(no subject)
Ok, POSITIVES of Glasto.
Because the few things I do remember, I want to remember for a long time.
Well, firstly, I recommend everyone works for Oxfam at some point in their lives. I met the most amazing people. My first shift was from 11pm to 7am Thursday morning, and during it I met these wonderful guys:
Emily.
And, in order, Jules, Claire and Barry.
Firstly, I met Emily, and we just clicked. It was immediately like we'd known each other for years. In fact, the other guys didn't believe we'd just met that night. We spent the night dancing and singing Chelsea Dagger really loudly. Barry later told me that it was our energy that got him through the night =)
Surprisingly, the night shift was really fun. Probably because we were dosed up on Pro Plus. There were many random people that made the night interesting too, like the jugglers that pulled up and blasted music for us for half an hour. Or the guys that turned up with a wheelbarrow of beer and cans of hot dogs, and nothing else. Not even a can opener.
That's the last clear night I remember, to be honest. I woke up Thursday afternoon to find my phone had run out of battery, meaning I couldn't meet up with ANYONE. Luckily, I'd scrawled Barry and Emily's numbers on my arm, and some lovely Australian guy called Dave let me use his phone to ring them (no joy) then walked me down to the festival. And weirdly, after wandering around for a while, I ran into Emily. I mean, what were the chances? And she had with her two friends called Ben and Jerry. So I stuck around with them all night. After much wandering and losing Emily's other friends.. somewhere.. we ended up in a random queue outside a circus tent, and got talking to a guy that also lived in Bridport. Then Barry rang, trying to find out where we were. After giving him explicit directions, he went to three wrong tents then gave up. I later saw photos of that night, and you can see the fucking queue we were in in the background of them. Typical.
Anyway, we got into the tent, and frankly it was a bit rubbish. Although they had an amazing, if expensive, bar. And basically got a pint of tequila. Then me and Ben lost Emily and Jerry and just wandered, somehow ending up in the green fields, then realised we had to be up in 5 hours for work and we couldn't be further away from our tents. That was a fun trek.
Work on Friday was fun. I got put with Claire on the gate, which meant I got a chance to know her better. This was also the start of my blagging spree, and I managed to get 4 cans of Strongbow and half a pack of fags. And I learnt that turning up late to work has it's plus points. Me and Claire turned up quarter of an hour before, and got put out in the rain. Barry and Jules turned up 5 minutes late, and got put inside the tent. Where's the justice in that?
An uneventful shift otherwise, and we finished at 3. So I met up with Steve, who decided he wanted to get a shed load of condoms, then we found Jules. His directions being 'I'll meet you at the Jazz World Stage'.
This is a quarter of the Jazz World Stage
So, obviously, I had to get some better directions.
We hung around there for a bit, then wandered over to watch the Fratellis. We had to, seeing as Chelsea Dagger had become our anthem for the weekend. This is when my memory gets a bit fuzzy. We spent ages trying to find Barry, and Steve wandered off around this point. I remember very litte of the Fratellis, except singing Henrietta with a random stranger and dancing to Chelsea Dagger. Afterwards, we went over to watch Arcade Fire, again randomly running into Emily on the way. I told her that I had no where to stay on Sunday night, to which her friend replied 'Don't worry, you can stay with me. It'll be fine, I'm gay'.
Me and Jules also managed to drop Barry's beloved hat in the mud (It's a mark of how much Barry trusted me that he let me wear it. Probably never again...), so we had to wash it under the tap and Jules had to wear it for ages so Barry wouldn't notice it was wet.
Then, I know we saw Arcade Fire, but I don't remember much. I didn't realise until the morning, but Barry managed to give me a massive hickey on my neck that night, which meant I couldn't see my parents for the rest of the week. We lost Jules for a good half an hour, and it was a miracle he found us again. I managed to convince Egg that I had a two year old girl called Ella, and was petrified that she'd be known as 'Ella Umbrella' (Because of the song, Umbrella, another 'anthem' of the weekend for us). I remember dancing with Barry for a bit, and then we trekked across to the beer tent because we didn't like Bjork. Some point while were were there, Barry sat up on the side and wrapped his legs around me, meaning I got COVERED in mud.
