Mara's Musings

Only 7 more sleeps and I will be wending my way onsite at Glastonbury Festival for my stint in the backstage passes office on the Theatre and Circus field.  The angst is already starting to permeate...I am talking 5 people on site this year with all their stuff plus rucksacks and tents belonging to 4 other people.  I think Genevieve is going to be a rather snug fit on the way on.

Lots of questions about stuff to bring which can only be answered by reproducing a list that was facebooked by an extremely efficient and experienced camping friend of mine:

Camping Kit
Tent – practice putting it up before leaving if you’ve not done it before
Roll mats
Torch (preferably wind-up, preferably small as you might need to carry it all evening before you actually need to use it to get back in your tent!)
Sleeping bag
Water bottle
Blanket
Hat & gloves for cold nights
Hot water bottle (!) (only if there is a source of hot water on site)
Some empty carrier bags / bin bags
Personal Kit
Waterproof jacket
At least 2 pairs of footwear – walking boots, wellies, sandals/crocks (I will defend my crocks: waking at 3am desperate for a piss still drunk in the dark is no time to be prattling about trying to put wellies on)
Medication (+ a written note of it’s name and dose in case it gets lost and you need replacements)
Shower gel
Scissors
Shampoo – Lush do lovely solid shampoo – no chance of leaking
Soap
Hand sanitizer
Sunscreen
Baby wipes
Day bag
Clothes – include layers

So there's a start anyway


In the meantime I have been nagging people to get tents and rucksacks to me by Saturday noon at the latest so I can play VW Tetris and get it all loaded.  The plan being to chill out Saturday night with Richard and the kids, cook a full English breakfast for everyone and then head off to be there by 2, help put up people's tents and head off to my first shift at 4pm.  That's the plan. 

The weather is appalling but on the plus side I do have a heater on board so I wont be suffering from the cold, Richard has invested in some thermal window pads which will keep us cool if its hot and snug if its cold.  I also have a chemical loo in case my dreaded IBS decides to kick in like it has most years.  And in the light of recent leak problems I also managed to purchase a waterproof tarp to sling over the skylight in the roof in case of emergency!

I am both looking forward to it and dreading it in equal measure.  It is the same every year but I always love it when I am there.  Bring it on!

Yesterday Genevieve decided to throw a potential spanner in the works and develop a nice big hole in the plastic covering of the roof/sky light 9 days before we are due on site at Glastobury Festival for a glorious 10 days in the Theatre and Circus field.  Rain was, literally, pouring in through it during yesterday's downpour.


I am now facing the daunting prospect of clambering up on the roof to fix it using the wonders of silicone gel.  This is not good for someone afraid of heights.  The alternative is, of course, freezing in the tent and the cold is something that I really suffer from and probably the only thing I find difficult about the whole experience of the wonder that is Pilton festival!

I am also moderately excited about the prospect of sleeping in the van this year -  the first time I have been given an on-site pass. I feel a bit concerned about the fact that my partner feels using the van will cut us off from the team because we cannot go onto the grassed camping area and have to park in the central reservation with the other vans and vehicles for health and safety reasons - namely, it's full of petrol and other explosive things like camping gas! 

From a personal point of view my paramount concern is comfort, less back issues when I get home and the fact that I have a nice cosy gas heater in the van but I don't really want that at the expense of my partner's experience being spoilt.  (Yeah, I'm sad but I love him cos he's great!)

I guess we will see how it goes, we are taking the tent and associated bits so if he hates it we can always pitch it as usual.  Not sure how safe the gas heater is going to be in there! ;)

I love being self employed but right now I could really do with some quality time off!  Because of the nature of what I do the work tends to go in phases of peaks and troughs.  However, since January this year it has been one long peak!

I am not complaining about the work actually because after all it's a good thing, it pays the bills and means I can go out and have fun.  However fun-time is rapidly decreasing all the time.  In all I have 3 areas of work plus an OU degree that I am seriously thinking was a complete error of judgement in terms of the time I thought I had available.

It would be very nice to just have one full week where I wasn't meeting the demands of other people, or suddenly finding little added extras that I am meant to be doing/attending being dropped in my lap.  Even my social life now has become a source of stress.  I want to see my friends and hang out and to be honest my personal relationships with others have always been more important to me than work and money, its just the way it is!

I have 10 days "off" coming up - I say "off" because I am going to be working at Glastonbury Festival.  I love it, but I know I am going to come back more tired than I left and have to hop straght back in to the daily grind.  The net result that right now I am on an extremely short fuse.  If one more person says "Can you just...?" I may well explode!!