Jimmy’s Sausage and Beer Festival 2015

Bluebell the motorhome is having a little rest back at home. She’s been a festival van this weekend – providing us with a warm and dry bed whilst we enjoyed ourselves at Saturday’s Jimmy’s Festival

We booked the tickets for Saturday back in May, when we saw that Chas and Dave were billed for Saturday night- a bargain at £17.50 each we felt. Sadly the camping tickets had already sold out, so we found the closest Caravan Club CL, Rookery Farm, which was 3.5 miles away and only a mere £6 per night (no electric), booked that, and we’re all set. 

Fast forward to Last week, and we were keeping one eye on the weather. Our original plan was to go to Rookery Farm on Fri, and have a cycle around nearby Alton Water. But the weather gods had other plans… come Thursday, we made the decision to cancel our Friday night booking, and see out the torrential weather warning from the comfort of our sofa, instead traveling down to Ipswich first thing Saturday morning. Taxis were booked (more on those later) and we arrived at Rookery Farm in merry spirits as the rain was clearing, and we were set for sunshine! 

    
 We experienced a minor set back when we were waiting for our pre booked 11:45 cab by the side of the busy A road. It had gone 12:30, several unhelpful and downright rude (not from my end) phone calls to the taxi company and still no sign of our vehicle, so we decided to walk. A mile down the road, we noticed our cab about to whizz by and managed to flag him down. No apology from the cab driver as to why he was over an hour late and he promptly drove us a mile down the road, before arriving in a traffic jam, where he says you may as well get out here, it’s a mile to the entrance and its queuing the whole way. Fine we say, so we agree to jump out, and he attempts to charge us £9! For a mile journey that was over an hour late with no apology…. Er, right. Keith immediately says to taxi man, we are not paying you that, you were significantly late, you haven’t apologised and you haven’t done anywhere near the whole journey! Long story short, we end up paying him a fiver, and finish by saying to him, if you’d have just have apologised for the delay, and kept us updated then we would have payed you the full fare. 

So, we arrive, and it’s fair to say that our spirits aren’t that high. We manage to find the beer tent as a matter of urgency, and our spirits begin to be lifted, the choice of beer was fantastic. Heaps of Adnams, Woodfordes, Aspall not to mention all the craft beer too. Then we start smelling the meat cooking, there are loads of stalls, selling sausages, pulled pork, burgers, you name it. It’s not long before we start to feel less stressed.

   
   
  
We decided to do a circuit of the food stalls, and make our way for the acoustic tent, being kid-i-less we didn’t fancy the C Beebies man on the main stage doing the hokey kokey. 🙂 We listened to Louise Rene whilst having a Suffolk Pasty and a pint. She was great.  

    
 We did a few more circuits of the site before taking our chairs down to the main stage and settling in. We didn’t think much of the first couple of acts on the Main stage (they weren’t our cup of tea), but were happy enough sat chilling, drinking and eating, and by now the sun had come out again!    

    
 We enjoyed listening to local band The Nik Lowe band, but our highlights were Sonya Titus, the fabulous Ben Waters Band, who in our opinion rivalled Jools Holland, and don’t get me started on his 14yr old son, also in the band on sax, who absolutely BLEW ME AWAY, and of course Chas and Dave, who despite some sound issues at the start, were brilliant. 

   

    
    
    
   
We enjoyed what we saw of Toploader, but decided to leave early in the hope we would get our taxi without the headaches for 10,000 people leaving at the same time. To put it bluntly, the taxi situation was a nightmare. All pre booked cabs, including ours, had been cancelled and there was an hour and a half wait for a cab. It was chaos, and the stewards were understandably fuming at the local cab companies. We ended up having to walk back, which was less than ideal- a 3.5 mile walk in the pitch black along a busy A road with no path. Luckily, Keith’s years of watching movies came in handy- he took the role of a Navy Seal and managed to deliver the package (me and Jazz!) safely back to Bluebell the motorhome. 

All in all, a brilliant day though, and I’d definately recommend Jimmy’s festival to those wanting a lower key/family/dog friendly festival. Next year hopefully we can get camping tickets, as for us the local cab companies didn’t, but could have, let the whole thing down. 

   
   
*if you’re ever in Ipswich area AVOID Hawks Express Cabs*