The tent again I'm afraid. We never had much room for anything other than ourselves. Our rucksacks were kindly stored in Martin and Su's cavernous tent, which left room for myself, Andrea, and our toothbrushes. At around 7am, we were awoken by the sun which had turned our tent into some sort of microwave. I awoke covered in a right sweat and could only cope with getting semi dressed inside the tent because the clothes just slid on and it felt disgusting. I then did the rest of the changing outside, probably offending someones sensibilities I'm sure. A quick teeth clean then grabbed my bog roll and it was off to the loo.
The loos in Glastonbury aren't that bad really, I have a rule of thumb which is if it's an open air/poo in a hole kind of loo, it's good. Portaloos, on a hot and sunny Glastonbury, I really wouldn't touch unless I was really desperate and had some tiger balm to put under my nose. However, Andrea had the opposite mentality, and to be fair, was quite successful in her portaloo roulette. There were a few problems later on with the plastic urinals, as some drunken toilet scientists discovered that jamming a large cup into one of the holes that connected them together meant that there was nowhere for the 20% proof wee to escape. This eventually lead to the entire urinal filling up to the point of bursting, and then bursting everywhere.
On Thursday it's law to go over your free Guardian guide periodically during the day to make sure you know what you want to watch over the coming days. Loaded up with beers again, It is also law to go for a walk, and walk, and walk around the place to get used to the layout. It was good having Andrea as she was the one popping her Glastonbury cherry, so we gave her the guided tour. We did the pyramid stage, other stage, dance village (*cough* shell suit alert!), then a further wander over to the circus area for a sit down and drink to watch the performers practice . This was where we first got a taste of things to come, yes, a super gimp came around to say "mornin'". Fueled up, we wandered over to avalon, the craft fields (loved the Mason's arms), the dragon field (original, I know), then up to the stone circle for a bit of a nice cup of beer and a sit down. After resting again, it was a wander down the hill to the west holts stage to meet up with all the others for a nice sit down, booze, and some food. We pretty much stayed there for the rest of the day, for no reason other than the beer was cold, the company better, and of course we weren't at work.
As the day goes on, you can feel the excitement building in everyone and everything around you, it is very noticeable and, hand on heart, not related to the amount of drink consumed.
There are no bands playing on the stages on a Thursday, but there are things going on in the array of pubs and bars...the highlight (and massive rumour of the day) was the terrible possibility of Vanilla Ice playing in a bar. So Andrea teamed up with Alex, who both managed to sweet talk everyone into going down the bar to see him. The place was hammered and the queue massive so we just sat outside drinking beer, large sports bottles full of red wine (classy) and waited for him to turn up so Andrea and Alex could at least get excited about hearing him. About 5 mins before he came on, the others (Alex included) got up and needed to discover what was happening at Shrangri-la, we couldn't be bothered going with them. After a very, very brief set (I mean really, how many songs has he done?), we wandered over to the dance village to see what it was like at night.
We always knew that Boy George was going to be doing a set over in the dance village, what we never realised was that he was going to do a Culture Club set and not a DJ one! Damn it! That would of at least been better than waiting for the ice man to turn up.
After another exhausting day, I'm afraid it was a relatively early night again in preparation for the start of the festival.
Monday 26 July 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
Day 1: The arrival
Right, lets start with our arrival, which was eventful to say the least. It was a 5:00 am get up on the Wednesday morning so that we could meet up with a load of good friends at the last services/civilization before Glastonbury at around 9:00. We went down with Su and Martin, my great mates for ages now and I'm happy to see them married and they know us far too well. They drove...we lived the life in the back, oh yes. After a quick poo in the last services in the last clean toilet, it was off in a convoy together to find the right entrance to get in so that we don't have to walk that far.
We did get in a good entrance but it was still a good 1.5-2 mile hike (It's akin to a fishermans story...it could of been 100 yards for all I know) to where we wanted to be. Which leads me onto the walk...right...it was all uphill, and I was loaded up with ...
With the temperature as it was, everything ended up being a bit of a sweat fest to be honest, the heat was blazing down I had no hat to cover up my nude head, no sun tan lotion on, the tent and the cool box were a bugger to carry, and I had to make sure that the dawdlers (Andrea and Jake) didn't get so far behind that they lost us fit people. Oh, did I mention that everything was up bloody hill? I could of done with a nice shower at that point....oh wait, no shower....ew. Better put some deodorant on....shower in a can! :) Actually, thinking about it, Jake looked pretty loaded up too which meant that Emma (his better and probably smarter half) was probably carrying a rucksack full of quavers, skips, cotton wool or pillows.
