Setting Up

A very early start to pack up and head to the festival to get everything set up.

First find somewhere to park that was accessible and I could get out again once the grass turns to mud as it inevitably does and also without a half hour hike.

Second, sort out a suitable site to pitch the tent. Sarah joined me to pitch her tent before heading onto work for the day. Mine is the blue one received from a friend which had never been used. It was so easy to put up I couldn't believe it. For the tenting geeks out there, I did put on the extra strings to tie it down as it was windy later. The site was on a slight hill but overlooked the main arena. During the day the area slowly filled with tents.

Third, 4 of the volunteers arrived to help set up the shop. We had loads of large bin liner size bags to open and sort into coats, jumpers, dresses, bags etc. We didn't know what we would find. It was a case of making an empty tent into a shop with 4 tables borrowed from a church, two clothes racks, cage style boxes, plastic boxes and some colourful rope a friend was throwing out and I thought might be useful to hang things off which we did. Writing out signs for prices, putting up the Oxfam banner and opening up at 5pm and we made it!

The shop was popular and we closed at 8pm.

Saw bits of the Olympics opening ceremony but as it was on an Internet connection on a large screen it buffered just at the point Daniel Craig looked like he was going to jump out of the helicopter so now I need to check it out in iplayer if it's there. The ceremony looked spectacular but soooo long I had to leave it to listen to Chic on the main stage, who were also amazing and everyone was bopping to the well known tunes.

I was so tired and got to sleep relatively easily but it wasn't exactly a blissful sleep with the music and hard ground and sliding down the foil covered foam mattress which worked really well in retaining the heat but I had to keep shuffling back up in my mummy bag as the slope we pitched on had a bit more of an incline than we thought! I also had to put my socks on in the middle of the night when the temperature dropped and crossed my legs so I didn't have to trek to the loos!

All in all it was a fantastic day and an interesting night :)

Thank you blip friends for your kind well wishes for the festival. I'm sure it helped with it running smoothly :)

Posted 30 July