Greetings blog readers! We're back! Yep we've returned from the wilds of Wales and we survived the festival experience. There's so many hi-larious stories to tell from the weekend but methinks some choice anecdotes will prove much more reader friendly. So here goes:
Roundabouts
Being a very organised navigator, I printed off the destructions on how to get from London town where Tizz resides to the wilds of Wales where the festival was. There were 4 pages of directions and it all seemed pretty straightforward. Until we got on the actual roads in Wales. Turns out there can often be at least 25 miles between each roundabout, who knew? It took many many twisty turny roads before we went from one instruction to the next. Who ever would have thought that reaching a roundabout would deserve a cheer...hooray!
Tents
Somehow, we managed to arrive within 10 minutes of our other happy festival campers, T&G, so we could set off and choose a place to camp together. It was pretty tricky finding a space big enough for our 3-man tent and their 4-man tent plus mini windbreak, but of course we succeeded and we had a pretty good spot as we were on the edge, thus allowing for an early escape come Monday morning, but more of that later.
Sleeping
I'm one of those people who never really sleeps properly the first night that they arrive anywhere. This is always a major bummer as I'm also someone who seriously needs their sleep. Tizz on the other hand, due to her ever changing shifts, can sleep anywhere at any time, lucky thing! The sleeping throughout the weekend was kinda hit and miss. Some nights I slept like the dead, often we snoozed away the afternoon, but more often than not we were kept awake by horrible grotty teenagers, grrrr. The purchase of the earplugs helped somewhat. But safe to say, festivals are not your destination of choice should you be hoping for restful nights sleeps!
Red Arrows
They're a British institution. And they opened the festival. And they were AWESOME! I lost count of the number of times we gasped...oooh-ed....ahhh-ed...our way through their display. Amazing. And look what pretty pictures they make in the sky:
Music
At such a wee little festival as Wakestock was there were still some pretty big name bands there, but for me, the smaller unknown bands were the ones I enjoyed the most. Flamboyant Bella followed by KissySellOut were my highlights for Friday, especially when KissySellOut did a cover version of EMF's 'Unbelievable'. We went totally mental at the back jumping up and down and singing our lungs out. Whilst the teenagers around us looked on in amazement at how we knew all the words and 'who are those mad oldies dancing like loons' look on their faces. Nyeh. Saturday's highlights were Eliot Minor and The Twang and Sunday were The Mission District and the Cuban Brothers; quite simply the dirtiest band of the weekend, dirty dirty dirty things kept coming out of their mouths but they were absolutely wicked and the atmosphere in the tent was pretty special. The Zutons had a few technical problems but managed to grab it together at the end, all in all, some damn fine bands were seen.
Weather
Always a concern for any festival go-er, the 5 day forecast didn't exactly look promising so it was pleasant to arrive on Thursday in glorious sunshine and for it to stay dry for Friday too. Sadly the same couldn't be said for Saturday. We opened the tent flaps to rain and rather a lot of it, plus wind, oh happy happy joy joy. By the time we eventually got to bed on Saturday night we were absolutely sodden. And cold. And a bit miserable. By Sunday and a long night of rain and wind, the ground was an absolute mud-mire, you basically sunk if you stood around for too long so constant motion was advised at all times:
By Sunday the sun had come out again and it was a beautiful day! The mud-mire was absolutely comical by then as we squelched and sklerrrrrped and suckered our way from one place to the next. I think it's probably safe to say that it doesn't feel like a real festival unless you've had to get your wellies out and tramped around with lots of mud attached to them.
Jagermeister
I'm not quite sure what is actually in this drink, it tastes a bit like cough syrup and comes in the form of shots. Tizz and I opened proceedings by downing a couple ourselves:
I managed to dribble some of mine all down my face (sexy!) but there was definitely something in it as it made us totally hyper! On Sunday when we did 2 shots each we spent about 30 minutes making up many different outfit combinations with the free bandanas. Here's a series for you to enjoy:
What time?
Monday morning rolled around and our festival outing was over. T&G decided that getting away early was the best option. I didn't realise this getting up early meant shouting over to us at 5.15 in the AM that it was time for us to get up. I was actually asleep then and was a very confused Dizz by the shouting, say what? G kindly took a photo of me packing up the tent (cheers matey) to which I might have growled at him to eff and jeff off as I wasn't even human yet, grrrr.
Highlights
*Rain dancing to Eliot Minor. In the mud. By the time we'd finished we had a crowd of us, jumping up and down like red indians, a quality moment!
*Tizz getting chatted up by some random welsh bloke who told her she had nice eyelashes (!) and showed her photos of his bike. The 3 of us started to sneak away to leave them to have some time, chuckle, and Tizz grabbed me and hauled me back muttering "don't leave me"
*"Unbelievable" woo woo woo!
*Tizz and I blowing up our airbed that had sadly decided to deflate by the last night. We were in the darkness of the tent and all that could be heard was the squeak squeak squeak of the foot pump. All this was being done by torchlight so must have cast some pretty odd shadows as I was up and down on the footpump and Tizz was kneeling over me holding the torch...of course we got the giggles and then just had to go there..."oh yeah baby"...squeak squeak squeak..."like that yeah"...squeak squeak squeak...you get the drift. We're so mature...
*As I set off to the toilets one night I realised I'd left the torch and couldn't actually find the tent on the way back. At the time I was pretty worried and starting to panic but afterwards it was really funny. All tents look the same in the dark you know!
*The breakfast that we had on Sunday morning after the rain. I've never had a better breakfast in my life. Fact.
*The hot chocolate and toast that we got from the man on the stall. He might have saved our lives. We were cold and miserable and hot choc and toast was just what we needed. They were even offering hugs should you have wanted to take advantage!
Low points
*Waiting for the Super Furry Animals. Who were 25 minutes late despite the horizontal rain and winds. And then were pretty shite once they did come on. Pah I say!
*The high-pitched whine of the Liverpudlian girls behind us. Shut. The. Eff and Jeff. Up. Now. Please. Hideous. Is it really that surprising that you're cold when you've knifed the door off your tent? Stupid girls.
*Someone nicked our windbreak! Seriously. It was there when we went to bed and gone by morning. It is shocking what people will steal...(ahem, it was only a couple of tent pegs m'lud)
*Missing the Pigeon Detectives due to sheer exhaustion and misery from the relentless rain and wind. Gutted. But I did enjoy hearing their finale from the warmth of my sleeping bag. All together now, "Sweet Caroline...ba-ba-bahhhhhh"
Summing up
A mighty fine weekend. With my most favourite-est peeps. Roll on next year!
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