My vision of what it would be like to watch a football match consisted of standing in the rain, getting wet and muddy and being surrounded by all manner of society. Ironically, in the end it was Glastonbury that fit this image better than football.
There is a happy positive side and a moany negative side to my Glastonbury experience. I'll cover both here now...
Firstly, its bloody expensive! My shopping list consisted of: wellington boots, tent, tent footprint, dry wash, head torch, hanging torch, travel towel, an esky, ice, tonnes of food and alcohol, locks and padlocks, earplugs, picnic blanket, foot pump, waterproof jackets, cutlery, plastic cups, petrol, etc. Half this stuff I'll never use again either!
Then there was the effort of getting there... we bought a tent (plus one for our friends). Then I found a shop in Victoria that stocked a cheaper tent, so I hiked over then to pick up two. Then Paul decided he liked the original one better so I had to hike back to return it. Then we found that one of the original tents had a broken pole, and the only shop that had a replacement was in High Street Kensington, so I hiked all the way there with a tent, replaced it and hiked all the way back. Then I had to get the tents over to a friends house who was going earlier and could reserve a good spot, but this plan became complicated and I had to send it in a cab to the house. Then my friend Debbie's tent which was also going earlier than us, got left behind, so someone else took it, and then didn't show up at Glastonbury til midnight! It took us longer to get organised in London the day we left than it took to drive there. And when we arrived, we had to hike for an hour in the sun to find our camp site... it was a complete logistical nightmare and I was exhausted before I even arrived.
Positively speaking, once we arrived, I was pleased to find out tent already erected, the view from our campsite expansive and beautiful, and all my friends jovially surrounding me, ready for a fun night. We visited the Lost Vagueness, a take on cabaret Los Vegas, and spent a fun evening dancing in the saloon to old-time music. Very entertaining.
That evening, however, a storm of biblical proportions hit Glastonbury. Paul and I lay in our tent cowering with each violent thunder clap, praying fervently that our tent would hold and stay dry. The storm lasted for hours, requiring some highly ingenious urination tactics in the morning (don't ask!). When it ended, people gingerly poked their heads out of their tents, to witness a very different world.
Lightening had hit some of the performance stages wreaking havoc with electricals. One of the stages collapsed. A man was hit by lightening. But the worst was the flood that hit the bottom of Pennards Hill (note - we were at the top of this hill thanks to those friends who carted our tents to the festival a day earlier and erected them for us). Let these photos speak for themselves...
Hundreds of tents were washed away, their belongings disappeared or destroyed. People were awaken by finding their noses rubbing the top of their tents. Entire areas were submerged, and only the efforts of a very large pump and a crane managed to drain the area after many hours. It was a nightmare, and our mood was slightly dampened by the thought of those people who had lost their belongings and tents. Our mood was soon to be further dampened by the most overriding legacy of the storm: the mud.
I have NEVER in all my life seen mud like this. Expanses of it. Acres of it. Within two hours there wasn't a spot of grass anywhere. It seems a hundred thousand tramping wellies very quickly turns damp grass to a knee-deep quagmire. The way I describe it is by asking you to imagine what a Demon Hell would look like... think an expanse of murky sticky mud that threatened to suck you down, that covered you in muck, that made every step into an ordeal. Think of people slowly dramping through, accompanied by the sound of thick goo slurping and sucking you down. It was awful, and many a time throughout the weekend I burst into maniacal laughter and screamed "What on Earth am I doing here?? I PAID to do THIS???"
And not being known as the most coordinated of people, I was further frightened by the everpresent risk of slipping and diving into the viscuous darkness. There were many squeals and desperate grabs at male hands during the four days of tramping.
The muscle strain of walking for hours and hours and hours (it took at hour to walk anywhere) made my knees and thighs weak and achey, and not being able to sit down all day made my lower back creak and groan.
So, these were the many negative aspects of my Glastonbury experience...
But, believe it or not, there were ample glorious moments. The highlight was watching Coldplay with the girls (thanks Debbie and Kelly!), and meeting a lovely man who volunteered to have each of us sit on his shoulders so we revel in the view of multitudes. His view was: he was too tall to ever experience sitting on someones shoulders, so he may as well give someone else the experience. What was strange was he wasn't at all sleazy or after anything else other than being nice to us, he called it 'the Glastonbury spirit', and us girls were overwhelmed by it. Sitting on his shoulders and seeing more people than I have ever seen in my life screaming and cheering was electrically exciting - thanks Nick for the experience!
Other highlights include dancing in the Lost Vagueness Ballroom to the Scissor Sisters DJ, watching the strange and wonderful novelty acts that accompanied the music; observing the wild and crazy people in opulent outrageous outfits as they pranced through the mud, dancing to their own beat; finally getting sun on the last day whilst seeing Van Morrisson perform 'Brown Eyed Girl'... there were many magic moments.
In summary (this is my longest blog entry ever!) - I am very glad I did it, it was such an adventure, such a feast of sight and sound! But I am unlikely to ever do it again, unless I have a backstage VIP pass and a guarantee from the Weather Bureau that it will not rain.
As for football - that was easy in comparison. Clean, fun, simple... but you know, not as much fun!
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