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Music. Food. Fun.
That’s pretty much everything you would want or expect from a Festival. When I received an email asking if I would like to head down to a local festival event I was really excited. The On Blackheath Music Festival was held over the first weekend of school – LO had just started his first day that week and thought it would be a nice treat for LO and me to go along.

On Sunday
We arrived on Blackheath green around 2-3pm. It was so windy but LO was so excited to go to a festival, he didn’t even feel the cold. I picked up my ticket from the desk office and was given a pass which allowed me to come and go as I wish. The festival was massive and I couldn’t help but think to myself that if the day was sunnier there would’ve been much more people.

Working out where most things were, LO and I headed over to the family playground area first. I was on a tight budget so kept him away from all the paid stuff although he could see the helter skelter clearly and was begging to go on it. It was only £2.50 a ride but I had no cash on me. There were cash machines inside the festival but it didn’t offer free withdrawals so I stuck to my guns and told LO just to enjoy the free stuff instead. We went near to the children’s tent where there was a storytelling going on and comedian Julian Clary was signing his latest children’s book in the smaller tent beside it. I wrote a post last year about Julian Clary reading with children so I really wanted to meet him but he was gone by the time we made our way over to his tent. Maybe next time.

LO had so much fun on the pirate’s ship by the Albion Kids Show, he was a little hesitant at first but then got stuck in climbing about and really enjoyed it. He didn’t want to leave! When I started to feel little droplets of rain, I took LO and ushered us inside the children’s tent to listen to the storytelling by Mike Dodsworth. He had an amazing energy and was able to hold the children’s attention for a full 60mins with the power of his words and story. We came in halfway but figured out that it was a story about a prince who was searching for a beautiful princess. He found such a princess but she was locked up under the sea in a castle that was guarded by a giant fish. The prince learnt how to swim and catch the giant fish with his net, free the princess and brought her back to her kingdom. It was a lovely story and there was even a chance for everyone to take part in the story by acting out little parts in the story. LO is really into children’s books like these, especially Julia Donaldson ones so I was very happy that he enjoyed the storytelling too.

When the storytelling ended LO and I wandered further down into the festival. We saw the main stage where singer, KT Tunstall was next in line to perform and I managed to just catch a glimpse of the John Lewis live cooking stage however wasn’t able to get to it to sit down and watch. LO was starting to tire so I got us a pizza and drink to liven us up – it was a pepperoni one and was so tasty but quite pricey at £10.00 a pizza. We watched KT Tunstall perform ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree’ and ‘The Other Side of the World’. It wasn’t until it was halfway into Black Horse that I looked down and saw that LO was sleeping whilst standing and realised it was time for us to go home. The night was still young (at 5pm) and I didn’t want to leave. I told myself that I would take LO home, get changed then head back out. That didn’t happen.

We got into our Uber and headed home. Once we got indoors, I didn’t want to leave the warmth to stand in the cold. I love my warmth and with winter soon coming, I didn’t want to increase my risk of getting chilblains as I have poor circulation in my feet. Regardless of leaving early, we had a fabulous time. I was gutted I wasn’t able to see any live cooking demos as that was one of the main reasons I was really excited to go to the On Blackheath festival but when you have little ones, their needs need to come first and unfortunately for me that meant us leaving early to let bubba rest.

I’d definitely love to come back next year and hope that we will be greeted with warmer weather. It’s a brilliant local event and I’m so glad it comes round every year.

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This is a collaborative post with John Lewis. I was given two tickets to attend the On Blackheath Music Festival. All words, opinions and photos are my own.