Hi everyone, hope you are all well and have had a great weekend! I am currently sat on the sofa feeling like I’ve been ran over by a truck, but it has all been worth it for what has been a brilliant weekend at Kendal Calling!

His n hers muddy wellies!

We set out early on Friday morning to arrive at the festival site before it got too busy. We still had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get in, but once we got settled and the tent set up we were good to go. Luckily we were blessed with reasonable weather all weekend – bright sunshine with a few showers, in fact it was so sunny on Friday I ended up getting a bit burned!

Feathers in my hair, tent breakfast of muesli and coffee, trumi bars to keep me going, Chai Wallah stage, graffiti art

Over the whole weekend we saw some fantastic live music, ate some lovely food and enjoyed a few tipples as well! In fact I haven’t let my hair down like that in a very very long time, especially around food. We could have save money and brought more of our own stuff but I really like treating myself to the different foods available as part of the whole festival experience.

Wholemeal pitta stuffed with falafel, hummus, tahini sauce and salad, organic tofu burger, drinking Sailor Jerry’s rum and ginger beer, aubergine, red pepper and cashew curry with coconut cream, pleasant green fields, south indian coconut and vegetable curry

We also enjoyed red wine with chocolate biscuits and crisps back at the tent as well as lots of other pretty unhealthy stuff – I ate a ton of pick n mix sweets, wham bars and now that I’m more relaxed with eating dairy, ice cream. But I also had some yummy smoothies to! Life is all about balance and I enjoyed every bite, however I am well and truly paying the price for it now with a horrendous sugar hangover!

Amazing salted caramel peanut butter ice cream, mango smoothies, flavours of ice cream, more smoothies and a chai tea

James loved it as he is such a big music fan, if you want to know more on the bands we saw check out his music blog! We even got a hug from one guitarist when they came down off the stage to play right in front of us.

The tiny and out of the way Woodland stage, watching the New York Brass Band outside the Riot Jazz stage at 1am, Thomas J Speight playing for us, me being daft, James and Iron Man

One of the things I enjoyed about the festival last year was the Vintage fair which was back again this year. This time I decided to take some spare cash with me!

Vintage floral dress, ‘Coffee is good for your brain’ bag and ‘L’ charm bracelet

My legs are aching from walking around in wellies all weekend, the shower I had last night when we got home at 1.30 was the best I’ve ever had and I’m exhausted, but a happy exhausted :-) It was just a really great weekend and we had such a fantastic time together enjoying ourselves, once again we can’t wait to go back again next year!

Have you ever been to a festival? What’s your favourite part of the festival experience?

Hello my lovely friends, happy Friday! Its so nice to have reached the end of the week isn’t it?

I’ve taken the day off work today to be able to get myself sorted ready for our weekend at Kendal Calling with Alpro Soya! Check out my Tumblr for my festival style inspiration!

I’ve had some awesome runs over the last couple of days. Wednesday morning I did a 6.5 mile run with a few sprints thrown in the middle in 55.14 average pace 8.29 (awesome!) and today I did my long run due to being away at the weekend, and did 11 miles in 1.37 with an average pace of 8.48. Considering that I’ve had no rest days between that and the great 10 miler I did last weekend I think that’s pretty good!

I also got in a a quick yoga podcast and a great strength workout last night at the gym based on my amended New Rules of Lifting for Women routine, it was hard core, well at least for me!

I’ve been loving the green smoothie action as usual, in fact these and big salads are all I seem to be craving at the moment:

Post run Wednesday: Spinach, mixed frozen berries, strawberry hemp (can’t wait to review this, I love it!), maca powder, barley grass, ground flax, msm crystals, water, ice, stevia, xanthan and guar gums. Topped with Alara Goji muesli and some amazing drippy sunflower seed butter, nom!

Post run today:

Kale, frozen banana, 3 kiwi’s, 1 scoop of vanilla sun warrior, maca, mesquite, spirulina, msm crystals, ground flax, water, ice, gums, stevia. Topped with raw rain forest nut butter sauce, goji berries and freeze dried berries.

It was quite warm after my late meeting on Wednesday and I just wanted something quick, easy and satisfying so I made up another smoothie for dinner, although I resisted the urge to make it a green one!

This was pretty awesome! Apple and Watermelon Smoothie (apple, frozen watermelon, rice milk, agave, xanthan gum) topped with a lot of treacle granola and some PB&Co Mighty Maple PB. This was a wonderful combo! I made sure I added a lot of granola to satisfy me as well as going back to the kitchen and adding more plus some maple syrup!

Considering that yesterday’s breakfast was a bit random and mostly liberated from the freezer it was wonderful:

Frozen blueberries, rhubarb and orange compote, crumbled banana sunshine muffin and some Coconut Vanilla ‘Yoghurt’: 2 tbsp of coconut flour mixed with 1/2 scoop of vanilla sun warrior protein powder, dash of agave and water. The coconut vanilla yoghurt was a revelation, I’ll be knocking that up when I’m looking for a yoghurt like fix but don’t have any handy! It would have tasted even better made up a little in advance and then chilled.