I think, after this, we went to the dance tent. At least, I think it was Friday, and not Saturday. On the way we bought the most expensive burger and chips in the world, which Barry ruined with his rubbish salt shaking. We lost Jules somewhere around here, because he's a sucker for a guy with dreads. Then.. I don't know. I somehow ended back at Jules's tent, which is TINY and only 5 foot long, so the both of us were pretty cramped. (And no, I didn't sleep with him).
Err, the next day, we all had work at 3. That was kind of fun. We were close enough to hear the bands playing, and we got to mess about with hay, because we had to cover the mud. This shift, me and Emily managed to blag 12 cans between us, which I dropped in the mud. So afterwards, me and Barry went to wash them off. Whilst we were doing it, I said that we looked like right alkies, and Barry replied that everyone does at Glasto. To which this tiny 5 year old boy behind us said 'No, just you'. So we talked to him and his sister for a bit (who were SO sweet).
After that, it was 11pm, so we went down to watch The Killers. On the way, we stopped at a cash point, and Barry dropped the pills out of his wallet in front of a security guard. We're lucky they're lax. They also made The Killers VERY fun. Some time around here, we lost Emily, and then had to escape from the mud bath that was the Pyramid Stage. I forget where we went, but I know that on the way, me and Barry had a very deep and meaningful conversation about our families, and then decided not to talk about them again, because we got far too serious.
I THINK we ended up at the Dance Tent, and I think that I went on a massive trek with Wilmer to find the toilets. It's the only explanation for the huge chunk of time missing from my memory, because the next thing I remember after that is stumbling across a random folk band in the Green Fields playing the Hokey Kokey. And that was at 3am. So there's like Shit, I remember now. We did go to the dance tent, and found Jules, and then went to ANOTHER dance tent, and possibly the Other Stage, which is when me and Wilmer did our trek. Then everything was closing up, so that's when we went up to the Green Fields, disgusted with the lack of entertainment, and found the band. So we stayed there for 3 hours, singing and dancing to the many songs they played. The best one was when they played Bohemian Rhapsody, and everyone sang along. It doesn't sound that great unless you were there. We decided to leave when they ran out of songs and started playing 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', and me, Claire and Wilmer had a rousing chorus of 'She'll be coming round the mountain'. We eventually got back to the guys tent at 6am (Once again I crashed with them, this time between Barry and Claire).
Because none of us had any phones, me and Claire and arranged to meet Emily at the Cider Bus at half 11 the next morning. The next thing I remember is Claire waking me up by saying 'Guys, it's 20 to 2'. Luckily, Emily slept in too.
That day is also a bit of a blur. I eventually found Claire and Egg watching Get Cape, Claire dressed up in gold in preparation for Shirley Bassey. After hanging around for a bit, we wandered over to watch the Dame, finding Barry and Jules. And, this really touched me, as soon as Barry saw me, he gave me his hat. This may not mean much to you, but he'd been really protective of that thing all weekend, and for him just to give it to me like that was really sweet. Also, by this point, me and Barry had developed a system for rolling fags, where he'd roll, and I'd hold the baccy and lick the paper, because he had rubbish saliva.
Shirley Bassey was surprisingly good, and I loved her. She was just so classy, and seem really awed to be there, and so sweet! And everyone loved her. After that were the Manics, another band I was surprised to find I liked. Then it started to rain, so we went and hid in Naren's (Becky's boyfriend, who is CLaire's friend) stall. This ruined any plans we had of shopping, so we just went to get food, and I discovered Becky was an even bigger blagger than me. We spilt up, and me and Claire went to watch Pendulum, where I happened to run into Matt. Pendulum were good, except I was really squashed and wet and the pill didn't seem to be having any effect.
We went over to watch The Gossip after that, and had traffic light glow sticks so the other could find us: I was a nun (red), Egg was bi (orange) and Claire was easy (green). They eventually turned up, and The Gossip were also surprisingly good, with everyone having crazy spaz attacks when they played Standing In The Way Of Control.
