Not Much Mud & Shiny Things In The Forest

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the GLADE write-up. It's almost a week late because I've done things that fucked with my brain chemistry and I've been a mopey little bitch for the majority of this week.I might've almost cried over pictures of cute kittens. Also, my head was full of cotton wool. Not good for thinking at all.  Really, just fuck this shit.

Anyway, it was a glorious Glade. Despite all my concerns, or maybe because I really didn't have any expectations for it to be epic at all. Which usually means there's a real potential for it to be epic, because epic just happens like that. Oh, and the weather was actually quite alright. No rain, although there was a bit of mud around due to previous rain, and it was a bit windy at times and not really that warm. But there was sun and it was dry and everything else could be taken care of with warm clothes and Docs.

Day 1, which wasn't day 1 of the festie, just the pre-festie day I had off work. I would've gone up to Norfolk on Thursday (<- day 1), but then the weather forecast was all rain and shit and I didn't want to. Also, the friend I was giving a ride was being unorganized and flaky and had totally forgotten that Glade was happening and subsequently not booked holidays. So all I did on Thursday was go to Enterprise in Wimbledon Park to pick up the rental car. I had booked the cheapest, i.e. smallest car, they had because initially I thought it was just me driving up (as friend was being undecided) and usually they upgrade you anyway because they never actually have the smallest car in stock. Only, this time they had. There were attempts to give me the next level up (a Corsa), but that would've cost £5 per day extra and I wasn't ready to do that. So I ended up with a Chevy Spark, aka tiniest car evar. Refused to pay any extra insurance and stuff and after what felt like an hour I finally drove the car off the premises. Surprised myself by actually keeping to the left side of the road straight away and then proceeded to get lost and stall the car like a million times because the 1st gear was slightly more to the left than I felt it should be and I'm not really used to shifting with my left hand. Made it home without any major embarrassments, parked the car behind our house (always thought that the parking space that comes with our flat would come in handy sometime), wrestled with the back seats in a quest to create more trunk space and started to pack.

Day 2, which was officially the start of the festival adventure, began with me waking up at 8.30am, having a nice long shower (because there wouldn't be any for the next 2 days), hauling all my shit into the car and getting on the road at 10am. Ish. Discovered that the time calculations on Google Maps really don't take London traffic into account, which didn't matter so much because my friend wasn't ready when I got to his place anyway. There was a large amount of faffing and me making approving noises to things he suggested packing. There also was a quite impressive downpour when we finally set off towards the M25 with detour via the post office to pick up his ticket. It took absolutely forever to get out of London but once we'd left the force field all went smoothly. I still think the sat nav was slightly taking the piss in regards to what it tried to pass off as roads once we got closer to the venue and the sign-posting to the festival was the worst I've ever witnessed, but we made it. All the way to the path up to the box office. And then we waited. And waited. The festival in plain sight, but the queue not moving. For about an hour. Turned out they'd had a power cut and couldn't issue tickets for those who only had codes, which wouldn't have affected us because we had actual tickets, but because there was only one lane we all had to suffer. Thank you so much, code-only people. Parked the car around 5pm, discovered that mobile reception was patchy, cursed a lot, then send a text to my friends in the hope they'd get it, shouldered the first load of stuff (tent, a few bags) and wandered towards the gate. Got through the gate without getting searched because I simply ambled past the people getting searched and then waited for my friends to show up. And they actually did!!! Cue massive sigh of relief, quite a bit of hugging and a not so long walk to our campsite. Set up my tent with the help of a rather drunk Rach (who giggled a lot and helped a little), carefully pegged and guyed it down because it was windy and I'm a bit OCD when it comes to setting up tents, then trekked to the car again to get the rest of my gear, which I lovingly distributed evenly around the inside of my tent because if I can't find shit, thieves can't find shit. So far, this approach has worked extremely well.

This, by the way, is where the fun starts.

Once set up I declared myself in need of a cider, to calm down and get into the spirit of things, y'know, so I wandered over to my friend who I knew was in possession of a 4pack of apple alcohol and blagged a can. Proceeded to get really rather tipsy, remembered to eat something (there has been an incident involving honey wine where I forgot to do that - I don't recall much of the night but have been told I had fun) before moving on to another can of cider. The following occurrences are probably not quite in the order in which they happened. Things are slightly fuzzy around the edges. I made friends with people at the Origin stage (this may or may not have been facilitated by the fact that I was really pretty drunk). I then made more friends with poi. PSYTRANCE happened. Someone gave me something starting with the letter M. It combined really well with the cider. At some point I might've dissolved into a puddle of giggles. Met Kevin and went on expeditions, featuring a fox maze and yellow balloons, a sisha, a very shiny thing in the woods (I think there's a video of me going "yay, shiny" running through it on someones phone), more Psytrance and tequila (yay, tequila!). At no point did I faceplant into the mud, which I count as a success. More expeditions ensued, we went to the Rabbit Hole and through the rabbit hole, saw the toilets in the fog and danced below the alien spaceship. I loved life, just for a moment, and giggled about being a filthy hippie. The sun started to rise, I ended up in Kevin's tent (but nothing happened), then decided it was time to find my own tent and attempt sleep.


Day 3, which started with me waking up around 10am and thinking that's way too early. Poking sleep some more, then giving up, getting dressed and venture out to find food. And tea. The world instantly looked nicer after I had a cup of Chai. Watched a few awesome Dance Offs, involving dangerously good moves and nudity. I totally approved. There was more Psy Trance, poi and drum'n bass. Made a tasty, but messy food choice before proceeding to get wasted again. Entirely unplanned. For some reason people just wanted to give me, y'know, that stuff. I find that happens quite a lot. No, I'm not complaining. Also tried something a tad more experimental. Things get really blurry from there onwards. There was a lot of dancing and following Daryll and Nige around. A lot of dancing. More of that stuff. Also, a ride on a ferris wheel. More rabbit holing. Walks through the woods. Probably more dancing. Losing track of time, space and where the fuck I am. And not caring the slightest bit, although being slightly worried that I also lose people, which would've been unfortunate and didn't happen. And then I had to admit to myself that I couldn't dance anymore and wanted my tent, I think that was around sunrise.


Day 4, where I woke up around 1pm after a really nice sleep. Sourced breakfast (veggie bacon sandwich) but made a mistake with the tea, which, while being passed off as Chai, was just a bit disappointing. Packed up my stuff and hauled the first load back to the car, stored the rest in Chris'n Rach's shed mini tent and hung out with them at the Dance Off until it was time to head home. Which was somewhat later than expected but before the Pyramid burn. Got home around midnight, had a shower and fell into bed.


It was a truly great Glade. I have the most amazing friends who have the most amazing friends. 


Yes. I am a hippie. Sometimes.