I set off from home on Thursday.  Tent, sleeping bag, chair and food packed into the back of the car, along with sack barrow from Jewsons to cart the stuff to the campsite.  I drove around Bristol, down the M5 and through Glastonbury arriving at Pilton after midday.  The only hold up was being stuck behind a German registered coach.  The roads other than that were completely empty.  Was the festival happening?

For some reason only known to the organisers, I was parked seemingly miles from the entrance. Sack barrow loaded with the provisions, and then the mile or so walk to entrance number D.  Walked past acres of fields empty of cars.  These were totally full when I left the festival.  Slight mishap on the walk, the barrow decided to lose one of its wheels.  No problem, quick walk back and offending clip was found and refitted.

Through gate D, tagged with wristband and then a search for a camping pitch.  Seems everyone had already turned up on the opening day Wednesday.  Not many spaces were available.  Heard from others that the queues into the site had been horrendous.  Eventually camped in the Dairy Ground just south of the hedge that separates the area from the Paines Ground.  I found what seemed to be quite a reasonable space, to which a resident neighbour said, we wondered when that would be filled.  As is usual a couple more tents found their way into that space over the rest of the day, and one was even erected early in the morning while I slept.

Tent set up, and then a walk around the festival arena.  First visit was a walk to Green Fields and the Stone Circle where the weirdoes hang out,  the way led past the Other Stage, where Selina and I had camped in the long past.  This camping area in view of the stage was now let out to stallholders.

Green Fields and the Stone Circle were quite restful, with some hand bongo drummers disturbing the peace in the centre of the circle.  Back down the hill, and walked to the east to check out the areas of Arcadia and Trash City,  Trash City looked really interesting, not yet open, men working on the props with welding equipment.  Looked forward to coming back there and seeing it when it was open.

Into the main shopping area, picked up a vegetarian curry for a late lunch, and then a walk up through the circus area, and to the cinema and acoustic tent.  A quick pint of beer, lots of real ale on offer at this festival, along with the petroleum tankers of larger and cider.

I walked back on down to the Pyramid Stage and then on home to my tent.

Here I got to know my neighbours, a couple from Birmingham way in a tent that you could stand up in.  While sitting there enjoying the late evening, a nearby tent started launching model hot air balloons. The second launch was not a success, the balloon caught fire and landed on a nearby tent causing a little bit of damage.

Night came, so another walk around the nightlife of the festival, heading over to Trash City.  Alas this place was not yet open.  The whole place was really buzzing in expectation, but not a lot quite yet happening.