Wednesday 23rd June – The original plan here was to get up early and head to Glastonbury for when the gates opened at 10am. In reality, it was still chucking it down with rain, so we had some bacon sandwiches, cooked on a mini gas cooker (because we couldn’t get the gas working in the van), and finally set off at about 11:30am.

The drive to Glastonbury was uneventful, despite the rain and high winds making the driving experience closer to sailing a schooner as we got blown around the road.

Just before we reached the site, I managed to stall the van on a really steep hill, which was a bit worrying but after a few seconds we were running up and over the top to join the queue to enter the festival site.

We were directed to one of the Camper and Caravan fields, which are outside the festival fence. Each van is allocated a 6m square pitch so things are a lot less chaotic than in the camping fields. The camper fields are also a lot quieter than the main festival campsites.

On reaching our pitch, we decided to put up our awning. This was, shall we say, challenging; not only had we never put up the awning before, we hadn’t even got a clue as to what shape it was supposed to be. After struggling for several minutes, we were joined by a couple of helpers, Andy and Jackie who were in a Type 2 Bay Window VW camper just behind us. Andy is a dab-hand with tents and after a bit of struggling, we worked out which poles went where and got everything assembled.

Going round to the back of the van to check out the space for Cedric’s tent, I noticed that the rear driver’s side tyre was flat. Using Andy’s footpump I found that there was a large split in the tyre and that it would need changing. Vic and I both then recalled hearing a bit of a “pop” was we’d been driving to the site, so that was probably when it went, but it didn’t go flat until we parked up. As we were in a muddy field with rain still pouring down, we decided to leave changing the wheel until later.

We had a few glasses of wine from the box and then headed into the festival site itself. Every time we went to and from the van we had to show our original tickets plus a pass-out ticket and our wristband. A bit of a bind but we managed not to lose anything.

Cedric needed some waterproofs, having been overly optimistic about the weather, so we found stalls selling wellington boots and ponchos which would keep out the worst of the elements.

After that we headed straight for the Cider Bus, where we indulged in a couple of pints of Burrow Hill cider. I chatted to a few Urban 75 folk who were also there (hi to Stig, William, Moose, MrMoose and more!). A hot pork roll later and it was time for bed, a little more drunk than we’d expected to be!