Overheard in Glastonbury Town

I can’t really take credit for this post. I’ve been busy this week, having a birthday, helping run an Angelic Healing Retreat Centre, organising the infrastructure for a field at Glastonbury Festival, booking pirate folk bands for an event, arranging for this blog to be self hosted and failing to go to the Bardic Trials at the Assembly Rooms because it was just one thing too many. I needed some post content that wouldn’t take too much brain power.

I had some examples of things I’d overheard in Glastonbury already written down and thought they’d make a good start to a post:

In Morrison’s supermarket a lady bumped into me and apologised saying ˜Oh I am sorry, my aura’s all over the place today”.

A customer in a Street charity shop was telling the shop assistant that she was off to Glastonbury next. The assistant said “Ooh lovely, you’ll like Glastonbury, they do a lot of medication there”. I think she meant meditation.

A woman, having read the sign on Knights Fish & Chip shop “That’s been a family business since 1909”. Husband’s reply “Gosh, they must be very old by now”.

Someone in the King Arthur last week was looking for a sob story to use as an excuse for not going to an appointment, one of the suggestions was “tell them you got kicked out of clown school”.

“This is my favourite charity shop, I went in that other one once, but I came straight out again, I didn’t like the energy”.

I realised this wasn’t quite enough so I thought I’d ask around for other people’s stories too. I started by asking workers in local cafes and shops what the strangest or funniest thing they’d been asked for or overheard was, but it generally drew a blank. Everyone I spoke to said that overhearing the bizarre or hilarious was so commonplace that it had become unremarkable. Living in Glastonbury can be like being submerged in some kind of cosmic soup, after a while you simply fail to notice how odd the conversation would sound almost anywhere else.

The difficulty arises when you go out of town and say something like ˜Oh well of course, you’re a Virgo or ˜You ought to try rubbing some Peruvian tree bark on that and getting some reiki”. You risk being asked what on earth you are talking about and having to explain some woo -woo concept that you don’t actually really understand, but is such common parlance in Glastonbury that you just take it for granted and don’t really think about it. Alternatively, I guess you just dismiss whoever you are speaking to as ignorant, clearly not spiritually enlightened and therefore not deserving of an explanation. Except that might not work so well outside of Glastonbury.

I thought I’d put a post out on my personal Facebook page to see if anyone wanted to contribute any of their own funny ˜Overhead in Glastonbury’ stories; It’s 3 days later, I’ve had 76 comments, many of those have turned into threads themselves and they are hilarious. Which is brilliant for me ‘cos I reckon I can get a few lazy posts in reserve for busy weeks like this. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Don’t change the channel – even if there’s nothng on

Sonia: “I was at Unicorn house once and a load of people arrived back from a talk in town going on about Channelled information about an ancient alien race who had seeded the earth and some other planets with DNA that form part of a coded message. My response – “But isn’t that a plot from Star Trek?” Their reply was “Gene Rodenberry who created Star Trek used Channelled information so the Star Trek plot is true as well”.

Beverley: “Said to me when I was manager at the white Spring – Greetings, I am Merlin, it’s good to be home”

Greg “Two of the most Glastonbury things I’ve had said to me were both said on the same night, about a year ago. One was: “I’ve just had a run in with a mob of Virgos”. The other was perfectly truthfully said to me by our good friend Gem: “I’ll be back in a minute mate, I’ve just got to hand the keys back to the gatekeeper of the Goddess Temple”. This sounded like a line from The Neverending Story. If he’d returned, flying on the back of Falcor the Luck Dragon, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Lisa: ‘Get off my fucking leyline!’ a hedge monkey once shouted at the custodian of the White Spring.

Sophie: “Yesterday, whilst on the top floor of the bus returning to Glastonbury from Bristol I overheard two young men, talking excitedly about visiting Glastonbury for the first time. One French guy explained that he had a calling to go to Glastonbury because people there believe in dragons, as he did himself and in fact he always travels with his dragon. When the other man asked where his dragon was the French man explained that his dragon was riding on the roof of the bus.”

Vijay “I have a boyfriend in the seventh dimension”

Sam: “I was stood outside St Dunstan’s house on the pavement. Woman walks up and, looking concerned asks “Can you tell me where something normal is?”. I paused and asked whatever did she mean ‘normal’? She said “Something like .. well – an Italian restaurant”. I pointed across the street to point out we had (at that time) two – there and there. She looked relieved, thanked me and walk away. It left me wondering .. why is an Italian restaurant in Glastonbury ‘normal’ and what had led to her concern?

Mara “Yes well, it’s always amusing, isn’t it? Right up until the point someone starts levitating and spewing ectoplasm”

Sally “My step-grandson came home from school one day (I think he was about 5) and told his mum with wonder in his eyes ‘Mum, did you know that Jesus Christ died on a Hot Cross Bun!’ ……….

Indra “Walking down Magdalene St early one evening, a well dressed mother and son in cape and top hat walk into a big posh house with to what I assume is a music recital… In a crisp posh voice the woman asked “Do you think you may try out the full spell tonight Albert?” … “Maybe Mum”.. I then see he has a wand under his cape.

This was one of my favourites, it comes from Laura “I saw a guy who looked like he didn’t have a lot and offered to give his dog the remains of a sandwich I was eating. But the guy said ‘Nah nah, he doesn’t do wheat’.

Lastly, Lauren Marie’s comment elicited a hilarious thread, which is itself a great illustration of ˜Normal for Glastonbury”:

I was browsing one of our local crystal shops which is NOT something I usually do, it was probably someone’s birthday, and I was fairly pregnant at the time. A rather large American lady who had been discussing the ‘energy’ of the different crystals on display for quite some time grabbed my hand and dragged me to one side to proclaim she had felt a spiritual connection with my child and had to tell me.. at my sceptical look she said ‘you don’t believe me do you? What if I told you your baby is going to be a Leo?’ She was due in October!!
Greg replied The first sentence of your comment qualifies as a brilliant Glastonbury quote on it’s own”
Lauren Marie ˜I also realised the last bit ironically requires a bit of background astrology knowledge, oops my hippy slipped out again”
Greg ˜We are all complicit”
Dan ˜I’ve lived here too long, I genuinely misread the first sentence and thought it said ” I was dowsing one of our local crystal shops…” which didn’t seem odd……. oh dear”.
Lauren Marie ˜Mad the things we wouldn’t blink an eye at round ere!”

There’s heaps more where those came from! Let me know if you enjoyed this lot and it will encourage me to post up some more.