Back in sunny old England we arrived at the camping site of the Big Chill Festival near Great Malvern in Herefordshire. We joined a long line of vans waiting to enter the site, and despite paying a hefty camping fee were directed to a site on a hill at a 45 degree angle. Well, that's what it felt like anyway, and the angle was steep enough to stop the fridge working. The boys immediately set about trying to level the van. The first attempt at jacking up the van to slip some chocks under the wheels (concrete blocks found in a skip bin) almost went disastrously wrong when the van slipped off the jack an rocked precariously close to rolling. A quick rethink of our tactics led to the decision to reverse the van up onto the blocks, followed by leveling the fridge on some spare wood, and we were ready to party.
The weather was pretty average on our first day, but that didn't stop us enjoying the music that evening, especially being up at the front of the stage for the Black Seeds, which was great. The following day the weather wasn't much better, and we were glad we'd taken the time to set up the gazebo as the rain pelted down that afternoon. Luckily it cleared in the evening and we enjoyed some sunshine. It did take us a couple of hours to make it from our tent to the concert area as we were distracted by free tequila slushies on the way. That night we bounced from big band to big band (Massive Attack were great), before hitting the dance tents and watching a bunch of idiots bring a concert to a stop as they stormed the stage. Finally we had to head back at 2am due to sheer hunger (having missed dinner) and had an amazing fry-up courtesy of the boys (while certain girls fell asleep).
The following day all I wanted to do was recover in the sunshine, as it was finally a beautifully sunny day, but instead I had to catch an early train to my new job. I was very grateful to my mate who volunteered to walk me to the bus and even carried my bag, despite being a little worse for wear. What a gentleman.
