Gloriously sunny weather, lots of open space, a widespread tolerance of children being children that startled me (unused as I am to 'family-oriented activities', see rants passim), really good quality, variety and value-for-money food and drink, enough shade, portaloos mostly bearable, showers a godsend. Lovely mellow time with arnhem & L, emperor & atreic, and occasionally my father and members of my stepfamily.

Oh yeah, and good music too. I went primarily to see Show of Hands, on Friday night, who were utterly brilliant. The Peter Gabriel cover was the 'low' point, but the new song Keys of Canterbury made me shiver. Also I nearly cried during The Dive, because it's about a son nearly dying, and Steve Knightley made reference to his own sick son and I cuddled my own sleeping son and blinked away the tears as I danced.

I was nearly hoarse by the end of that set singing along. I listened to quite a lot of Little Feat who followed, but by then Charles was fairly deeply asleep and I had the wrong sling for carrying him long-term asleep. So I took him up to the tent to sleep, and then he did the clingy-baby routine and I couldn't face faffing back down again, so I listened to the Peatbog Faeries from the tent.

Saturday and Sunday were rather more disorganised, following unstoppable toddler from stage to stage and band to band. I heard lots of good music - if anything I did better finding "stuff I like" in Stage 3 than Stage 1 - but none for very long :)

I nearly got dehydrated on Saturday but recovered; on Sunday I was much better at drinking water and sticking to the shade where possible, despite being more on-my-own than the previous day (emperor & atreic having left; arnhem & L doing family things). On Sunday evening, it started pouring just as we were thinking about going to get food and listen to more music, and eventually arnhem and I agreed to just pack up and come home before several hundred people had driven through the mud and we'd had a night under rain-on-canvas after not really hearing any more music anyway.

The drive itself was very straightforward, and Charles slept the whole way bar a couple of intervals of vague complaint dissolving back to sleep again. OH HOW NICE it was to sleep on a proper bed - I have bruises on both hips from sleeping on the floor of the tent.

The tent is now on the line drying out, a load of laundry is in the washing machine and I have an unexpected day at home with Charles, rather than a day slogging home by train (or car).

Going down by car tomorrow (thanks to arnhem):

• Charles's car seat (for transport to/from station)
• Tent
• Rucksack containing: sleeping bags, clothes, towels, Tricotti sling, trashy novels I don't mind losing
• Bag of wellies
  
• Bag of waterproofs

Going down by train on Friday:

• Me
  
• Charles (carried in Papatum sling)
• Large waterproof 'beach' bag containing:
  
• wipes & changemat
• toiletries
• torch
• some things to entertain Charles on train
• change of toddler clothes
• suncream
  
• tickets, railcard, wallet, keys, phone
• drugs (migraine and UTI)
• nappies, food and water for journey only
• camera? spare battery?

To be bought on way from station to festival:

• More nappies & wipes
• Lots of cheap bottled water
  
• Supply of easy room-temp food for breakfast, snacks, etc.

To be left behind (and missed lots) for strange dislike of camping and folk music:

• fanf

OH GOD THE MUD.

Lots of rain and lots of people trampling around on grassy fields led to the expected result. I gave up on having clean feet some point on Friday evening. At least the stages were covered, one of them was inside and the seating area kept clean and the loos inside the building were actually kept pleasant. Poor cleaning staff though.

I kept Charles pretty clean and determinedly kept the inside of the tent clean and dry, sacrificing a muslin to mud-wiping duty. A 2-3 man tent is quite fun for just me and Charles, once I'd stopped worrying about things being messy, and it's very cosy cuddling together and listening to the rain drum on the outside. The luggage plan worked, and keeping the rucksack on the buggy and piling other damp things on top was also good (thank you to ailbhe who I think suggested that). The downside was having to mostly-dismantle the buggy in order to de-ant it on departure.

Oh yes, and there was good music too! Show of Hands were excellent, and I need to buy the album(s) I'm missing. I've now finally heard Oysterband and enjoyed them even through a sleepy haze. Instinkt were a fun new discovery, and I have CDs from a couple of the lunchtime sessions artists: Tracey Curtis and Robb Johnson (who is sometimes a bit too right-on for my liking, but made me both laugh and cry with different songs). I didn't hear anyone I actively disliked and overall the atmosphere was fun and relaxed, even with the mud-of-doom. Glad I went.