A Lovely Outdoor Summer

You know it's summer when suddenly all the events you do are outside, come rain or shine! So far this year we've been really lucky & only had a few showers to contend with, unlike the poor souls at Glastonbury. It's festival season here at Lovely & although we don't do many yet they're definitely a high point in our year.

First up was the Riverside Festival in Charlbury a free music festival on an almost Island on the banks of the River Evenlode in Oxfordshire. I (Camilla) had to do this one by myself but I had such friendly neighbours & great customers that I didn't have any time to feel lonely. Sleeping in the Lovley van was a touch uncomfortable though so next time a mattress will be needed!

Highlight of the weekend? Arriving with no expectations & leaving with a nice fat money belt!

The following weekend we went to a village fete in Bradenham & set up in the grounds of the National Trust run Bradenham Manor. It had rained too much to allow the stallholders to drive round to where our pitches were (honestly I think the Lovely van would have lost it going down the hill & probably made a lasting friendship with one of the very large trees) so we were all unpacked into trailers & driven round by the Estate workers & their landrovers. It was again an unexpectedly brilliant day & the weather couldn't have been nicer, although packing up was a little sweaty!

Highlight of the day? Having a run on our fleecy blankets when I had been tempted to leave them at home!

And then it was time for one of the absolute highlights of our year, Cornbury Music Festival. This year it was held in the grounds of the Manor at Great Tew & what an absolutely stunning location it is! We arrived on Thursday to find that our pitch was located infront of a huge tree which hosted an enormous patch of stinging nettles under it's spreading branches. Unfortunately the pitch 'measure outerers' had only measured forwards rather than upwards & totally failed to take into account that if we raised our gazebos we were in danger of either snapping the branches of the tree (which I suspect the estate wouldn't have been too happy about) or ripping a hole in the top of our gazebo (which I know we would have been cross about!) so rather than run a stall only suitable for hobbits, we made sure noone was looking & moved ourselves forward by 1/2 m & carried on setting up.

All in all we had a fabulous weekend, we were so pleased with how the stall looked:

were really excited to have proper lighting this year & loved how our lanterns & hatstand looked at night with their respective forms of lighting:

We had lovely neighbours:

and great helpers:



 And generally just had a lovely weekend...oh & the sales were great too!

So here we have it two very tired but happy Lovelies now getting ready for this weekend's trip to Camper Jam at Weston Park in Shropshire. Em is printing more Camper van baby vests as we sold out over the weekend & I am admining & doing all the extra little bits that go with packing up to go away for a weekend. We leave tomorrow morning, we'll let you know how we get on...watch out Camper Jam, you're about to be Lovelied!

The Lovelies & Brother!

Camilla, Harry & Emily x