First, about the camping.....

I did say I would talk about the music at Cropredy...but first about the camping. They have several camping fields around the village, numbered 1 to 7. When the site opens on Thursday morning, they simply fill the sites from number 1, car by car, row by row, you drive in, park and put your tent up next to your car. You end up with a neat field of rows of tents in front of rows of cars - and there is no 3 metre rule either! There are no special areas, you camp where you are told to as you arrive - I got there at 4.30pm Thursday and they were alreaady into Field 7, and I was at the end of the row at the bottom of the field, by hedge and very near the toilets....

If you want to camp as a group then you meet somewhere like Tescos car park in Banbury, and drive on site together. It works, no-one complains, you meet up with your friends (if you have any!) by arrangement. I think Greenbelters are very different. Laura spent ages on the phone this week to may people, such as a girl who is arriving on Friday but her friend isn't coming until Saturday, and how can they make sure they can camp together? Laura, of coruse gets to that hysterical stage where she starts offering to personally stand all night and guard the space, and of course she can do that for hundreds of people.......

The downside is that if you are on your own like I was, and on the end of a row, with the hedge behind, and a large tent on one side only with its back to me, and a family the other side, who I never saw, but believe me I heard them......the next row is about a road width away, so I was isolated, and didn't manage to make friends with fellow campers.

I did think, for me, that being next to the loos was a splendid idea, not too far to go in the night, but of course they have those spring shutting doors, and everyone who comes out just lets go of the door, and it goes bang......14 lots of bangs, I thought, counting the toilets. Then, in the morning at 6am, yes 6am, a very loud lorry came and parked outside my tent and pumped out the toilets loudly for almost an hour, and there was lots of banging and craching.

When I emerged, the toilets were much nearer to me than before, ie, right up to my tent..and I realised the lorry had delivered 5 more. I could have made friends with people in the queue next to my tent, but they just queued silently, being British, and watched my struggles to put up my tent and take it down, alone; yes just watched, but no-one spoke or offered to help. A girl on her own? Oh well, not young or pretty enough any more I suppose. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the music...............