LIVE24SEVEN // Rock Concerts C LAI R E IN THE COUNT Y Happy Campers! Claire Thayers was rocking under canvas


Funny how every year, we have a few hot summer days, balmy evenings enjoying an ice cold G&T and we start planning long weekends away, living the festival dream - live music, dancing, street food, with great friends and … camping.


In truth, for me, camping is a bit like giving birth; one year on we forget the pain and we simply remember the ‘good bits’. Every year my memory fails me.


My first festival, in the depths of Cornwall was one I will never forget – it rained constantly for THREE long days. We got stuck going in and had to be pushed and when we left, we had to be towed out by a massive tractor. To fend off the cold, I had to wear all the clothes that I had packed, all at once and slept in them for the whole weekend; all I was missing was a woolly balaclava.


The music was good – I needed to dance just to warm up and the street food was delicious but eating it out of a cardboard tray, soggy from the rain, was not the gastronomic experience I had hoped for.


The people watching, a favourite pastime of mine, was priceless and hiding in the beer tent over a liquid lunch, you couldn’t help but smile at the seasoned festival goers determined to look cool, wearing their shorts and wellies with soggy flowers in their hair vs those in waterproof trousers, walking boots clagged in mud and dripping hats, dragging the occasional disgruntled dog through the puddles.


The first night, I managed to have enough drinks to fall asleep quickly despite the wind and rain and despite the sleeping bag zip failing, which resulted in half of me hanging out of it. That unfortunately meant that one side of me was hot and the other freezing… so it ended up with me having to resort to stealing the dog blanket from the mutt at 1am.


The dawn chorus commenced with daylight at 4.30am, when I awoke to the awning one inch from my face where it had collapsed from the fierce wind and rain. I ached all over, bent double from trying to sleep on a blow up bed, that slowly deflated


in the middle of the night sinking in the middle, which meant I ended up bent like a banana, feet in the air, head in the air, derrier on the floor. It was so bad, I couldn’t get out of bed due to the mixture of pain, laughter, hangover and lack of sleep – it certainly wasn’t pretty and thank god I was in the awning and out of view!


Then there was the trauma of the trip to the nearest portaloo – Wet wipes, tick… Tissues, tick… Deodorant and toothbrush, tick… then the run, dodging the mud, avoiding the tent pegs, rushing to get there before anyone else woke up.


Breakfast was a challenge which consisted of watching a whistling kettle on an ancient camping stove that took forever to ‘sing’, balancing a frying pan to fry bacon for our much needed breakfast that managed to be half raw and half burnt, feeding the five thousand with two packs of Waitrose bacon and a few baps and a lukewarm carton of juice.


BUT, laugh… oh my goodness, every minute of every day of that festival, we laughed till it hurt – so remember the good times, do not dwell on the bad times and my top tip, make sure you go with like-minded friends… that will laugh at you, with you, muck in… and help you to bail out when the rain seeps into your tent (or awning) and will share their wet wipes - besides you may well need them to push you out of the mud on the last day.


Enjoy!


/ 84


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