Bestival: Not having fun? We are British, dear. Fake it.

The cult loves festivals. In fact, festivals are as synonymous with the cult as, say, liquid eyeliner. However, just like liquid eyeliner, I have always felt that festivals are just that little bit too much like hard work. And I also really really like being warm, dry and asleep. And I am a teensy bit lazy. This year, however, I decided that I also hate to miss out on fun cult japes so I decided to lose my festival virginity and do the one festival that everyone said was a safe bet, Bestival, Rob Da Bank’s boutique party on the Isle of Wight. Everyone said it was sunny every year. Everyone said it would be easy.

Everyone lied.

Thursday 4th September, 2008

Dear Diary

10pm: The weather report is saying showers with sunny intervals on the Isle of Wight tomorrow though a bit of rain overnight tonight. I can cope with that. Packed my mum’s wellies just in case it gets a bit muddy, bought a rather ridiculous turquoise waterproof (again, just in case), got my airbed, have shoved a pillow into a backpack and I am ready to roll.

4am: Where do people sit at festivals if the ground is wet? I guess there are picnic benches. Go back to sleep.

Friday 5th September

Dear Diary

Have last minute panic that everyone will know that I am a festival virgin so try to relax my look a bit. This involves taking off the ethno-rah Indian scarf and the jewellary that I haven’t worn since my gap year. There is nothing I can do about the fact I am wearing wellies on the Northern Line at 9am because it is either wear wellies and look like a twat or don’t bring a pillow. Bye bye home.

Portsmouth Harbour: Just got a message from someone there already who says that the site is completely ruined because of rain overnight and we are (and I quote), “idiots if we still come”. Sarah, my festival companion, immediately says “well we are certainly not turning back now”, I nod as if in total agreement but my internal monologue is saying “really? WHY THE HELL NOT?!”

Ferry: I feel sick.

Ryde: We are here! I jump up with rather too much enthusiasm and break the zip on my waterproof. Not a big deal. It was only a precaution anyway.

Shuttle bus: I don’t think I have ever loved anyone more than Sarah the moment she produced a family pack of penguin bars from her rucksack. Guess what? It’s raining.

Shuttle bus: I am convinced everyone can tell I am an amateur. Sarah has noticed and keeps saying things like “people who go to festivals don’t usually wear cardigans” and “oh how sweet, you brought a box of tissues”. I am pretty sure she is joking but I tuck my kleenex out of sight just in case.

Tent, 4pm: We arrived, queued, got wristbands, the sun came out. It is a massive site and is covered in mud. We walk very very slowly down a massive hill. I hate my rucksack and all my belongings. There is mud as far as the eye can see. We are like mud refugees fleeing to Mud Island. After walking for what felt like three hours, we arrive at our chosen field and are clearly blessed because it doesn’t rain while we pitch our tent and our nice tently neighbours give us their air bed pump and ta-da! Our new home is erected and furnished with no major drama. I can’t help but think that we are like the man who built his house on sand. Please be here and dry when we get back, little tent. I have just baby-wiped a bit of mud off my jeans and had a little chat with myself that went something like this “Ok. You can do this. Don’t cry. Vive le cult”.

Saturday 6th September

Dear Diary

Tent, 6am: The rain on canvas sounds like drum and bass or maybe it is the actual relentless drum and bass coming from the next field, I just don’t know. Haven’t people had enough of listening to music yet?Perhaps this is why I am not a natural raver though I do love our tent. And the fact that earlier in the evening, when it was bucketing down, we found a lush, velvet-lined bolt hole called Black Dahlia where we had mojitos and felt, for a fleeting moment, relaxed. Once refreshed, we were ready to hear some actual music so the next stop was to see Santogold in the Big Top. Considering everyone was a bit annoyed that their feet were wet, worried that the entire weekend was ruined and cramped into a suddenly very hot tent, Santogold really brought it to stage and made everyone forget their woes, an impressive feat. If only just for an hour, we were nice middle class music lovers once more, not victims of some cruel survival game called Extreme Raving. Before Santi worked her magic, I honestly expected to see Bear Grylls or Ray Mears pop out at any moment and inform us that if we wanted to eat before nightfall, we had to fossick and forage for our next meal or choose a friend to kill and use their corpse as a mud sledge to get to high ground. Ah the power of music (and mojitos) to make you forget. I might be having fun.

The next stop for us was the Greco Roman stage, which is clearly the place to be. As soon as we arrive we meet the rest of the cult and dance to “I Can See Clearly Now The Rain Has Gone”. Ah so ironic. Because even I, festival virgin, know that the rain has gone nowhere. Just like Arnie, it will be back.