I’ve been digging the salads again for lunch:

Cos lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, sugar snaps, crumbled RAW Health Intensely Italian crackers with some home made pesto dressing – I will be sharing this recipe soon, it is amazing!

Last night I raided the freezer for an easy option:

My simple dahl with wholegrain rice (from a quick cook pack) and steamed broccoli and spring greens topped with a sprinkle of mixed seeds.

Followed by a bowl of double chocolate protein ice cream topped with candy covered sun flower seeds:

1 scoop of chocolate sun warrior, 1 tbsp of raw cacao, water, ice, agave, stevia, xanthan and guar gums.

So I think I am just about set for the festival, we have our tent, sleeping bags, wellies, sunscreen (here’s hoping) toilet roll and baby wipes! I’ve also got a stash of fruit, veggies and snack bars along with these awesome little oatmeal jars inspired by Yack Attack and re blogged over on my Tumblr:

Each jar is filled with half a cup of oats, raisins, cinnamon, chia seeds and a pack of stevia powder. All I need to do is add some water before I go to bed and in the morning I should have some tasty overnight oats! Genius idea eh? Obviously I’ll also be hitting up the Alpro stand and filling up on their goodies. I’m really looking forward to my first ever festival!

Oh, and just to be fully transparent: I have been invited to the festival as a guest of Alpro Soya to blog and tweet about the event in general, I’m not being sponsored or paid in any way and all my opinions are my own (of course). I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated Alpro products so feel that linking with them is in line with my personal ethics :-)

As I said when I first got the invite I had been thinking about trying to find a smaller festival to attend this summer. I’m especially looking forward to seeing Blondie, The Cribs, Frank Turner, The Charlatans, Young Knives and local band Smoove and Turrell. James is really into his music (and has even started his own blog!) so I’m sure we are both going to have a fab time!

Have you been to a festival before? Any survival tips for me?

Hope you all have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow my Twitter and Tumblr for festival updates!

Hello everyone, hope your having a great week! I’ve just about recovered from my weekend at the wonderful Kendal Calling Festival. We had such an awesome time, the weather was perfect and I actually really enjoyed the whole camping experience!

  OOTD: orange sun glasses: New Look, strapless sun dress: Accessorize, pink scarf: gift, beaded necklaces: various, black leggings: H&M, tan cross body bag: Mango, wellies: Boules

Although the weather was good the grass was a bit damp so I stuck with the wellies, plus it meant that I didn’t get yucky stuff on my feet in the toilets!

The whole festival was just brilliant, we enjoyed drifting around the fields popping into the various tents and stages to enjoy some amazing music:

The Main stage where we enjoyed Chase and Status, Vintage Trouble (such a great band!), Young Knives, Beardyman and The Charlatans.

Riot Jazz stage:

We just enjoyed the complete randomness of the whole place! Loved the big sofas for seating and the beautiful fairy lights!

Kaylied Stage where we discovered two great bands, Molotov Jukebox (the lead singer is ‘Tonks’ from Harry Potter movies!) and The Worm:

We also loved wondering around the other little stands and stalls including the Vintage fair tent:

 

I almost bought a top and a bag but had ran out of cash!

Sailor Jerry’s bar:

I had a few Sailor Jerry’s with ginger ale and lime – my new fave tipple!

Of course we also spend a bit of time at the Alpro stand!

I ate a lot of yoghurt:

I think I tried every flavour, the cherry and blueberry were certainly my favourite. I also loved the vanilla and chocolate dessert pots. Both myself and James really loved the vanilla yoghurt with granola too, although the portion sizes were tiny…

So I kept going back for seconds… and thirds :-)

I also enjoyed a lovely back massage and we got our photo taken in the giant alpro bowl:

We had to shout ‘plant goodness’ hence the dodgy expressions on our face!

Speaking of food, I ate a lot over the weekend, especially as a vegan I was so well catered for!

Chickpea and spinach curry from a Nepalese cafe:

The most gorgeous peanut curry with veggies, tofu and rice from an Indonesian stand:

Lovely falafel with salsa, hummus, tahini and salad in a whole grain pitta:

Last but not least a huge Thali from a vegetarian Indian stand called Ghandi’s Flip Flop:

This included 3 different vegan curries, 3 pickles, rice and an unpictured poppadom, delish!

I did try and get some fruit and veggies in via fresh juice:

I loved this ‘multi vit’ combination of carrot, apple, cucumber and orange. My jars of overnight oats worked perfectly as breakfasts too! 

We just can’t wait to go back next year! Of course I have to say a big thank you to the guys at Alpro, all the staff on the stand were such good fun and how they managed to stay so chirpy at 8am I do not know!

Here’s to 2012 Kendal Calling!

What / who would be included in your perfect festival? I loved Kendal Calling but my dream festival would include a gypsy style caravan to camp in, all vegan food stands, yoga workshops, raw food cooking classes, photography classes, a vintage clothing fair stand with a personal shopper service, a poetry or literary tent, a sci fi costume theme and to really mix it up on the music front I would have the Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and Jamie Cullum headlining!

Hope your having a great week!