Glasto in all its Muddy Glory

About 3% of the tent-fest:



It was quite muddy:



With Bec's boss Pete, whose hat was a beacon for many a lost festival-goer:



Celebrating the purchase of Pear Cider:



6 pints of Pear Cider: £18
1 "Hippie" waistcoat: £2
1 "Scottish" kilt: £10
Getting plastered at Glastonbury: Priceless.



Stu graduates from pink hat to pink ear-muffs:


And now, some movies:

Anthony probes us expertly:



Mika and band play his signature tune, while channelling Queen!

Glast-oh-my-god!

A week after Bec was luxuriously smothered in mud, we had another not-quite-so-glamorous muddy experience. Some of you may remember a post we made way back in February about the Glastonbury Festival, and how we'd applied to get tickets. Well - we got 'em! - and last weekend we spent without doubt the muddiest 3 days of our lives rockin' out!


We arrived at the massive site on Thursday evening with clear skies and green grass - and after an extended hike (to the other side of the festival) we found somewhere to pitch our bargain-basement tent. As the sun went down we settled into our bargain basement (are you getting a theme here?) cask wine with our New Zealand neighbours. And who should show up but Peter B - an old Agilent colleague of ours! We called him over and he set up camp next to us with his wife Natalie.

Friday morning we awoke to the dreaded sound of rain falling on our (not-so-waterproof) tent. It didn't last too long but the effects were felt all through the next 3 days, as the lovely green fields were quickly churned by 175,000 pairs of feet into a sticky, slushy, ankle-deep brown mud bath. We didn't let that spoil our fun though, as we set off happily stomping through the mud in our newly bought-or-borrowed wellies (that's gumboots for the non-English speaking among you).



Very soon the mud was (almost) forgotten as we enjoyed one awesome band after another and just soaked up (quite literally) the amazing festival atmosphere. A few highlights:

Bec:
- Getting to experience live many of the bands and singers I've gotten to know and love on my long drives to work over the past 7 months (special mentions go to Mika, The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs, The Magic Numbers, Amy Winehouse, The Fratellis, The Kooks, and Aussie band The Cat Empire)
- Pear cider, especially the effects it had on Stu
- Seeing Stu in a kilt and wearing my pink hat!



Johnny:
- Mika (that guy is amazing! Freddy Mercury meets Prince at George Michael's house), The Kaisers, The Magic Numbers, Amy Winehouse and unsigned jazz band Haiki Loki who managed to make a big wet tent feel like a New York jazz club.
- Stu + Pear Cider (7% alcohol) = mayhem!
- Getting out of the car park in less than an hour!

And of course there were a few lowlights as well:
- The toilets. 'Nuff said.
- The guy getting around in a fluorescent-green Borat-style "mankini". All kinds of wrong...
- Trudging miles through mud which was by turns sticky and slippery, lugging our stuff back to the car which was literally as far away from our tent site as you could get.
- Wellies are not the most comfortable choice of footwear for 3 whole days when you're doing lots of walking...

But when all's said and done, the highs outshone the lows by a muddy country mile. Definitely an awesome experience and one we won't forget in a hurry. And if the details do get a bit hazy for some of us, we've got plenty of pics to ensure there is no escape from Glasto.... stay tuned!

It's like, Glastonbury man, like, cool

In just a couple of hours pre-registration for the Glastonbury Music Festival closes - and we're signed up! Glastonbury is the UK music festival, 3 June days and nights of rocking out in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, to some of the biggest names in UK and international music. Rumours are everywhere about who will be playing this year (it won't be confirmed until the tickets actually go on sale on April 1) but there's always a good bunch - last time the list included Basement Jaxx, The White Stripes, Coldplay, Brian Wilson, James Blunt, The Killers and Elvis Costello. Hopefully the weather will be nice, last time there was a freak storm which turned the entire event into a mudpool. As I'm not much of a tent fan at the best of times, 3 days of camping is going to test me enough without having to bale water out of my sleeping bag!

A little while back we went and had a look at the actual town of Glastonbury, which is only about 45 minutes from Bath. It's a pretty sleepy little place but it's really latched onto the "alternative lifestyle" thing - almost every shop sells positive-energy crystals, Wicca stuff and/or scented wellbeing thingies. Hippies seem to be drawn to Glastonbury due to its possible legendary connection to King Arthur, plus proximity to various ley lines and mystical sites like Stonehenge.

The main connection between King Arthur and Glastonbury centres around Glastonbury Tor:

This strange lump of land is visible for miles around and many centuries ago was apparently surrounded by flooded wetlands - giving rise to the legend that it was the Isle of Avalon, birthplace of Excalibur and burial place of King Arthur. Another legend says that the rough terracing (you can just make it out in the picture) was part of a huge labyrinth that led to the top, upon which you could enter a secret castle carved inside the hill.

Whatever it is, it's a big climb - we only got this far before our hopelessly inadequate footwear forced us to stop. We'll have to come back to get all the way to St Michael's Tower on the top but even from half-way the view is quite good.

Groovy man!