After that, we thought we should go find Jules. We wandered over to the Pyramid Stage, bought the most expensive fags in existence, then talked about how easy it would be to kill someone at Glastonbury and no one would know. Then we got really scared, as we realised we still hadn't found Jules =/
Then, because everything else was shut, we went to the wine bar. This is basically a shop that blasts music from an iPod, and everyone dances in the mud in front of it. We did this for 3 hours, in the pouring rain. So. Fucking. Fun. Lots of stuff happened here too. Barry and Claire went off to drop again, and when they came back Barry gave me a massive hug and said they were saying they didn't want me to just be a holiday friend, they wanted me to be a friend friend. And Claire said I had to go see them, and that I'd probably end up living with them, and started calling me their Unofficial Housemate. I also dropped Barry's hat in the mud after Becky gave me a rugby-tackle hug, which I felt, and still do feel, really bad about. They played Starman, and everyone went crazy because Barry's last name is Starr. And Barry kept telling me how great it was that I just fitted in with everyone, and how he didn't want to lose touch, and everyone was just generally really sweet.
When we realised how fucking cold we were, we decided to walk back to their friends tent, which was the COMPLETE opposite side of the festival to ours. So we stayed there for 5 minutes, then trekked back. This was probably the worst bit of the weekend. It was so horrible, seeing all the people that had to work and stuff. And there was one nasty bit where a woman was trying to pull her disabled kid in his wheelchair up a hill in the mud, and fell over. It just wasn't fair.
But eventually we got back to the tent (still not having found Jules) and spent the rest of the night indulging in the potentially very dangerous activites of smoking and poppers, in the tent. And the three of us had another deep and meaningful conversation about college and things.
Then the next morning, I had to drive Barry, Jules and Claire back to their respective places, as they missed their bus. Cue a very hungover drive to Bristol, with my car almost dying trying to get out of the field.
Most of that will be meaningless drivel to most people. But I had to get it down somewhere so I can remember everything. Possibly the best weekend of my life, ever.
Because the few things I do remember, I want to remember for a long time.
Well, firstly, I recommend everyone works for Oxfam at some point in their lives. I met the most amazing people. My first shift was from 11pm to 7am Thursday morning, and during it I met these wonderful guys:
Emily.
And, in order, Jules, Claire and Barry.
Firstly, I met Emily, and we just clicked. It was immediately like we'd known each other for years. In fact, the other guys didn't believe we'd just met that night. We spent the night dancing and singing Chelsea Dagger really loudly. Barry later told me that it was our energy that got him through the night =)
Surprisingly, the night shift was really fun. Probably because we were dosed up on Pro Plus. There were many random people that made the night interesting too, like the jugglers that pulled up and blasted music for us for half an hour. Or the guys that turned up with a wheelbarrow of beer and cans of hot dogs, and nothing else. Not even a can opener.
That's the last clear night I remember, to be honest. I woke up Thursday afternoon to find my phone had run out of battery, meaning I couldn't meet up with ANYONE. Luckily, I'd scrawled Barry and Emily's numbers on my arm, and some lovely Australian guy called Dave let me use his phone to ring them (no joy) then walked me down to the festival. And weirdly, after wandering around for a while, I ran into Emily. I mean, what were the chances? And she had with her two friends called Ben and Jerry. So I stuck around with them all night. After much wandering and losing Emily's other friends.. somewhere.. we ended up in a random queue outside a circus tent, and got talking to a guy that also lived in Bridport. Then Barry rang, trying to find out where we were. After giving him explicit directions, he went to three wrong tents then gave up. I later saw photos of that night, and you can see the fucking queue we were in in the background of them. Typical.
Anyway, we got into the tent, and frankly it was a bit rubbish. Although they had an amazing, if expensive, bar. And basically got a pint of tequila. Then me and Ben lost Emily and Jerry and just wandered, somehow ending up in the green fields, then realised we had to be up in 5 hours for work and we couldn't be further away from our tents. That was a fun trek.
