Festival Madness - Glasto 2013

What a week! The Glastonbury Festival is always amazing and, what with half decent weather and Rolling Stones headlining, this year was the best yet.

After a four hour drive down south, we set up camp, chatted to our new neighbours and decimated our rum & pretzel supply.

I knew my St Michael 1960s swimsuit would come in handy, headband made by me for Glastonbury 2010

After a lazy Wednesday in the sun we packed our bags with booze and headed off to the Stone Circle for singing and dancing & fireworks around the camp fire,

before witnessing the opening ceremony.

I was bastard freezing by midnight but far too excited to bother with a coat. My chazza shop feather boa got admired by a finalist from The Voice - aren't I special?

On Thursday I managed to parade around in my floral finery before the wind got up, the heavens opened and we scuttled back to Gilbert. I'm linking to Patti's Visible Monday as no-one could miss me!

Wearing a me-made bikini top and a '70s patchwork maxi from eBay, Ganesh pendant (handmade by Krista-licious)

We're hardy festival goers so it takes more than a bit of a downpour to curtail our fun. We waterproofed up and met some mates down at the Salon Carousel for boozing and chat.

Salon Carousel's in The Unfairground, a broken down psychedelic circus and go-go show featuring Happy Monday's Bez's Acid House. I'd bumped into Bez in the campervan camp site earlier but I was far too shy to ask for a picture. 

 On Friday Glasto kicked off proper and despite 12 hours of rain the mud was barely worth worrying about. It turned out to be the only day wellies were necessary.

We met up with our friend Jon to see Enter Shikari (disappointing), Billy Bragg and Don Letts.

Wearing Kiss Me Kitty leggings, Edie Pop designed Vix bag and a 1960s fun fur coat borrowed from the stockroom.

Freezing my arse off during Seasick Steve's performance. The excitement proved too much for Jon's trusty digital camera and it packed up just before the Arctic Monkeys set.

Thank goodness for mobile phones. Jon's captured a bit of the amazing The Bombay Royale on Saturday afternoon. We also saw Billy Bragg again (not intentionally, we were too lazy to move) and Laura Mvula.

Here's a taster of The Rolling Stones madness. We got to the Pyramid Stage 5 hours before they came on (that's how immense Glastonbury is). We rocked out to Elvis Costello and Primal Scream in the meantime.  Apparently there were over 100,000 spectators in the arena. (If you watch any of the BBC footage we're standing next to the red flare during Sympathy For The Devil.)

Festival earrings from Queen Helga, 1960s pink crochet poncho (from a car boot sale) worn over a 1970s maxi dress.

What can I say? I've been going to gigs for 33 years and those two-and-a-half hours blew my mind. 

I wasn't too emotional to continue partying till the early hours though, catching another set by The Bombay Royale in the Pussy Parlour club tent, swigging gin and eating chips at 3am. 

Miraculously Jon found a tatty old camera abandoned by a bin on the way back to camp. We stuck in our memory card and the picture quality was passable. This is Sunday afternoon at the Spirit of '71 stage, the best place for psychedelia and trippy weirdness. 

1970s child's psychedelic cotton maxi (Ebay, 2005), floral crown (the fabulous Desiree) 

Not dressing in the standard festival uniform of designer wellies, cut-off Levis, a khaki parka and a plaited fringe tends to draw a lot of attention .... I love it! 

The downside of having a camper van is that the camp site feels like miles away. At peak times it can take 2 hours to walk back but luckily our mates are campers so we can leave our coats and extra booze in their tents to save missing out on any action.

It was Lilly's first Glasto. Doesn't she look the part in her Roses tee?

During the day we saw John Otway and Space Ritual, had a picnic at the Farmer's Market and caught some of Sergio Mendes. We were too lazy to make it to Nick Cave or Evan Dando in time.

Mumford and Sons were headlining on Sunday night and we've seen them before and aren't that keen so went exploring alternative Glasto instead.

I've been pestering to go to the insect circus for years and finally got my way.

Block 9 (the post-apocalyptic city) with it's debauched gay bar were a sight to behold...

...and we nearly wet ourselves laughing playing with the old skool seaside style cut-outs.

After a dance in the post-apocalyptic disco we finished the evening around the camp fire. It was supposed to be an early-ish night but our intentions went to pot.

In true Glasto tradition we met up with the gang for a Ploughman's at the Riverside Inn in Cheddar. Four hours sleep and not a shower between us in 6 days, no wonder nobody wanted to sit next to us.

1970s Prova maxi (Misfit Sarah)

My other hip's knackered, I look like death and I can't get a comb through my hair and guess what? We'll be doing it all over again on Thursday at CamperJam. God help us.

Just as well I can't walk, I've a billion blog posts to catch up on.

See you soon!

Updating to link to Sacramento's Share-In-Style