Andrea, in the mean time had the chairs (which I would carry one occasionally), and the giant hold-all with wheels that can double up as a rucksack if you didn't mind your shoulders getting lacerated. By the time we got to the top of the hill, we were pretty knackered and it was a free for all with camping spaces as people were leaving airbeds on bits of grass by their tent because their mates were turning up in the next couple of days and it's "illegal" (According to some hair dresser from Essex) to remove or throw that airbed out the way. Given that argy bargy (excellently handled by Emma) some of us still had to relocate to another location as their was too many of us. So, myself, Andrea, Martin, Su, Si and Colette had to walk further up the hill to another location.
Trust me, the last thing you want to do when you finally manage to find a spot after the hike in the heat, is pitch a tent. Oh, the tent. To give you a bit of background to the tent story, I need to talk about the history. I have a tent, I like my tent, it's a three man tent, perfectly big enough for the two of us with room for changing and storage. In addition, I like to think it's a rather cool looking tent...it's two tone grey and black with red piping, you could call it the XR4i of tents. Now, a condition on Andrea going to Glastonbury was that she needed to be able to stand up in a tent to get changed and have room for shoes or something. So I was forced to shelve my plans to take my tent in favour of her step dad's monster 4 man tent that you can stand up in and probably see from space. I was open to it, after all I like to think that I'm a Naughties kinda guy. Taking precautions when we went to pick up the tent we pitched it up just to make sure I knew what I was doing on the day, packed it up and put it in the boot ready for Glasto in 4 weeks.
So we get to our pitching spot in Glastonbury, after the hike, the heat, and the uphillness, carrying the awkward tent and cool box...we manage to unpack the tent and discover that the poles were missing!?!?!?! At first, I started to accuse Martin and Su of pinching our poles by mistake, then I started moving everything about as they "must be under something", eventually I caved in and gave them up as lost. All of you that know me, know I'm a pretty laid back guy, at that point I threw my rattle out the pram. Blimey was I cheesed off. If it wasn't for the fact that it wasn't my tent, I would of probably poured some of the vodka that we had on the tent and lit it's arse up. So, after a bit of "awkwardness" with my mates (poor Martin & Su), it was decided that Andrea would stay with Su to help her pitch their tent, and Martin and I would go off in search of someone that sells tents. Martin had the common sense to take a rucksack and fill it with beer to calm me down and get me to the point that I didn't care what I was cheesed off about. After walking downhill, past the pyramid stage, past the Other stage we found Millets whose largest tent, was a shitty (excuse my French) two man tent for 35 quid. I bought it, and we wandered back to our campsite where at that point I didn't care enough to even pitch the tent properly. I left Su and Andrea to finish the details like pegging it down and things, whilst I sat down not caring about stuff and drinking beer.
So at this point we threw everything in the tent, loaded up the small rucksacks with beer and water (wouldn't want to de-hydrate) and wandered off to the pyramid stage to watch the last group match for England in the world cup. My brain wasn't really on the world cup to be honest, I was just getting in the mood for Glastonbury and enjoying the weather. We did have to leave the others at half time though as my poor head was getting hot.
It was a good opportunity to show Andrea a small portion of Glastonbury (the Other stage and a load of vendors in between). The first hat seller that we came across, Andrea picked the first hat at hand and put it on my head and the following conversation ensued...
So that's how I got my hat that seemed to go with me everywhere in Glastonbury. After the match, it was off back to the car to do the beer run, taking any unnecessary items like the tent with us. Basically, the drink is so heavy to carry the first time, you realistically have to do it on another run. So after wandering there and back, everyone was pretty knackered and it was an early night sat by the camp fire that we never had. Everyone went to bed with expectations of the Glastonbury to come and will I get to sleep with that bloody person snoring in the tent two feet from me (Not you Martin as it was in the other direction).
PS: It turned out that the tent poles were really in the boot of my car in Manchester as they were packed separately to the tent and I forgot to take them out. Wasn't my fault, it was Andrea.
We did get in a good entrance but it was still a good 1.5-2 mile hike (It's akin to a fishermans story...it could of been 100 yards for all I know) to where we wanted to be. Which leads me onto the walk...right...it was all uphill, and I was loaded up with ...
- a breakfast beer and one for the road that I was already on
- my rucksack with stuff attached and dangling off it
- a chair (periodically when I could be arsed carrying it)
- the tent (oh the tent),
- Emma's fun cool box of meat (Me being the stupidly nice guy offered to carry this, but I like Emma and think she's great)
With the temperature as it was, everything ended up being a bit of a sweat fest to be honest, the heat was blazing down I had no hat to cover up my nude head, no sun tan lotion on, the tent and the cool box were a bugger to carry, and I had to make sure that the dawdlers (Andrea and Jake) didn't get so far behind that they lost us fit people. Oh, did I mention that everything was up bloody hill? I could of done with a nice shower at that point....oh wait, no shower....ew. Better put some deodorant on....shower in a can! :) Actually, thinking about it, Jake looked pretty loaded up too which meant that Emma (his better and probably smarter half) was probably carrying a rucksack full of quavers, skips, cotton wool or pillows.
