Glastonbury Part 1

Sorry for the long break obviously I have been to Glastonbury and it has taken this long to get my head around normal things let alone The Blog.

Glastonbury a review

Tuesday

The day we travel down to camp near the site and with previous issues over shadowing our run up to the festival meant we had nothing planned or organised so the morning was spent throwing stuff from bedroom, shed and bathroom into bags then throwing bags into the car. But never fear we had our trusty Sat Nav to (borrowed from the folks) to guide us to our destination the Isle of Avalon campsite in Glastonbury.

The Sat Nav had two route options shortest and Quickest both lead us through the centre of Milton Keynes and neither where a fats worth of good when it lead us out into the middle of nowhere and ditched us with no frigging signal in the wilds of Somerset - fucker!

Now I could moan and blame the Sat Nav but frankly its my own fault yet again I trusted to technology instead of my own knowledge, why do I do that M11 - M25 - M4 - M5 - A39 just under 4 hours with stops Sat Nav route Milton Keynes - Fuck knows - fuck knows - Bath - Fuck knows - Shepton Mallet - give up follow signs = 6 and a half hours.

Arrive in Glastonbury Isle of Avalon shattered but in reasonable spirits stuck up small over night tent to find we hadn't aired it since its soaking last Glastonbury so have the lovely smell of damp and mildew. Dory has the frankly genius idea of using the Neutradol car air freshener to clear out the smell which she does pity the Neutradol is akin to tear gas so tent is a no go area until the smell calms down a bit, which frankly was a blessing as it gave us chance to sink a few beers and chat with old friends when they returned from the pub was a nice night sleep was heavily interrupted by the comedy stylings of G, Scrapper and Ade and their 2 hour quick line before bed routine which had us almost on our knees laughing a funny end to a stressful day.

Wednesday

Up at 6am to be ready for a 7am pre-fest meet at the Sainsbury Carpark in Street - this obviously sounded a great idea before sitting up chatting to G etc until 4am! Anyway first things first pack tent away smell of mildew has returned with force so salvage tent pegs and the rest is left in one of the huge wheelie bins at the campsite as the chances of salvage where minimal. Then its off to Street to meet Imp and Blabber two friends we will be camping with during the festival.

Sat Nav is left dumped at the bottom of the bag Street is a ten minute journey I really don't need to add a few hours to it - still add some as we start off by heading in the wrong direction, DOH!

But get there eventually and the find the usual suspects in the normal spot, it is great to see them I hadn't seen Imp for nearly a year and Blabber not since my Birthday last year so hugs all around toilet stop and off to the festival which for once isn't a bad get in 45 minutes from Sainsburys to Car Park and another bonus we are right next to the gate, pity the gate is the other side of the festival to where we camp but cant have everything.

Another 40 minutes is spent dragging all the kit from Gate D to Michael's Mead our chosen campsite but the weather is good and despite temptation to just dump stuff in a verity of different campsites we make it and meet up with Zane and Riff other fellow Meaders, being part of the advance gaurd has benefits as we get setup and watch the rest follow suite starting with my older brother and a workmate who is on her first Glastonbury. I love seeing people when they first come to Glastonbury truly there is nothing like the site no UK festival comes close to the sheer scale of Glastonbury.

Once everybody arrives the party begins and I mean the party begins as it was Zanes 50th Birthday a few weeks before the festival and I'd decided this event shouldn't go unmarked so all the meaders where given instructions to bring kids party supplies - really did try and keep this simple but possible I should have been clearer as party supplies seems to mean to some people Sausage rolls, 13 different types to be exact luckily I like sausage rolls lol

Then its of to the magical cider bus to meet up with the rest of the pants crew and partake of a few beverages to wash down the Birthday cake and sausage rolls, was a lot of fun drinking beer sitting on the grass just having a laugh made a massive change to the mud and sludge of previous years specially as the pants crew seems to grow each year.

The day finished off with Dory and myself having a wonder around the site just the two of us it was lovely and time together we very much needed.

Continued...