Work on Friday was fun. I got put with Claire on the gate, which meant I got a chance to know her better. This was also the start of my blagging spree, and I managed to get 4 cans of Strongbow and half a pack of fags. And I learnt that turning up late to work has it's plus points. Me and Claire turned up quarter of an hour before, and got put out in the rain. Barry and Jules turned up 5 minutes late, and got put inside the tent. Where's the justice in that?
An uneventful shift otherwise, and we finished at 3. So I met up with Steve, who decided he wanted to get a shed load of condoms, then we found Jules. His directions being 'I'll meet you at the Jazz World Stage'.
This is a quarter of the Jazz World Stage
So, obviously, I had to get some better directions.
We hung around there for a bit, then wandered over to watch the Fratellis. We had to, seeing as Chelsea Dagger had become our anthem for the weekend. This is when my memory gets a bit fuzzy. We spent ages trying to find Barry, and Steve wandered off around this point. I remember very litte of the Fratellis, except singing Henrietta with a random stranger and dancing to Chelsea Dagger. Afterwards, we went over to watch Arcade Fire, again randomly running into Emily on the way. I told her that I had no where to stay on Sunday night, to which her friend replied 'Don't worry, you can stay with me. It'll be fine, I'm gay'.
Me and Jules also managed to drop Barry's beloved hat in the mud (It's a mark of how much Barry trusted me that he let me wear it. Probably never again...), so we had to wash it under the tap and Jules had to wear it for ages so Barry wouldn't notice it was wet.
Then, I know we saw Arcade Fire, but I don't remember much. I didn't realise until the morning, but Barry managed to give me a massive hickey on my neck that night, which meant I couldn't see my parents for the rest of the week. We lost Jules for a good half an hour, and it was a miracle he found us again. I managed to convince Egg that I had a two year old girl called Ella, and was petrified that she'd be known as 'Ella Umbrella' (Because of the song, Umbrella, another 'anthem' of the weekend for us). I remember dancing with Barry for a bit, and then we trekked across to the beer tent because we didn't like Bjork. Some point while were were there, Barry sat up on the side and wrapped his legs around me, meaning I got COVERED in mud.
I think, after this, we went to the dance tent. At least, I think it was Friday, and not Saturday. On the way we bought the most expensive burger and chips in the world, which Barry ruined with his rubbish salt shaking. We lost Jules somewhere around here, because he's a sucker for a guy with dreads. Then.. I don't know. I somehow ended back at Jules's tent, which is TINY and only 5 foot long, so the both of us were pretty cramped. (And no, I didn't sleep with him).
Err, the next day, we all had work at 3. That was kind of fun. We were close enough to hear the bands playing, and we got to mess about with hay, because we had to cover the mud. This shift, me and Emily managed to blag 12 cans between us, which I dropped in the mud. So afterwards, me and Barry went to wash them off. Whilst we were doing it, I said that we looked like right alkies, and Barry replied that everyone does at Glasto. To which this tiny 5 year old boy behind us said 'No, just you'. So we talked to him and his sister for a bit (who were SO sweet).
After that, it was 11pm, so we went down to watch The Killers. On the way, we stopped at a cash point, and Barry dropped the pills out of his wallet in front of a security guard. We're lucky they're lax. They also made The Killers VERY fun. Some time around here, we lost Emily, and then had to escape from the mud bath that was the Pyramid Stage. I forget where we went, but I know that on the way, me and Barry had a very deep and meaningful conversation about our families, and then decided not to talk about them again, because we got far too serious.
I THINK we ended up at the Dance Tent, and I think that I went on a massive trek with Wilmer to find the toilets. It's the only explanation for the huge chunk of time missing from my memory, because the next thing I remember after that is stumbling across a random folk band in the Green Fields playing the Hokey Kokey. And that was at 3am. So there's like Shit, I remember now. We did go to the dance tent, and found Jules, and then went to ANOTHER dance tent, and possibly the Other Stage, which is when me and Wilmer did our trek. Then everything was closing up, so that's when we went up to the Green Fields, disgusted with the lack of entertainment, and found the band. So we stayed there for 3 hours, singing and dancing to the many songs they played. The best one was when they played Bohemian Rhapsody, and everyone sang along. It doesn't sound that great unless you were there. We decided to leave when they ran out of songs and started playing 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', and me, Claire and Wilmer had a rousing chorus of 'She'll be coming round the mountain'. We eventually got back to the guys tent at 6am (Once again I crashed with them, this time between Barry and Claire).
