V festival

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So there I was. Phil holding a ticket for me up North, all I needed to do was get myself up there! Grabbed a train on Friday night after work. (Quick aside here: At the train station, first time in my life Ive had to pay for a piss and what a delightful experience! 20p and only one of the turnstiles was working, of the 15 or so urinals, 5 of them were overflowing everytime they flushed, so they had buckets under them! All class!) On the train for an hour and a half, then grabbed the shuttle bus from Stafford to the event site. Rolled up in the pitch black night, wandered straight past security & called Phil to come give me my ticket. "Shit your here" he says, "I'll be there in a tick." Sweet I think, any second now.

After about 1/2 an hour I realise he may be having difficulty as he's already well on the way! After about an hour or so, I end up telling him to stay where he is and Ill find him. Found him from the directions and we started making our way back to the camp site. At this stage Ive already walked through 1 campsite the size of Ericson Stadium and we then proceed to walk for another 30 min through at least 2 more campsites of similar size! Past the full sized fairground, and I mean full sized! About similar to Rainbows End for crying out loud!

Got to camp to find everyone well on their way, and proceeded to follow in their wise footsteps. Considering all I travelled with was my small backpack of clothes, I was well looked after by the crew. Chucked my bag in with Dunc and the entire time I was there, I was fed, given an endless supply of drinks and well looked after all round! Each morning was started with a cider or beer and the theme continued throughout the weekend.
The venue was enormous, it took about 10min walk to get to the stages and stalls and there were like 5 different stages to see. Stayed my the main stage most of the time, saw Muse, Faithless, Pink, Pixies.. too many to name. Wandered off to see Groove Armarda at one point, fantastic as always!

These Enlish can drink though, no doubt about that! After it all on Monday morning, the place was a serious disaster zone I swear. Plastic cups as far as the eye could see. And Id heard that people just get up and walk away from their campsites.. but people had just off and left some really big tents, tables, chairs, a dildo! all sorts.
Seriously great weekend though, weather co-operated, didnt see any agro, and had a great time!
Headed back to Ashbourne Monday a bit worse for wear, had a shower, felt human again, and still had just enough time to nip to the pub for a quick beer before heading off to the train station.

Big ups to the Ashbourne crew, Ill b back again next year for sure!

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