Leeds Day 1: Thursday

Ok, first of the posts about my trip. Some of these could and probably will get kinda long, and there's a fair few photos, so sorry to anyone on dial up internet! I've cropped the piccies down to a fairly reasonable size, the original ones are huge, well over a thousand pixels.

- - A quick note about the camera - its a cheap disposable one, I got the photo place to put the piccies on a cd for me. They aren't great quality, they aren't lit, or composed properly, but they are snapshots. Enjoy. - -

It's just before 8am and I'm loading the car up with all my stuff, before setting off to join in with the Thursday morning rush hour. In all fairness though the traffic wasn't as heavy as I'd expected. Infact, most of the drive to Leeds was spent traveling on a practically empty motorway - which was pretty cool. Nothing much happened, past a lot of really nice countryside, it's so weird how on the one hand there is the city centre with all its cosmopolitan shops,
trendy cafes and over priced fast food outlets, yet on the other, there are rolling fields of bright red poppies, and towering corn. It's fantastic, and even better, it's only about a 30 or 40 minute drive from my house.

So after a long queue we finally find somewhere to camp. The air is heavy with the smell of a certain herb, lets call her 'Mari J' and if Pruvaloo isn't mistaken, the atmosphere has a slightly green tint. Two trips to the car and back and all the stuff is unloaded and unpacked. I've definitely brought too much with me. Better to have too much than not enough I guess, although I'm not sure my hands, arms or shoulder blades would agree. Laying down is a painful
operation.

My timing seemed to be excellent that day, I'd just got inside my tent when a thunderstorm hit. Luckily though it passed fairly quickly, so I decided to go and scope out the lay of the land - I needed to find someone selling programmes anyway. After wandering around for a while I manage to spot someone, and after handing over seven quid, Pruvaloo now knows the running order of the bands for the whole weekend. I also spotted lots of cool shops - I find a nice
hoody. I also see loads of 'herbal highs' stalls selling everything from Poppers to N2O to Salvia. I decide to head back to the tent and get some more money.

On my way back I bump into Neil, now Neil is my mate from back home, he only lives like 10 minutes walk from my house, and I've been skating with him for the past 6 years or so. Out of all the people there, and all the places he could of camped, he's based all of about 10 tents behind me. What are the chances of that happening eh?

I head back to the stalls to buy that hoody, and meet 'Drugs Girl. First of all, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, and I was fairly tipsy to say the least. 'Drugs Girl' is a young lady from London, who was warning people about the dangers of doing illegal drugs.

"Enjoy the festival. Don't do drugs"

I talked to her for ages about how it was stupid to pay so much money to be there and then get so wrecked that you couldn't remember it - which is a very good point, and very refreshing to hear amongst the clichéd portrayal of the Club 18 - 30 youth of today.

"A is a no no, B is ish but C is alright"

Turns out she had applied to my uni too, but she's going to go to Edingburgh this September to start an English course. We hugged and went our separate ways. I really wish I'd of invited her back for a drink, but I had other things on my mind. I know I'll never speak to you again, but I hope you had a good festival 'Drugs Girl'.

Random quote of the day: "At least it's not a Humphrey badger!"