THURSDAY

"Remind me again why we are setting up camp on a Tuesday afternoon when the event doesn't kick off until Friday" i asked Richie.

"Well, it's good to get in early" he said, "It fills up very quickly and we have to secure land for five tents".

"Tish and Posh, Richard" i snorted. "Why, most people will still be at school learning Physics, or at work making textiles or filling in Ledgers. I'm guaranteeing that the entire campsite will be as lush and open as a young maiden's pudenda."

Sadly, it was not to be. In a cruel double-strike, Richie was once again proved correct. As we proceeded to walk from the station to the campsite, a walk of fifteen minutes, we were surrounded by hundreds of other people lugging portable camping stoves, sleeping paraphenaila and assorted festival nick-nacks. Richie was carrying a fair amount of stuff, not only was he sweating under the weight of a full camping backpack, he was also carrying Mark's tent. Mr Vernon would be arriving later on but we wanted to secure as much tent space as possible. I began to feel somewhat inadequate with my small satchel, laptop bag and tent roll.

"Where's your sleeping bag?" enquired Richie.

"It comes as part of the tent" i said.

"Rubbish" said Richie. "That bag's clearly not large enough to conceal a sleeping bag."

"Richard, modern science is all about vacuums. The sleeping bag has been vacuum packed inside the tent." I said. I was feeling a little less confident though, Richie had been correct two times already and was a veteran of festival etiquette. Still, i had once seen a trick whereby an Irishman i knew was able to compress an entire sleeping bag into an area the size of a rubik's cube using vacuum sealing. Besides, the tent was made in China, a country well know for it's nanoscience.

As we came to the campsite, i was much vexed to find that the rain had reduced much of the field to a sort of boggy marsh. What wasn't already drenched in muddy pools of water had been taken by students and people obviously adept in the arts of securing such valuable spaces. As we prowled the area looking for a decent pitch, Richie started labouring under the weight of his valuables.

"Can we stop for minute" he rasped.

"No!" I replied and gave him a hard slap. "We go on until we find a place. Damnation, Richie, we CANNOT disappoint the others.

"Screw the others!" screamed Richie, and he finally cracked. "The whole fucking field has been taken over by damn kids wearing baggy 'ironic' sweaters and stupid brades. We'll never find a place. Game over, man! GAME OVER!"

We walked in silence for two more minutes.

"How about that space over there?" said Richie, gesturing to a relatively dry piece of land not yet claimed amongst the thousands of tents.

"Yeah, that'll do." i said, and under Richie's tutelage, we set up camp and waiting for the others to arrive. Scoring a hat-trick, Richie was once again correct - my tent did NOT come with a sleeping bag.

Alex was the next to arrive. We got used to maneuvering through the endless campsites. Our site, Brown I (no pun intended) was a million miles away from the main festival site, but it was reasonably dry. Alex regailed us with tales of his job working as a Building Fire Safety Expert, or something similar. He's due for a payrise soon, and intends to blow it all on sovereign rings. I forgot how much i missed Alex. Luckily, there was a shop en route selling sleeping bags and waterproof mats (at extortionate prices i may add) and so i wouldn't freeze my balls off that night.

Soon enough, Paul and Mark arrived. Paul had travelled something like a billion miles down from Bishop Auckland, the entire journey from doorstep to campsite for his was something like eight hours. It took me 45 minutes. We set our tents up and talked shit for a while.

"So, did you have a nice journey" i asked.

"Let me tell you a bit about my journey..." replied Paul, getting ready to go off on one.

"We had to cross a fucking river to get from our car to the site. How lame is that?" interrupted Mark.

"That's pretty bad" said Richie

"It took me hours just to get to Mark's" yelled Paul. I had to get out of Bishop though. Seriously."

Now one thing the great celestial forces had not prepared me for was the way in which the heat drops suddenly. When we had arrived I was in my t-shirt and had worked up a sweat just feeding the tent poles through the canvas. Now it was midnight and it felt like the rapid-freeze as seen in mediocre hollywood-flick "They Day After Tomorrow". The temperature slammed down around fifteen degrees and I was shivering in my sleeping bag, even after ensconcing myself in t-shirt and fleecey jumper. No-one else seemed to complain, so i figured the other guys just kept warm by whacking off in their tents, but i decided to keep my opinion to myself and simply curled up in a ball.

Tomorrow was certainly going to be interesting.