Glastonbury 2014…
I am writing
this on the Sunday evening before Glastonbury 2014. I have just finished
packing our two rucksacks; in a bit of a haphazard fashion, it must be said,
but at least I have managed to get everything in there. Probably too much stuff
as usual and you’d think by now I would be able to get it down to the bare
essentials, but four times in and I still take too much.
All this is a
bit of a preamble for this year and a bit of wondering of how it will turn out.
Glastonbury Festival, like life itself I suppose, has a way of being well,
unexpected. That is not said in any sort of deep and meaningful way or in some
(failed) attempt to be deep and meaningful or actually trying to appear wiser
than my already fairly advanced years may suggest. It’s simply that every time
I’ve been it’s always been totally different from the time before.
This is possibly
because that for the three times (only three times, so not really a large
sample size) that I’ve been I’ve done it in three different ways.
The first time
back in 2010, I went with my then 17 year-old daughter, Amy and her best mate,
Sasha. I was very sceptical and unsure about it all before we went, but decided
at the ripe-ish old age of 48 that I should really give it a go, if only once.
All of this is chronicled in my book about that year, “Turn Left at the Womble”,
so I won’t go into many details. However, it isn’t giving too much away to say
that a “good time” was had by all, and any misgivings about going to a festival
with two teenagers were groundless.
In fact, it was
such a good time that I couldn’t leave it at just one Glasto fest and was determined
to go the next year. Now that was a different kettle of fish. Firstly, I couldn’t
get tickets. Secondly, Amy couldn’t go as she’d just started her first job. But
I did go, by myself and managed to get a job working a bar. And finally, it
rained. Oh Good Lord, how did it rain! I detailed all the mud and frolics of
working the festival in my second Glasto book, “Left Again at the Womble”.
The third and
last time I went, in 2013, I did managed to get a ticket so I was a paying punter
and went by myself again. As yet I have not written about last year in any
detail. (But watch this space).
So, three times
and three wholly different experiences. I don’t know if there is a “true”
Glastonbury experience; maybe it just has to be different every time.
It will be different
this year for me.
Very different.
After nearly 4
years of cajoling and nagging (as well as, I am afraid to say, a fair bit of guilt-tripping),
I have managed to persuade my 24 year-old son to come along with me this time.
Now he isn’t a particularly massive music fan (though I still live in hope) and
is himself a bit wary of sharing a tent with his Dad for 4 nights. This is before we really know what the weather
will be like.
And as I type this the forecast is looking gloomy to say the
least. Wellies are primed and ready to go.
But all credit to him, he is willing
to give it all a go- if only to humour me and to say that he’s tried it once.
Maybe then I’ll finally shut up about it.
Come what may,
there will be another book written about this year. There has to be. My last
Glasto book.
The third in the trilogy. 3 is the magic number.
More to follow….wish me luck!
Get "Turn Left at the Womble" and/or "Left Again at the Womble" here as a Kindle book or paperback