Somehow in all the excitement, Sarah and I ended up in a tent in artist’s camping sucking laughing gas balloons until 6am. Now if there is one thing that could make me forget that I have an hour walk through mud wind and rain ahead of me just to get to my tent, it is probably nitrous oxide. Mercifully, when we finally arrived home, having held hands and sloped through the mud repeating “best foot forward, best foot forward” over and over again, we discovered our tent was both still here and still dry.

Tent, 8am: Need a wee. It is light so can’t wee outside my tent anymore and it is raining pretty hard. Not walking all the way to a toilet. Decide to lie awake thinking about it for a bit.

Tent, 8.15am: I have just peed on our tent porch and, if I am entirely honest, a bit on my own feet and the tent bag. I woke Sarah up to check with her before I did. She has assured me that people do it at festivals all the time.

Tent, 9am: I am going home tomorrow.

Tent, 9.01am: I am going home tomorrow. Did I already think that?

Tent, 12pm: Washed face, having nap.

Tent, 4pm: Had some salt and vinegar crisps and a Capri Sun. Any minute now we are getting into fancy dress and going out there.

Tent, 6pm: We are ready. The theme is Under The Sea. We are Nu Waves. Sarah has brought me sunglasses that make me look like Dame Edna Everage. I keep saying “Hello Possums” over and over and over again. It is pretty funny. I genuinely don’t care that I haven’t left my tent today. There is only mud out there anyway.

Tent, 6.05pm: It has started raining again.  Like troopers we are heading out into the mud regardless.

A sheltered bench somewhere: Bar the crisps earlier, we haven’t eaten for 24 hours (I think this is the first time ever for me) so we grab a sausage sandwich and a cup of tea to keep us steady. We meet the first of about 50 men who stick their gurning smiling face into ours and ask if we are having a nice time or say “happy bestival!”. Mate, I am sorry that you have taken a pill and lost your mates and it is only 6.30 but I am hanging on to my mental stability by a thread so frankly please just piss off. Instead of saying this I smile politely. He asks us if we have seen his wellies. Sarah responds with “never mind your wellies, where is your front tooth?” I actually have to sit down I am laughing so hard. I guess I am not a natural born hippy.

Mainstage, later: There is something pretty amusing about seeing thousands of mud splattered adults dressed up in fancy dress despite the fact it is bucketing down with gale force winds. There is something less amusing about the fact that I am one of them. In true British style, everyone is all faux bonhomie and “gosh isn’t this fun”. I believe it is called trench spirit. Grace Jones is onstage and she is definitely in fancy dress. I, like about a thousand other people, have just realised that I know and like Grace Jones’ music. This is genuinely brand new information to me. I like festivals even though they are like the recreational equivalent of waterboarding.

After rather alot of “will she won’t she”, Amy Winehouse takes to the stage and is unsurprisingly a bit lacklustre. By this point we have met up with the rest of the Nu Waves and another friend who is dressed as a bottle of beer. He is in great spirits but tells me: “I was dressed as a message in a bottle. But then I dropped my message. I’ve been walking around in this costume for 4 hours. I am 31 years old for christ sake”…

As Sarah and I then slowly trudged home later that night, burger in one hand and cider in the other, this got me thinking. Does my friend the wise Beer Bottle embody the true sprit of the British music festival? Is it really all about nice, ordinary middle class people displaying extraordinary resolve to just get on and have a good time, regardless of the fact that all signs are pointed to Misery Town? And what of the hundreds of people who really couldn’t dance off their cold wet feet or have faith that the rain will stop or just get into the groove? Are they sitting in a grumpy tent having a good old moan? No, they are out there, giving it their best. Not having fun? We are British, dear. Fake it.

Sunday 7th September

Dear Diary

12pm: We have packed up. Like rats off a sinking ship, there is a mass exodus off Mud Island and back to the mainland. Sarah and I look on incredulously as our friend tells us she is going to stay another night because “guys, the weather is meant to pick up and no one is leaving except you two”. We are technically leaving a day early, because the mud is never going to dry, the rain will never stop. Like all good cult members know, when the party is over, it is time to go home. Ahead of us is a trek through the mud back to the safety of the shuttle bus. Sarah and I say a quick prayer to the cosmos that we won’t fall over (we haven’t yet which is a minor miracle).

The pub, Ryde 2pm: We sit and eat our lunch, fairly glumly. This is either because we are exceptionally hungover or sad to leave or both. Here we muse on the various characters we met along the way, like the man whose fancy dress costume was just cling film or the man who dressed as a giraffe and then threw up on himself. I think I will miss, most of all, the woman dressed as a sea monster who told Sarah and I that her costume gave her husband a “stiffy”.

Home, 7pm: Sarah asked me to sum up my first ever festival experience. It took me hours to come up with how I really felt about it. Like something to survive rather than savour, I learnt an awful lot from 48 long hours on Mud Island. For example I now know what the apocolypse will look like. But, most importantly for a slightly cossetted and lazy 26 year old, I learnt that anything in life that is worth doing, is pretty hard work.