The weekend of the 24th of July was the Big Tent Festival, which took place in Fife, and I decided to take up the offer of lift down from Ullapool from my father in order to attend.

This Festival is a great one for crafts as it is all about being sustainable, so the emphasis on making things yourself, from scratch and using locally sourced materials is very apparent.

On arrival we walked from the vehicle along a narrow road with massive broadleafed trees looming over us, and in the distance we could hear music spilling out from the arena, which turned out to be coming from performers Brazil! Brazil!. Once inside my father had to rush off so I was on my own, but I was pleased when the first tent I walked into turned out to be the craft tent.

This was a large wooden floored marquee with stalls around the edges, comprising mainly of woodworkers, which led out to even more crafty stuff at the back. I was pleasently surprised when I stopped at the jewellery display to find the work of Dot Sim, a lovely jeweller and excellent teacher, who taught my year for a short while at university. It was nice to see her composing her delicate silver pieces right in front of all the visitors, and think this approach the crafts people were taking deffintaly leant to the overall relaxed but inquisitive atmosphere of the place. After looking around all the stalls, including a basket weaver who sourced his willow from Eigg, and a man creating decorative wall pieces out of wood, Tartan from Trees, I went out to check out the many other tents.

there was a lot of interesting talks going on with topics such as sustainability viewed from many stances I also bumped into a classmate of mine who was diligently doing research for his dissertation. I bumped into another friend of mine their who had come on public transport and said because of this that she had been presented with a punet of strawberrys on arrival, what a great incentive for being more environmentally aware.

Then of course, the shops, I wandered along the ‘street’ of stalls which had a fantastic array of interesting things to offer, I tried to ignore the Chocolate Tree with its inviting aroma and went to look at the non food items instead. Village Green Trading Ltd. from Ullapool was there with a selection of fairly traded gifts and clothes, Geoff King at Woodland Treasures, Based in Tain, was busy carving out their intricate wooden jewellery and combs, and Celtic Leather from Ullapool was also in attendance.

Displayed on the stalls were signs indicating where they were from and exactly how many miles they had traveled be there, one of the closest must have been the Pillars of Hercules cafe which is based on the estate itself, it certainly seemed a popular choice with its organic produce and haybails for seating.

The impressive main stage was hosting a diverse range of entertainments which encompassed creative musicians who perfomed circus tricks simultaniously, dancers and other world music. The only act my father wanted to see were traditional musicians Session A9 which unfortunatly, due to travel arrangments, we only managed to see 2 sets of their beautifully energetic performance. As my father had decided he couldnt resist the temptations of the Black Isle Brewery tent it was up to me to drive home, up the A9 at night, in a van with a 50mph speed limit.

oh yes, and I did sneak back to the Chocolate Tree and ordered a freshly made belgium waffel with chocolate sauce and strawberrys, appreciated all the more for the wait.