Andrea, in the mean time had the chairs (which I would carry one occasionally), and the giant hold-all with wheels that can double up as a rucksack if you didn't mind your shoulders getting lacerated. By the time we got to the top of the hill, we were pretty knackered and it was a free for all with camping spaces as people were leaving airbeds on bits of grass by their tent because their mates were turning up in the next couple of days and it's "illegal" (According to some hair dresser from Essex) to remove or throw that airbed out the way. Given that argy bargy (excellently handled by Emma) some of us still had to relocate to another location as their was too many of us. So, myself, Andrea, Martin, Su, Si and Colette had to walk further up the hill to another location.
Trust me, the last thing you want to do when you finally manage to find a spot after the hike in the heat, is pitch a tent. Oh, the tent. To give you a bit of background to the tent story, I need to talk about the history. I have a tent, I like my tent, it's a three man tent, perfectly big enough for the two of us with room for changing and storage. In addition, I like to think it's a rather cool looking tent...it's two tone grey and black with red piping, you could call it the XR4i of tents. Now, a condition on Andrea going to Glastonbury was that she needed to be able to stand up in a tent to get changed and have room for shoes or something. So I was forced to shelve my plans to take my tent in favour of her step dad's monster 4 man tent that you can stand up in and probably see from space. I was open to it, after all I like to think that I'm a Naughties kinda guy. Taking precautions when we went to pick up the tent we pitched it up just to make sure I knew what I was doing on the day, packed it up and put it in the boot ready for Glasto in 4 weeks.
So we get to our pitching spot in Glastonbury, after the hike, the heat, and the uphillness, carrying the awkward tent and cool box...we manage to unpack the tent and discover that the poles were missing!?!?!?! At first, I started to accuse Martin and Su of pinching our poles by mistake, then I started moving everything about as they "must be under something", eventually I caved in and gave them up as lost. All of you that know me, know I'm a pretty laid back guy, at that point I threw my rattle out the pram. Blimey was I cheesed off. If it wasn't for the fact that it wasn't my tent, I would of probably poured some of the vodka that we had on the tent and lit it's arse up. So, after a bit of "awkwardness" with my mates (poor Martin & Su), it was decided that Andrea would stay with Su to help her pitch their tent, and Martin and I would go off in search of someone that sells tents. Martin had the common sense to take a rucksack and fill it with beer to calm me down and get me to the point that I didn't care what I was cheesed off about. After walking downhill, past the pyramid stage, past the Other stage we found Millets whose largest tent, was a shitty (excuse my French) two man tent for 35 quid. I bought it, and we wandered back to our campsite where at that point I didn't care enough to even pitch the tent properly. I left Su and Andrea to finish the details like pegging it down and things, whilst I sat down not caring about stuff and drinking beer.
So at this point we threw everything in the tent, loaded up the small rucksacks with beer and water (wouldn't want to de-hydrate) and wandered off to the pyramid stage to watch the last group match for England in the world cup. My brain wasn't really on the world cup to be honest, I was just getting in the mood for Glastonbury and enjoying the weather. We did have to leave the others at half time though as my poor head was getting hot.
It was a good opportunity to show Andrea a small portion of Glastonbury (the Other stage and a load of vendors in between). The first hat seller that we came across, Andrea picked the first hat at hand and put it on my head and the following conversation ensued...
- Andrea: "yeah, get that one"
- Me : "does it look good?"
- Andrea : "No hat looks good on you Simon, but I look at you now and don't think your a dick"
- Me: "Thanks" and turn to the girls on the stall
- Me: "Does it look good on me"
- Girls: "Yeah, it looks great" *kerching*
- Andrea: "Just get it, it's 8 quid"
- Me: "ok"
So that's how I got my hat that seemed to go with me everywhere in Glastonbury. After the match, it was off back to the car to do the beer run, taking any unnecessary items like the tent with us. Basically, the drink is so heavy to carry the first time, you realistically have to do it on another run. So after wandering there and back, everyone was pretty knackered and it was an early night sat by the camp fire that we never had. Everyone went to bed with expectations of the Glastonbury to come and will I get to sleep with that bloody person snoring in the tent two feet from me (Not you Martin as it was in the other direction).
PS: It turned out that the tent poles were really in the boot of my car in Manchester as they were packed separately to the tent and I forgot to take them out. Wasn't my fault, it was Andrea.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Normal service will resume shortly
Be patient, we will get around to posting all our findings/experiences of Glastonbury this year, but since coming back we've also been to Spain and "dan 'saff" to see my family, so at the moment we've 5 suitcases still to unpack because we're lazy buggers that have far too many suitcases lying around.
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