"It's the end of the world as we know it...

...and I feel fine"

Above pictures courtesy of The Guardian

Thursday: It didn't look so clever this morning, dull and overcast and it kept raining. Val didn't want to go - memories of last year kept coming back, wandering around the site in over size wellies. I tried to talk her into going and every time I did.....it rained and I was back to square one. Eventually, after a visit to our local horse riding emporium and the purchase of a pair of wellingtons we packed our bags and hit the road about 5.30 pm.We made good time and were on the site and parked up by 9.30. The only problem was we'd agreed to meet my brother at 9.30 by the cider bus. We loaded up with our tent and rucksacks and headed for the meeting point. In the end we were only an ½ hour late. Garry and his friends were happy by the bar so we agreed to meet back there in an hour to go and get the tent they needed out of our car. We managed to find a suitable space and put the tent up in the dark. Luckily I'd packed some Amsterdammer beer (10%) and my handy hard plastic pint glass so after all the hard work I settled down with a pint while Val sorted out the sleeping arrangements. Then we set off back to the Cider bus.

We struggled back to the car park, being abused on route by some Welsh types who had the audacity to take the piss out of my brothers accent, got the tent and as we were re-entering the site I was stopped by one of the Stewards because of my Plastic glass.

"You can't bring that in here" she said, "Why not?" I asked, "Because it's glass" she said "No it's not" I said   CLICK! "Bugger me!" she exclaimed and let me through!

Back to the cider bus for some more R&R before heading off to bed in the early hours. No sooner were we tucked up in bed then it started to rain and did so for the rest of the night.

Friday: The day dawned wet and soggy and my first task was to go and get the umbrella and Val's big coat out of the car. On the way back I rang the lady from the BBC to get the TV interview organised. I arrived back at the tent with some blue wristbands that meant we could get into somewhere backstage!

After listening to My life Story and Gomez outside the tent we set of to see someone I'd always wanted to see - Taj Mahal. We watched most of his set and then went to get something to eat. For the rest of the afternoon we wandered around the site dodging the rain showers and catching a few sounds from the likes of Ben Harper, Finley Quaye and The Montrose Avenue. We checked out the Green field while it still had some Green! We saw Shiatsu, Indian Head Massage and the strange School of Inversion Therapy!

As the evening drew on we decided to head off to the acoustic tent to catch the one and only Rolf Harris. Now I know some of you may be thinking Why? but if you've never seen Rolfie entertain you haven't lived. It's the second time he has appeared at the festival the previous time was on the pyramid stage. Inside of the Acoustic tent was absolutely packed and they stopped letting people in about 10 minutes before Rolf Came on. It was worth it though as he was brilliant and the crowd sand along with all his hits. Afterwards we went out into the pouring rain and wandered along to the Pyramid stage area to catch the end of the Foo Fighters and the second half of the football.

Pictures above and below courtesy of The Guardian

When we arrived the Foo Fighters were still playing, at least 50% of the people there were thinking "get off so we can watch the footy" - Jimmy Hill 1 Dave Grohl 0. We soon found out England were winning 2-0.

Anyway the second half was goalless and we stood there ankle deep in mud, in pouring rain, under a red and white umbrella (Naturally!). At one point I had to go to the toilet and made it as far as the bushes down the side of the arena. While having a piss I got talking to the bloke next to me (Like you do!) and we agreed that even though it was raining we were much better off here than in a pub - after all how many pubs do you know that you can go for a piss without taking your eyes off the football !!!!! The most disturbing aspect was that Val suddenly developed a crush on David Seaman and went "Phoaaah" every time he appeared.

After the football we made the long trek back to the car to get Val's mirror which she had left in the boot. "I'm not going to be on television if I can't see how I look". Anyway en route we caught a little of Catatonia on the other stage and once we reached the car in the underwater car park we sat for a while and heard them play Mulder and Scully. It was so good to just sit there with our feet dangling out of the car door. We headed back to the tent where we listened to Primal Scream and set our alarm clock for 7am so we could get up for our television appearance. So we had survived the first full day of the festival..        | part 2 Back to History of Glastonbury festival | Festivals page All Photographs © Kevin Shewan