This extract is all about waking up on the Friday morning and discovering it was raining...
However much you
may read about Tuesday being the new Wednesday or whatever such nonsense about
Glastonbury, and irrespective of the fact that I’d been there since Tuesday and
spent seven hours working, I still felt somehow that it wouldn’t really start properly
until the Friday. I still feel that way and I’m not sure why. It may be because
not all the stages kick off until the Friday or that it’s only broadcast on the
BBC from the Friday-or just because it’s the weekend. It’s totally irrational
because most of the people are there from at least the Thursday and just
because a few bands jump up on a stage and start thrashing some instruments
shouldn’t mean it’s the signal that it’s all started. But that’s how it feels
to me, in some sort of gut-feeling way.
So, as I slowly woke up on the Friday morning, I was excited in that Christmas-Day-is-finally-here sort of way. This was going to be the day when it all kicked in. I was looking forward to a repeat of the previous years’ Friday; blue skies, hot weather, brilliant music, magical times. Granted, Amy wasn’t with me and somewhere within the next 24 hours I had to slot in an eight hour shift, but nevertheless, good times were on the way.
I stretched an
arm out of the sleeping bag and gently felt the side of the tent with my palm.
It was wet, but I expected that; it was just the condensation. It was light
outside; I looked at my watch. Twenty past six. The light outside would be the
sun just starting to peek through the early summer mist. In that half-asleep/half-awake
state I heard a faint patter of condensation running off the outside of the
tent. I would have to find where exactly in my rucksack I had put my battered
sandals. The wellies would be useless today; but on the other hand if I was
going to be on my feet for a significant part of the day, then maybe I should
break out the old Converse.
As I came round,
it slowly dawned on me (quite a relevant metaphor) that the sound I was hearing
wasn’t the condensation seeping away from the sides of the tent but something else altogether. Rain. As my head
cleared and I became more awake than asleep, I didn’t immediately leap into
action. I must have laid still in my sleeping bag, listening to this gentle
patter for at least ten minutes or so. In a strange way it was quite soothing
and a bit like the most ambient music you could imagine. Maybe it wasn’t
raining at all but instead Eno and Boards of Canada were doing some sort of
unannounced secret gig right outside my tent. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just
rain and I had to face up to reality. It was good to daydream for a bit, but
however much I wished it all away, I knew I had to stick my nose out of the
tent and see what exactly was going on. I wriggled myself around and edged
towards the front of the tent and, with a certain amount of trepidation, moved
the zip down a couple of inches to scan the sky. It was uniformly grey as far
as I could see. I pulled the zip down a few more inches, hoping for a break in
the clouds somewhat, but there was nothing. It was if a big grey sheet had been
thrown over the whole site. In fact there were no clouds at all; it wasn’t that
threatening, heavy, scudding black clouds sort of view; just a grey sky. The
closest way to describe it is as if you went to bed with a colour tv in your
front room and in the night it had been mysteriously replaced with a black and
white one. This in itself wasn’t a bad thing; I’d have liked a touch of blue
sky to wake up to, although it wasn’t essential. What was certainly not a good
thing was the rain, A constant light drizzle. It didn’t seem to be a downpour,
it wasn’t windy, simply steady and continuous. Normally I don’t suppose that
this would cause much of a problem; if there was such a little shower at home
then I think we’re all quite used to it and just get on with things. (After
all, I’m from the North of England and we have enough practice with rain. It’s
our default position. Rain). However, 15 minutes of drizzle at Glastonbury is a
different proposition altogether.
Same cause-but with a very different effect.
Same cause-but with a very different effect.
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