And so it begins...

After three days of site building, three fun days in which it all started to come together, three days of having teams of volunteers arriving and helping out and making friends..two days of which it didn't rain, and we ate outside in the sunshine, retired to the caravan to eat and relax at night, made friends with Andy the scary biker security guy who turned out to be lovely and greeted me each evening with a big hug, and who came into the caravan late at night for cups of tea before guarding us all night...the Big Guy who found me crying one night and just wrapped his arms round me and said, Sally, You're lvoely....and he looked out for me every evening and was the only Atheist on site but the lovliest. Thank you Andy.

The sound and lighting guys turned up. Dan and John, what characters, what a laugh we had..they all liked a drink back in the caravan after work....I stuck to cups of tea or coffee (except one night, more of that later...)

Then it began, the first Saturday night, the Youth gig, with the live bands, and my teams of volunteers turned up, I briefed them, kitted them out with radios and looked after them through their first shift. They had a whale of a time, for most of them, their first experience of any kind of festival, or of stewarding in a yellow vest. Radios were foreign objects, and teaching them how to use the volume control, channel knob, ear pieces and mikes was hysterical. But we laughed and they loved it. Doggit and Maria came and briefed the Pit Crew and stayed and helped with the gig.

They stayed the night in the caravan, and the whisky came out....

A good night.