AS VETERANS of the former Purbeck Folk Festival - now the Purbeck Valley Folk Festival – my little boy Robert and I now treat this as the summer holidays’ last hurrah. We couldn’t wait.

The festival is always packed with activities for kids, and this year, on its new site at Harmans Cross, was no different.

This year we went for the whole caboodle - four nights and five days... would we survive?

As it happened, there was plenty to keep a seven-year-old happy while his raddled mamma sat listening to the gentle vibes emitted from the various stages.

Robert sat entranced as the magical storytellers spun their tales. He made a bow and arrow, a phantom mask, flew a kite and yomped through foods from around the world. He scooted gleefully around the treasure hunt and selected outlandish clothes from the vintage stalls.

There was clay model making where you could make anything you liked – we opted for a totem pole. There was origami, a Space Hopper obstacle course, a cinema tent. All the activities were paid for with the miniscule £20 child’s entry price – yes, that’s for the whole weekend.

The new site is much more spread out and at first we got disorientated and grumpy – this was not the festival we knew and loved. Other campers, waiting in line for the Portaloos that first morning, felt the same.

But by Saturday I think everyone settled in and realised the potential of the new site. Robert availed himself of the sauna and cold plunge afterwards, after his hose-poking-from-a-bucket shower and we managed to stay clean... apart from our feet, which I am still examining for trench foot it was that wet.

By the last day we had totally relaxed into it all, watching the famous Beard-Off contest before bimbling back for another story and some paella.

Oh, that extra night. If we hadn’t stayed we could possibly have avoided having to call the RAC to start the car and then, after stuffing the soaking wet tent in the car, getting towed backwards through the Somme after the fields finally gave up their oozing fight to support the hundreds of cars, campervans and caravans trying to evacuate the site.

I’ll never forget having a lift on a tractor with an RAC man dangling off the side clutching a power pack.

MIRANDA ROBERTSON