Soul Circus: A Festival You Leave Feeling Better Than When You Arrived!
Our long-awaited weekend was finally here. My best friend and I have been looking forward to our little escape to the countryside for a long time. Not just any escape, mind you, an escape to a festival which promised to buck the trend and actually send us away feeling better than when we arrived!
Soul Circus, now in its second year, takes place over a long weekend in The Cotswolds, and attracts yoga lovers and health enthusiasts from all over the country.
In the run up to our adventure, we split our roles in preparation (one would argue unequally) – me with the festival programme printed out and classes to attend highlighted in pink, and my friend, well, with pretty much everything else. Not willing to take chances, she even bought a new tent, which she and her husband assembled in their garden before our weekend away.
Still, I managed to accumulate three full bags as well as a yoga mat.
We set on our journey on Friday afternoon, the car packed with bags, tent, bottles of water and variety of supplies, as if we were going on a month long trek. We were only going to The Cotswolds for a weekend. Still, a girl can never be over-prepared.
As the sun began to set we drew into the car park and it just started to drizzle, not the best start to our weekend! We quickly found an empty spot at the camping site, next to a tent with coloured lights sparkling around it (one must think ahead of those late night searches for one’s tent).
Battling with rain and wind, we put our tent up with speed and precision that would put Bear Grylls to shame!
To toast to our accomplishment and the fact that we were a great team who could survive in the wilderness, we took refuge in the bar tent where we enjoyed a couple of nice drinks. But with a busy two days at Soul Circus ahead, we decided not to over-indulge and muddled through the dark back to our tent. Thank goodness for those twinkly lights next door!
Despite travelling with three bags, it turned out I didn’t pack enough warm clothes for the cold country nights (but I did pack my bikini nevertheless!). Shivering throughout most of the night, I woke up nice and early, the sun was shining, making the festival look glowing in the morning light. After a quick hot shower, I went for breakfast and coffee, and feeling brand new, I planned our activities calendar.
We spent the next two days enjoying various yoga classes and other events. The programme was packed from dawn until late at night, and would satisfy even the most hard to please yogi. As well as yoga and Pilates classes, there was music, meditation and inspirational talks throughout the day.
We tried to squeeze in as much as we could. As well as two – three classes a day, we managed a massage at the Bamford Spa tent, sauna, a Saturday night DJ set by Maxi Jazz (Faithless), and enough photos and obligatory selfies in the beautiful surroundings to fill up a gallery space. The food on offer was fantastic; there even were gluten free waffles and dairy free ice cream (delicious!) for a healthy sugar rush.
Still, the biggest queue was outside the coffee van in the mornings. That just goes to show, yogi or no yogi, we are all humans after all and we all need our caffeine fix.
The festival was an intimate affair, real feeling of a community, a place where we felt we were amongst friends (and made some), with peaceful and fun energy, smiles everywhere we looked.
- Tickets for next year’s Soul Circus are on sale now and can be purchased via the website: https://www.soulcircus.yoga/ The long weekend will take place in Elmore in The Cotswolds 17 – 19 August 2018.
