat and complete the unfinished section of hair.

Between 29 and 40 twists. I still haven't counted them.

The weekend was brilliant. I enjoyed it so very much. Lots of walking and joking and laughter and fun and listening to amazing music.

My hair held up well. I just wore it in its normal bun for the weekend. At occasions, it was very messy, but I'm sure nobody noticed *hopeful face*




If you can see my scalp, does that mean my parting is getting better?

The only kit I took with me was my satin scarf, and an elastic band to hold it on while I slept. The elastic band turned out to be completely useless because I'd forgotten my torch, and couldn't find the (black) elastic in the dark. I also brought some hair bands, my scrunchie and hair pins, but I only used two hair pins to keep up the twists who wanted to do their own thing. So no products and near to complete minimalism on the hair accessory front.

However.

By Saturday, my scalp was itchy.

By Sunday, it was on fire. I'm not someone who should really go more than a 5-7 days without washing my hair, and this was pushing 10 days.

The Wonder Thing was not having his hair being greasy, so shampooed with cold water.

Let me repeat that: COLD WATER.

I considered it, because the little dance he did when they poured the near freezing water over his head was inventive enough that I nearly wanted to join in.

Plus, there was always the possibility of boiling some water up so I could wash my hair with warm water.

But I was far too lazy and my hair was not my priority at that time; it would have to wait until I got home. I thoroughly enjoyed myself using the time I would've spent on my hair listening to some awesome people.
Such fun!

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