Reading 07

It's always hard to know where to begin talking about a weekend camping at a festival. Do I write reviews about each of the bands I saw, in turn? Do I write about selected highlights, amusing anecdotes? I don't know.

I was out of bed at 5am on Thursday to go to Reading. It was still dark outside, but I could hear the sound of the pouring rain. The weather forecast has said Thursday would be dry. Trying to keep in mind that the bank holiday weekend was predicted to be dry and either way all I could do was make the best of it, I dressed and ran through in my head a kind of mental checklist of what I had packed. Had I packed enough? Had I packed too much? Should I take wellies, or would just my big black boots be good enough? Maybe I should take a pair of converse for if the weather turned hot...

Jon pulled up on my drive at almost exactly six and together we loaded my bag (complete with tent strapped to the outside) into the car. We were already struggling for space and still had to pick up Nick and his belongings. Out of three of us, I was the lightest packed with just one rucksack -- and a carrier bag full of cheap own-brand supermarket lager, to exchange for cold beer at the festival. I will allow exceptions for Jon and Nick however, as they did have smaller rucksacks than me -- but on the other hand, they have never spent a week hiking and camping in the Black Mountains. Predictably, Nick had the most stuff but was unable to carry it because he's hurt his wrist. That's a long story I don't even want to go into. Jon has been annoyed for weeks that because Nick had hurt himself he wouldn't be able to carry his own gear nor set up his own tent. Then again, Jon's friends call him "AJ" for "Angry Jon" so it's not surprising he was annoyed about it.

As ever, I fell asleep in the car almost immediately -- the back seats in Jon's car don't have the head rests, but I had thrown my pillow into the back with me when loading the bags, and was probably snoring before we'd even left town.

Because of my passenger-related narcolepsy, motorway services always seem bewildering to me. It's like waking up and immediately being walked into a shopping centre. I was slightly better prepared this time, because I'd woken up slightly earlier by Jon swearing -- he'd drunk too much water, was desperate to pee and we were at least 20 miles from the nearest services. Just the same, I'm always left with the feeling that I'm not sure if I am awake.

We eventually got to the festival site -- the journey having taken hours longer than it was supposed to because of roadworks, rush hour traffic and having to drive through the middle of the city. I presume Reading is a city, anyway.

Because of flooding to the festival site this year, the place where we were meant to park had been turned into a campsite, and instead we had to park in a different area on the other side of the river. This meant having to then catch a "shuttle" boat across the river -- queuing for hours for a boat journey that took no more than 5 minutes.

One of our friends and his girlfriend had gone on ahead up to Reading on Wednesday -- you can buy "early entry passes" for this when the tickets first go on sale -- and had already picked out a camping spot, and set up several tents. We'd been told that the two of them would be taking everyone's tents for this purpose, but considering there was only two of them and they were taking the train, we'd been doubtful how feasible or practical it would be for them to take something like ten tents. Privately, we also expressed doubts about how well they would have been able to save space for us -- or how good a spot they would have got at all.

We were more than pleased to find that reports of flooding to the Green campsite (the campsites are all colour-coded and numbered, I guess for ease in finding your tent later in the dark when pissed) had been grossly exaggerated -- the official festival site had said the Green campsite was unusable, but we saw only isolated patches of swamp. Rob did everyone proud, not only had he masterfully set up the tents he'd been given, but he had also saved plenty of room for our tents and a big space in the middle for us to sit around and have a campfire in.

Thursday is always a strange day. The plan is to arrive as early as possible, set up your tent in the shortest space of time, and then spend the rest of the day and night drinking and getting to know your neighbours...

And that's how I will leave Thursday for now -- with everyone finally arrived, sitting in the sun, waiting for Friday and the bands to begin...