On the 1st of July 2005 at 5pm I departed from my house to travel up to a campsite that was 30 miles out from the centre of Edinburgh. I travelled in a people carrier with Zak next to me and next to him some guy who wasn't introduced to us at all for about 5 hours which almost bore me to tears luckily (EXTREME SARCASM) we were also watching chick flicks such as Love Actually and Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason (Yes the name is highly relevent).
When we got there I wanted to curl up (and die [only kiddin!]) next to a nice bottle of Waggle Dance (yes it is a real drink - looky here), but actually I didn't due to the fact I had never heard of such a beer before and I had to set my solitary one man tent all on my own, which is no mean feat i'll tell you. I then got down to the strangely named ales which were delish. Also on this night I "aquired" a Somerset accent by accident and changed the word Deja Vu forever by saying it in the acquired accent. We spent the night drinking and taking about everything and anything, well by that I mean Girls/Boys, School and Drinking, normal teenage topics of conversation.
On Saturday it was an early start of 7:30am so that we could find somewhere to park that wasn't 100 miles away from edinburgh when we got there. In the early hours of the morning I took some photos of the camp including one of the milk that we had put in the river to cool it down and thought how weird it would be to stumble on this in the wild with no encampment nearby.
We ended up parking about 99 miles away, well at least I thought it was but it turned out to be only 1 mile away from the meadows and the Demonstration starting point, but it magically turned into 2 miles on the way back as the bobbys that were on duty didn't know the surronding area but procedeed to give us directions that were very very wrong.
As soon as we got within 100 feet of the Meadows I could see, hear and feel how many people there were in and around the surronding area of the Meadows and streets of Edinburgh, there was definitely a noticable buzz in the air of a mass of people all joining together for at least the same sort of ideals (me hoped/hopes) and also that of one a mass of people all march and feel as if their actually making a difference, quite a big 'feel good factor' i'd say.
When we got to the Meadows we went to the Woodcraft tent straight away so that all the younguns knew where to go if they got seperated from a 'responsible' person like myself.Then finally the fun began, we stayed around the Woodcraft tent for a bit and I met people who I hadn't seen in a while. Then I watched people play unfair football, genuis idea I thought, until the ball struck me in the side of the face and I was left with a big red mark on my face. I was then asked to right out a note to stick onto the large letters (shown in picture below), my message was (and my history teacher would be proud) 'Make Poverty neither His nor Her Story'.
Next was the attempted "march", we started and then stopped, started for a minute then stopped for 120 minutes and talked, this kinda destroyed the atmosphere as it ment there was a lot of sitting and slowly burning and sweating in the hot hot sun.
So we marched and shouted and whistled, and had a minutes silence along the way, I especially enjoyed a African samba band that were there, and the people telling us that white is the colour of capitalism, some are never happy.
In the end I came out of the demonstartion feeling slightly disheartened and wondering what the point was anymore cause we tried it before and it did jackshit, maybe violence is the answer? Then again maybe clowning is the answer, I know I enjoyed their clowning.
Just had to add a picture of my acquired beautiful boxers from the rally , I have to say there great, almost as good as my 'Make Love Not War' boxers.