Because none of us had any phones, me and Claire and arranged to meet Emily at the Cider Bus at half 11 the next morning. The next thing I remember is Claire waking me up by saying 'Guys, it's 20 to 2'. Luckily, Emily slept in too.
That day is also a bit of a blur. I eventually found Claire and Egg watching Get Cape, Claire dressed up in gold in preparation for Shirley Bassey. After hanging around for a bit, we wandered over to watch the Dame, finding Barry and Jules. And, this really touched me, as soon as Barry saw me, he gave me his hat. This may not mean much to you, but he'd been really protective of that thing all weekend, and for him just to give it to me like that was really sweet. Also, by this point, me and Barry had developed a system for rolling fags, where he'd roll, and I'd hold the baccy and lick the paper, because he had rubbish saliva.
Shirley Bassey was surprisingly good, and I loved her. She was just so classy, and seem really awed to be there, and so sweet! And everyone loved her. After that were the Manics, another band I was surprised to find I liked. Then it started to rain, so we went and hid in Naren's (Becky's boyfriend, who is CLaire's friend) stall. This ruined any plans we had of shopping, so we just went to get food, and I discovered Becky was an even bigger blagger than me. We spilt up, and me and Claire went to watch Pendulum, where I happened to run into Matt. Pendulum were good, except I was really squashed and wet and the pill didn't seem to be having any effect.
We went over to watch The Gossip after that, and had traffic light glow sticks so the other could find us: I was a nun (red), Egg was bi (orange) and Claire was easy (green). They eventually turned up, and The Gossip were also surprisingly good, with everyone having crazy spaz attacks when they played Standing In The Way Of Control.
After that, we thought we should go find Jules. We wandered over to the Pyramid Stage, bought the most expensive fags in existence, then talked about how easy it would be to kill someone at Glastonbury and no one would know. Then we got really scared, as we realised we still hadn't found Jules =/
Then, because everything else was shut, we went to the wine bar. This is basically a shop that blasts music from an iPod, and everyone dances in the mud in front of it. We did this for 3 hours, in the pouring rain. So. Fucking. Fun. Lots of stuff happened here too. Barry and Claire went off to drop again, and when they came back Barry gave me a massive hug and said they were saying they didn't want me to just be a holiday friend, they wanted me to be a friend friend. And Claire said I had to go see them, and that I'd probably end up living with them, and started calling me their Unofficial Housemate. I also dropped Barry's hat in the mud after Becky gave me a rugby-tackle hug, which I felt, and still do feel, really bad about. They played Starman, and everyone went crazy because Barry's last name is Starr. And Barry kept telling me how great it was that I just fitted in with everyone, and how he didn't want to lose touch, and everyone was just generally really sweet.
When we realised how fucking cold we were, we decided to walk back to their friends tent, which was the COMPLETE opposite side of the festival to ours. So we stayed there for 5 minutes, then trekked back. This was probably the worst bit of the weekend. It was so horrible, seeing all the people that had to work and stuff. And there was one nasty bit where a woman was trying to pull her disabled kid in his wheelchair up a hill in the mud, and fell over. It just wasn't fair.
But eventually we got back to the tent (still not having found Jules) and spent the rest of the night indulging in the potentially very dangerous activites of smoking and poppers, in the tent. And the three of us had another deep and meaningful conversation about college and things.
Then the next morning, I had to drive Barry, Jules and Claire back to their respective places, as they missed their bus. Cue a very hungover drive to Bristol, with my car almost dying trying to get out of the field.
Most of that will be meaningless drivel to most people. But I had to get it down somewhere so I can remember everything. Possibly the best weekend of my life, ever.