Monday, April 26, 2004

Bridget Jones' Glastonbury

[Moved here April 2006]

Wednesday, 24.6.98
Lagers 10, Fags 20,sleep 5 hours, rain none, Visits from Robin & Charlotte 1. Attempted visits to Robin & Charlotte 0
Mud report: very little
Food consumed:
Burger & Chips 2, crisps

Set off from Brighton 1 pm ; left Shoreham 2 pm; arrived 5 pm got in 6 pm. Parked, carried in 4 tents & 4 lagers. Put tents up. Went back for more lager + sleeping bags. Blew up airbed (phew! Much panting) and went for more lager (parked about half mile away).
Sally & Dan & Jane & Andy arrived 2.30 am. Went for wander, sat by fire they went to get sleeping bags etc (???!!!!) we went to bed. 5am.

Thurday, 25.6.98
Lagers 8, Fags 40, sleep 9 hours, rain on and off all day
Thoughts of going home 0, Visits from Robin & Charlotte 0. Attempted visits to Robin & Charlotte 1

Mud report: forming. Water building up alarmingly on top of ground

Food consumed: Burger & Chips 1, Breakfast 2, Chicken crap 1,

Woke up a 8am with screams from Stu that the tent had exploded, Beck got up put waterproofs on and set about bashing pegs about in the pouring rain, whilst Stu smoked a steadying fag in the comparative luxury of the tent.
Woke up again at 2pm: still raining. Went for breakfast in a diner come van with bolted tables, attitude staff and lots plastic - a real caff. Luxury.
Rob and Marina arrived 4 pm. Had bright idea of getting everyone to played football (all did except Janie – 4 a side) and managed somehow to get on telly (apparently.)

At night wandered down to the mad ('green') end of site with Rob and Marina for look at healing field, paranoid field, odd field etc - as we got to the heart of it (past the giant ship made of wood, right at the voodoo heads made of branches) it all got a bit weird so we split, afeared of luddites with clubs attacking us for having an electric torch. Trudged to the car for more lagers etc.
Went to bed sometime after 1am.


Friday 26.6.98
Lagers: far too many, Fags: far too many (quite a lot of wet ones), sleep 5 hours, rain all day (constant), thoughts of going home 0, Bands seen 0 Football matches watched 1
Visits from Robin and Charlotte: 2. Attempted visits to Robin and Charlotte: 0

Food: Egg roll 1, Tuna steak 1 (more probably including burger & chips)

Mud report: The bottom of our field resembles a Burmese marsh; elsewhere lots of churned waterlogged grass and slurry

Woken up at 10.30am by administrative error, Dance tent full in swing. Went for tea in the rain. Drank beer. Went to dance tent (strangely quiet...) where it turned out the sewage sucker they were going to use to drain the excess water was set to blow instead of suck and the whole thing was full of shit. Which we probably walked through. Appalling mud - 4" of slurry and worse.
Went back to car for more beer.
All assemble 6ish for footie. Sit in pissing rain for an hour waiting for football to start, then stand in pissing rain 2 hours watching it. Glory! but very very wet. Back to tent for soup & boiled red wine with Rob and Marina. Rob stopped shivering eventually.

Saturday
All things have become a function of mud.
Lagers: lots of muddy ones Fags: lots of muddy ones Sleep: 12 muddy hours Rain: on and off until 7 pm
Thoughts of going home 0, Bands seen 0 Football matches watched 0.5 Visits from Robin and Charlotte: 0. Attempted visits to Robin and Charlotte 0

Food: mud

Caught in murderous rainstorm on first-thing wood run - dry clothes soaked, fire almost extinguished, rob's drying sleeping bag soaked.
Built large fire to dry. Intermittent bright shiny thing in the sky - apparently called the stun, or something. Will it catch on?

Eventually saw beautiful rainbow stretching across whole site with 1 end on a farmhouse! Signal from Eavis that worst is over.

Sunday
Last day!!!
Mud report:
Much of the site under water; most fields either wet slurry or churned sticky mud. The only patches of grass now are where people have gone home. We sit on one.

Lagers: 2 (Stu) 5 (Beck) Fags: 40 (rizlas running dry on site (ha ha)) Sleep: some odd bits Rain: none !!!

Thoughts of going home - know any big numbers? Bands seen 1, Football matches watched 0

Visits from Robin and Charlotte: 0. Attempted visits to Robin and Charlotte 1 (they had gone home)
Abandoned tent, packed up, spent all day tring to light fire (succeeded too late)
Watched Pulp standing on some one else’s abandoned tent to avoid sinking into the mud. I will never forget it: they took the stage, and launched into Do You Remember The First Time? whose first line - "You say you've got to go home" - brought massive cheers.
Left Glastonbury at 1am (managed not to get stuck in mud by being first out of the field) arrived home at 5am went to bed for 12 solid hours.
Monday - Thursday
Ligering traces of mud still around.
Friday – present
Slight illness, nice photos of the rainbow, see you there next year!!!

XX Bridget