at 51 I went to my first festival…

One of the greatest things about being with hot neighbour is that we do stuff. Don’t get me wrong we have lots of time vegging on the sofa watching crap telly, but we also get out there and do things, try new things and generally get on with life.

Hot neighbour has been working the festivals for about 5 years and asked me if I wanted to volunteer this time so we could go together. and I said yes.

So this time last week we jumped in the van (we are in the process of converting a VW Crafter into a camper van) and headed to Glynde for the Love Supreme Festival. Its not a huge festival and Jazz, soul and Funk focussed so hot neighbour said it would be a great introduction to festivals for me.

So what was it like?

We arrived on Thursday at about 8pm. we arrived at crew camping which meant we were slightly offsite but in a quiet area and with the other volunteers and workers. it also meant cleaner toilets and showers than the festival goers got!! I met the rest of the team working in our area and then we settled in for food and some drinks as we had an early start the next day

on Friday our shift (one of 2) ran from 10am till 4pm and we helped new festival goers as they arrived on site by renting them out trollies. it was hard work but fun and the time flew – but by the end of it I was exhausted so we went back to the van, showered and had a disco nap. We went out Friday night to see the festival site and it was very chilled. we had a couple of drinks but were knackered so hit the van to chill and sleep

Saturday was a day just for us – we spent the day back and forth to the festival, watched some of the acts and then spent the evening with some of the volunteers dancing the night away listening to some great music – in fact I danced more than I have in 15 years so was great to just have fun.

Sunday was supposed to be our next shift – right when the best acts were on, but our boss managed to swap us out to Monday morning (when he needed more help in any case) and so we spent the whole day at the festival. We saw the brand new heavies, sister sledge, TLC and Gregory Porter – and if that sounds like an eclectic mix, it really was!! We drank too much, ate some great festival food (I had blackened Shrimp from a cajun stall which was as good as I have had in restaurants) we bought festival tshirts, i lost the glasses hot neighbour had given me, we laughed, we danced and we mooched around experiencing it all.

Monday morning was an early start – 7am and lots of work but nothing we didnt know was coming. Everyone was much more efficient leaving than arriving and we were able to move everyone offsite really easily. We had music playing, we all had a little boogie and time flew.

and then it was time to leave – we packed up the van, left no trace of us being there, said our goodbyes to the rest of the time and made the journey home.

So what did I learn at my first festival?

Take your own loo roll – EVERYWHERE

Don’t take anything you don’t mind loosing

sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen

You can eat really well, we cooked most of our food and I didnt feel like we didnt have lovely nosh every day

Things are expensive and most places dont take cash – but that was cool too

you need half the amount of clothes than you take

you need Wellies – even if its sunny (the toilets and showers can become mudbaths)

I’ll admit I enjoyed it so much that Ive already signed up for my next one in a months time!!