OH found us Sundown, which is quite local and was still reasonably priced, just.
"If it rains, we can always get in the car, go home, sleep there, and then come back the next day," OH said, ever practical.
The week before the festival was wet and cold but thankfully, temperatures rose towards the end of the week and we set off in our car packed to the rafters and into a genuine sundown, singing along loudly to The Shamen's 'Ebenezer Goode'.
My timing was a bit pants. I had to work that day and then needed a proper bath to unwind so we didn't set off until 7pm. Most people had already arrived at the site and pitched their tents so we were directed towards the 'family camping'. Which was just as well because what I had not realised was that Sundown isn't really for people like us. It's for young people. We are no longer young. The way the kids respectfully made room for us as we staggered, laden with the tent bag, coolbox, sleeping bags, carrier mats, tin pots and full backpacks, told us that we were perhaps fondly regarded as parents probably sherpaing for a teenager who had already gone ahead to start the party.
We found the furthest and darkest corner of 'family camping' and pitched there, and I was profoundly grateful for OH for having testpitched the tent at home because I sure as heck had forgotten how to put it together after years of not looking at it at all. It was up in less than half an hour.
Wandered across the festival site that Friday night, which was basically a smalltown fairground with thousands of young people in fancy dress and V for Vendetta masks. We drifted into the Big Top where I bopped along to the thumping techno beat until I started wondering why we managed to clear a space around us so quickly. I didn't think my dancing was that eclectic. Then I looked at OH behind me, who wasn't dancing, just standing there looking tall, stern and forbidding in his Edwardian beard and his menacing manbag, and probably like a Dad, or a plainclothes officer. It was there that I suddenly felt my age -- I could not see a single other person dancing who was my age, which was sobering.
"Ah, let's go back to the tent and drink some of that tetrapak pinot grigio," I said.
In the end, we swung by the car park again, a 15-minute detour because the site was so vast, and picked up our breakfast gear. OH went ahead while I stopped by the Exotic Meat van and bought myself a zebra burger. Had that plus wine and cider, sitting out in the dark, listening to the music wafting across the showground and watching the bright lights, and then we were both so tired that we turned in and fell asleep.
Some rain during the night, we could hear it on the tent, but Saturday morning was lovely and dry again. Good job we'd brought our breakfast stuff along!
Around 12pm, the thumping beats started up from the Big Top and the soundcheck commenced on the main stage.
Wandered across to the festival site late in the afternoon. I'd been trying to find a place to wash all afternoon and discovered to my horror that there wasn't a single wash- or showerroom anywhere on site. The website had said "free hot showers" but had omitted to say "For rich people only." The so-called "Pamper Area" where the "free hot showers" were situated was right next to the "Glamping site" (= glamour-camping), with its pre-erected Mongolian yurts and separate security. OH and I rocked up there expecting to walk right through when we were stopped by the bouncers and asked for evidence of having 'pre-booked'. Pre-book a shower? Which century England is this -- the 18th? Of course we hadn't pre-booked since it didn't say anywhere on the website you had to. The hapless person at the general information booth confirmed: we, and the 9000 other ordinary campers, are just flea-ridden plebs who can wash in a puddle or use babywipes or kitchen towels soaked in alcohol gel from the stinking portaloos, but for us there would be no showers anywhere on site. I couldn't believe it: the Big Chill six years ago had solar-powered outside showers, communal, yes, and not exactly shielded from voyeurs' eyes either, but if you needed to keep clean, you could. This however is forelock-tugging Norfolk four years into coalition rule where everybody now seems to accept the absence of basic facilities for the masses while the moneyed one-percenters could lounge, behind a tall metal fence no less and in full view of me, in front of their space-hogging yurts and occasionally stalk off to wash the drool off their fronts in their bespoke solid-foundation washhouse.
With torches and pitchforks on my mind and fist-greeting every single V-for-Vendetta mask that passed me, I wended my way through the teeming teenage masses and eventually said to OH: "Who are all these kids going to work for? There are no jobs!" -- "Thought exactly the same," OH said.
We parked ourselves in front of the stage and listened to the Foxes do their thing but when it started to rain, I felt a bit cold and nagged OH to go back to the tent to get changed. OH hadn't had a lot of joy with regard to glutenfree catering at the festival so he relied on readymeals brought from home. But a little van at the side was offering glutenfree cakes out of the back, and OH was happy.
Had dinner at the tent and got changed and were back at the main stage in time for Tinie Tempah's gig, which was pretty good (OH: "Yeah, he was good, got the crowd going, although it would have been even better if he'd done more of the singing himself!").
For oldies like us, it's really the people-watching that's the most fun. OH got quite a few compliments from other men who would come up to him and say, conspiratorially, "Nice beard, mate. How long have you had it for?" And OH would reply "Eighteen years." At which the young person with his (much shorter) beard would blanch and go "Holy ****!" and stumble off and feel a bit demotivated. "My beard is probably older than he is," OH would then observe.
We watched a very young couple in front of us, she vague flower child, he tech-obsessed and constantly taking selfies of himself, his girlfriend and Tinie Tempah in the background with an extendable camera stick. Vague Flower Child must have gone off to flirt with someone else soon after because while OH and I were sat on the lawn waiting for Chase & Status to come on, I watched the two of them argue. Normally, it's the female who'll lay into some detached-looking "who-me?" boyfriend but with this one, it was the other way round. Vague Flower Child was still bopping along to the DJ'ed music while upset and pained-looking boyfriend was shouting angryisms in her ear, waving his now-useless camera on a stick. Then he stormed off. Vague Flower Child stood around vaguely, still dopily singing to the music until she realised that her relationship was in the process of going down the pan, and hopped after her man. The subsequent conversation, about 3 metres away from us, did not go well and at one point I thought he was going to deck her -- thankfully he did not -- but it didn't look as if they'd resolved it.
"So sad," I said to OH.
"This one's also interesting," he said and pointed to another skinny white Flower Child in hot pants dancing and being romanced by a Jamaican-British young guy who'd clearly watched her for a while and now decided to make his move.
We watched as Dancing Flower Child Two referred the young man to her best friend, who was still sitting on the floor, Goth Child.
"She says she's already taken but her best friend is still single," I said. "Unfortunately, the best friend isn't wearing hot pants and isn't showing off her dancing skills."
But the young man was clearly a bit of an opportunist. Soon he and the two girls headed off to the nearby bar van.
"That'll be expensive," I said to OH, "He'll have to fork out for two."
"I think one of the girls is paying," OH said, who had the better eyes.
"Wow," I said, "that's even smarter then. Well played, my man."
Then Chase and Status came on, who weren't really our thing. I'd been nursing a headache all Saturday from all the noise, and so OH and I decided we were going to be middle-aged and return to our tent at 11pm. By midnight, we were both asleep despite the bright lights and the massive generator barely 5 metres away from our tent that they'd decided to switch on that night.
Next morning was nice again, and when we learnt that it took about 2 hours on average to leave the car park, we decided we'd pack up and head home early.
In sum: glad we went, because now I have realised I am a little too old for the whole festival thing although both OH and I think we'd probably like to go camping again -- as long as we have the car right beside us and either a washhouse or a running stream and privacy nearby.
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