V Festival 2011

Marshall Mathers aka Eminem, American rapper, record producer, actor and in my opinion, talented little cutie was the cause of a minor rift between myself and my eldest daughter. When many of the parents' of her peers were banning their impressionable teens from listening to the psychologically damaging lyrics of the 'parental advisory explicit content' CDs, I actively encouraged my kids to listen to the social poet with the most uncanny talent to rhyme that I have ever encountered. Although my parenting stance was the envy of her friends, I did rather take the 'cool' out of the experience for her.

We laugh about it now of course.

I was rather excited to find out that Eminem will be headlining at the V Festival this year and my dearest friend (and Godfather to my children) has tickets for me, Liberty, Taylor and Ivy for the Weston Park Venue which is just a few miles down the road from where I live.

As well as being a great opportunity for me and my girls to spend the weekend with my friend, I love discovering new bands and enjoying established favourites in the unique environment of the Music Festival.

I missed last year's V Festival on account of the fact that I had recently given birth to my baby boy. Watching the highlights on the telly and seeing my girls arrive home exhausted, happy and with mud on their wellies wasn't quite the same as being there myself!

I am so looking forward to this year's.

I have a lot of homework to do working out who all the bands in the lineup are (since the sad demise of Top of the Pops I find it quite hard to keep up to speed!) but there were enough instantly recognisable names for me to feel certain that we are in for a good weekend.

I just hope it isn't quite as wet as it on this particular year: