Hello all, finally back to normality (boo). It took us 6.5 hours to get home today, thanks to the queues to get offsite, a rather long stop for an oddly timed lunch from Blandford Tesco, my insane satnav's decision to take us through Bath, and DD managing to leave her teddy behind in the 30 seconds she was in phoebechicken's house when we dropped them off (they're only 15 minutes away so going back wasn't a great hardship, but I could have wept, we were SO NEAR TO HOME). But it was actually okay, and the girls were stars on both journeys and pretty much all weekend (esp phoebechicken's 4yo who just kept on trucking while the other two had their little spats).
Chuffed to hear I SAVED maristella's festival with my ticket reminder!!
Anyway - loved it. I'm not really recognising the festival some people are talking about on the forum and on Facebook, with disgusting toilets, rowdy teens and aggressive security. A few loos were dodgy, and it was annoying when they ran out of paper (I'm guessing they're designed to take a paltry two loo rolls at a time for damage limitation if some idiot decides to stuff the lot down the loo?) but infinitely better than what I remember of Reading way back in the mists of time. We were only out 'late' last night though, so I guess that accounts for missing the rowdiness.
Getting in on Thursday and getting set up was SO awful though. We ended up parked in the Red carpark, not far from the boundary with Folly, and first had to walk all the way past Tangerine Fields to get a trolley, then back, then two trips to and from the campsite - roughly in the middle of Purple, a bit towards the Red side I guess - and then back to return it, through the carpark the way we'd come as it was dark and I had no idea how to get to the trolley place through the campsites, if that was even possible. It was exhausting, and we had the trolley for three hours (they very kindly only charged us for two). It was just massively disorientating, not at all clear what was where. Couldn't tell from maps how you could get (or not get) from a carpark to a campsite.
Next year ... we'll buy a trolley and damn well fit it in the car SOMEHOW. And considering Camping Plus, but not hearing such good things about it, so not sure. I'd like to hear that they don't plan to make it any bigger, as I thought it was just fine as it was, a bit smaller would be nice, but certainly no bigger.
Loved the silent disco - no chance of finding a bunch of random strangers in there though, was there?! DD got a bit confused and thought when people were cheering and she wasn't being asked to that she was on the 'wrong' channel. I kept switching between the two, as neither completely suited me - didn't like the rock theme MrBearCrumble went off on, as I don't do air guitar, and thought the other guy would have done better to have been a bit more mainstream given the preponderance of old farts in the crowd, dance stuff that we've heard of ... but I'm picky, everyone seemed to be having a good time!
Personal highlight was DD developing a mad dance style that's a cross between bodypopping and traditional Irish dance, and doing it at every opportunity, including on the Cocktails and Dreams stage.