02 September 2007

The Long Cold Sunday Morning of the Soul*


Early morning at Beautiful Days

Its 6:30 in the morning, I'm cold despite two facts firstly; its August and secondly; I'm using two sleeping bags and wearing a fleece. I've just woken up, although waking implies being asleep which I haven't done a lot of in the past four days, two of these due to being camped out a cold hillside at the Beautiful Days Festival.

I'd been looking forward to it for ages, My first festival: but the previous two nights I might have managed 2 hours of poor sleep consisting mainly on sliding down in my tent and then pushing myself back up again so I exhausted.

I try to get back to sleep and I listen to Lisa Gerrad on my iPod hoping this will help bring sleep. It doesn't and hour and half later I give up trying to sleep, I dress and crawl out of my tent.

All around are a sea of tents with coughing and snoring emanating from many of them. As the rain has finally stopped I decide to have a walk and find the Tiny Tea Tent and have a fresh cup of tea to try and rekindle my atrophying brain.


As I wander through the slopping mud toward the village shop tent a few other bleary-eyed people are also awake at this time, either coming back from partying or other insomniacs.

One of them is walking in the same direction carrying a case of beer, she says 'Hi', she's about my age and looks like the kind of person that wouldn't look out of place at a environmental protest, and we start chatting about festivals and I tell her this my first festival and its a lot noisier than I'd thought it would be, she laughs as she thought this has been a really quiet festival and was looking for more music. At the village shop tent we parted company while she tried to sell the cans of beer and I slip and slide on the way up the hill toward the Tea Tent and my goal of a cup of tea.


I round the corner to the Main Stage and it looks like a very wet ploughed field, ploughed by thousands of people dancing to Gorgo Bordello the night before. Litter blows across the area like synthetic tumbleweed it the cold wind.

Despite this, the wind blowing and only a few people around I remember why I like this time of the morning, the freshness of the day, the secret time before most people are awake and the day seems bright, new and full of possibilities, but the cloying mud soon makes me wish I was fast asleep and warm in my tent.

I finally trudge up to the Tea tent, outside sat around an open fire of burning bits of timber that someone must have found somewhere are people who've been up all night discussing everything and nothing, they all seems to have the same type of baggy, loose knitted jumpers and ripped jeans almost like a uniform. I go on into the Tea Tent but realise I've no money, I swear and squelch off back down the hill until I meet the woman I'd spoken to earlier, I mumble about forgetting my money and she offers to buy me a cup, I gratefully accept saving the long walk back to the tent. We exchange names and she tries to sell more beer to other people in the people in the tent.

I go to the counter and get poured a mugfull of the sort after brown liquid and sit at a bench and sip it. The mug is filthy and I think it hasn't been washed up since the start of the festival, this would normally bother me but I'm so tired and thirsty that I just drink down the tea at the rickety table in the tumbledown tent.

The woman who bought my tea is still deep in conversation and negotiating beer prices, I'd like to stay and talk more but in my sleep deprived state and annoying shyness feel like talking even less than normal and anyway can't think of anything remotely interesting to say and I think chances of managing to hold a coherent conversation are beyond me, so I say goodbye and start to make my way back down to my tent.

I start to wonder whether it would be a good idea to drop out, nearly all the people I've met who most people would think of as drop-outs have been some of the friendliest and easiest people to talk to as strangers, but thinking further, while in theory I'd love the freedom I'd probably hate it, I'd worry about everything and generally hate the uncertainty of it and also I've no idea how to go about it and as I'm just about to buy a flat its probably a very odd thing to think about. As I trudge on back passed the Main Stage I release I've forgotten her name, I get back to my tent and wait for everyone else who can sleep to wake and I sit feel more tired than I can remember.



*Title:With apologies to the late great Douglas Adams.