Jack in The Green - Mayday Bank Holiday

I realised we never put these up, so it is out of chronological order.
For the 1st May bank holiday we went for a camping adventure to Crowhurst, near Battle and Hastings.
That is my friend Stacey who came too.
As you know, when we go camping, it generally rains.
We took the train to Crowhurst (about an hour and a half from London) and walked to the campsite. I was in gumboots and jeans, Stacey was more optimistic (she hadn't been camping with us before) in shorts and jandals. She also had a bikini for swimming in the sea... as I said, optimistic. This was early Spring. The campsite was lovely, small but perfectly formed. It was set in coppiced woodland, and surrounded by masses of bluebells.
The first day was actually warm and we walked about the countryside, had a delish pub lunch, found an amazing farm shop with bunting for sale (purchased) and generally had a nice day.

Next morning, mattress has died, it is raining. A lot.
This is us in the tent. We decided to go into Hastings to see the Jack in The Green Festival which we heard was on. It is a rite of Spring/Fertility sort of traditional thing. We got to Hastings, bought emergency gumboots and poncho (Stacey) and new camp mattress (Steph) and found out the Jack in the Green is on Monday. So, now that we were kitted out for the weather we decide to go to Battle, where the Battle of Hastings was fought. We wandered about Battle Abbey and got thoroughly wet. It was still pretty cool though. That is us listening to the audioguide, looking rather wet.
We then spent the next few hours drinking tea, beer and then eating curry while we waited for a break in the weather to go back to the tent.
Of course as the sun went down, the rain stopped, and on our way back to the campsite we found a lady feeding... BADGERS! (Calling out bagder badger badger!!!) and One Eye, the one eyed fox. So that was quite exciting.

Next Day, bank holiday Monday, it wasn't raining, so we headed back to Hastings, got painted green by a passing minstrel, and watched the parade. It was totally awesome - Morris Dancers, crazy huge puppets, loads of people all dressed up as trees, goblin and fairy types, flower goddesses etc etc. It ended up at the castle and each Morris /drumming/traditional dancing troup did a display while we drank cider. Awesome.
Also in Hastings on this day there was a motor cycle convention, so lots of different groups of people wandering around. Quite odd really.
So after a somewhat surreal day of Jack in the Green and taking down our damp tents, we headed back to London. Lots of fun, despite the RAIN.