YOU’VE got to love Cornbury. It’s like going to a Festival without going to a Festival; more like a genteel gathering in the countryside with sound rather loud music thrown in for good measure!

Cornbury is the kind of Festival that brings families back year after year, with serene and pleasant camping (gas stoves are welcomed) as well as some terrific attractions and food concessions. Several people have commented that it is actually more like an enormous country fayre, and as the hot air ballons drifted off behind the main stage on Saturday night, it is hard not to agree. Comfy chairs and blankets aligned in an orderly Cornbury 2014 had some brilliant acts: Hudson Taylor and Suzanne Vega entertained on the smaller Songbird Stage on Friday night, whilst Arrested Development and Jools Holland brought on his special guests on the bigger Pleasant Valley stage. And once the overnight rain had subsided, visitors on Saturday enjoyed pop sensation Nina Nesbitt and Country singer Kacey Musgraves aswell as Scouting for Girls and Simple Minds.

Several acts had the X Factor, too, with last year’s winner Sam Bailey and fellow contestant Luke Friend helping the crowds get the most out of their weekend of music.

Elsewhere (but you had to search for it!), there were big names in comedy including Al Murray and Jeremy Hardy, and there is also a funfair, vintage mobile cinema, dance and circus workshops and Kids’ Zone (for when the youn’uns got bored).

But most people didn’s seem to mind who was playing, for Cornbury ‘Is what it is’, and the concept of dancing some Rumba to the Gipsy Kings on a sunny Sunday evening after an afternoon with Kid Creole and the Coconuts just about summed up their idea of Festival perfection.