foundation weekend away

Some 20 or so members of foundation went down to Lee Abbey, near Lynton for the weekend. Leading up to it, I’d had an extremely full couple of weeks and, frankly, by Friday would have been more than happy to have opted for a quiet weekend at home… but, as so often happens when you’re tempted to do so on these occasions, it proved to be a really brilliant weekend. We were one of three groups who were staying at Lee Abbey over the weekend. We were by far the youngest of the three (apart from Moira+me!) and, unlike the painstaking preparation put in by the other groups (probably over several weeks), our “programme” was devised on the hoof over the last few days. In the event, it proved to be wonderfully stimulating, thought-provoking stuff. Last night, we decided to have a “friendly stage” – with people volunteering to come up with songs, poems, some improvisation etc (don’t worry, I didn’t perform – I vaguely acted as MC!). It was absolutely brilliant (an amazing amount of talented musicians and performers!). We were given permission to use the “tower” – a ramshackle shell of a building located high up on the headland overlooking the sea (and about a 10 minute walk through the woods in the pitch dark) as our “stage” and so, at around 10pm, we all disappeared to the tower for the latter part of the evening. There was no electricity, but we managed to light a fire and found a few candles… and then proceeded to sing various “rock(?)” songs at high volume to the accompaniment of Rob’s guitar and Tim’s harmonica. Some of the “party” stayed up until about 3am (not me, I hasten to add!) and, for a relatively brief but rather worrying time, managed to get themselves locked inside the tower! Dylan produced some absolutely wonderful photographs of the weekend (as well as videoing some interviews!). Hopefully, he’ll post them either on the foundation website or the foundation facebook site.
A truly wonderful weekend with a great bunch of people.
Photo: some of the group beside the crosses.