After asking my brother to bring back a three-wheeled buggy from the US, last weekend I found myself surrounded by a forest of them in the heart of Britain. Nine-year-old Storme and I were on our annual pilgrimage to Womad, the world music festival in Reading (Womad), where - for one weekend only - there are more all-terrain pushchairs per square metre than any other rutted green field.
Womad is the original multi-generational music festival, where babies and young people are welcome. The younger festivalgoers have the chance to go to workshops, where they can learn how to sculpt, paint and dye, while the older ones can learn to be younger again.
Storme went to a workshop with Womad's artist in residence, wire manipulator Isaiah Tongayi Garanewako, who hails from Johannesburg. Isaiah attempted to get a dozen kids to mould thin, bendy wire into meaningful shapes - "Try your name!" he cheered at the start, or a basket maybe. By the end of an intense two hours' instruction, an initial would do.
Storme lovingly bent up a crooked D for her mother, while, just a few hundred metres away, I was in a reggae-induced trance, temporarily, blissfully ignorant of the fact that I even had a daughter. Misty in Roots were on, and I was remembering being childless, careless, credit card less...
But even I couldn't revert to teenagerhood for a whole weekend. Although Womad provides excellent camping facilities, a hotel room and pool to cool off in were far too tempting. As the smoky lights dimmed on stage and the three-wheeled buggies bumped tentwards, we slunk off to the cool, quiet order of Reading's Millennium Madejski hotel. In the stainless steel bar, Storme had a non-alcoholic cocktail while I had a large gin and tonic. Age does have some advantages, after all...
