the weekend a lot of us will never forget

When someone mentions something they will never forget, most people immediately think of a life changing experience such sky diving or shark taming; moments filled with enough thrills and adrenaline sources to bring a non-existent being back to life. However, I, living my life on the less experienced side of the spectrum, have no such tales to share. However, something I would like to share would be my first experience at a festival. It may not be life changing in most people's eyes, but it surely will not be a weekend I cherish to forget.
When I was preparing myself for the festival, I had no idea what to expect. Images of torrential rain staining my face as I sludge through quick-sand style mud baths sprang to mind, but I shook them away, determined to march in there with a completely open mind.
Sludging through the squelching mud, I ferociously wiped heavy raindrops off my face. Okay, the festival was exactly how I had imagined. But the bad weather was nothing compared to the memories and experiences I have gained from that single weekend.




Everyone has one useless friend. Unfortunately, all of my friends happen to be as useless and uncoordinated as I am, which made the whole tent-putting-up business a very tricky situation to go about, especially as at the time, a minor monsoon as decided to errupt, causing havoc on the happy little campsite we were on which had the very ironically suited name, 'Green'. I could see and smell a lot of Green on this campsite, however none of it was growing happily as a lawn, but instead rising from giggling tents as festival go-ers 'get the party started' in their too-good-for-this-rubbish-but-may-as-well-go-along-with-what-everyone-else-is-doing manner. Personally, I don't touch the stuff. I can think of plenty of cheaper, better alternatives to 'go absolutely fockin mental' cheers.
The surprising thing about Reading Festival, was that every single person who was there was just so happy, all the time. I think it's something they put in the metal flavoured drinking water. You could walk past a person, stamp on their foot and whack them round the chin and they'd throw their arms up in the air and exclaim "CMON YES, SHE'S GETTING INTO THE SPIRIT, HIGH FIVES ALL ROUND'.
During one of the many rainy spells of the weekend, my generously breasted friend Imogen and I decided to partake in a 'Sun Dance', which involved swanning around doing yoga and sun related positions encouraging the sun to come out. Obviously, this technique proved very useful as expected, and the sun politely obeyed it's orders and remained out for at least 3 minutes before giving in to it's superior; the rain. Whilst we were standing in the middle of a very busy walk way making movements and singing for the sun, not one festival go-er batted an eyelid or even took their eyes off their oh-so-original matching onesies for long enough to care. One could do anything at a festival and I guarantee if you are not ignored, you are joined.

Tell me honestly that it didn't run through your mind.

I'm sure you are familiar with the sickening guilty feeling you get after assuming that somebody is 'special' when actually they are just extremely unfortunate looking. For example, my fellow festival buddies and I rocked up to see our all time favourite band 'The Strokes' at the Main Stage. We were so psyched at the insanity of seeing them so close and were generally so high on life that we decided to become best friends with the first friendly people we came across. Soon enough, we had two extremely jumpy and hyper 34 year old men latching onto our every word (although, i'll be honest...we were all singing along to the same song at the time). And I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I was extra nice to one of these friendly men in particular because...I assumed...judging by his face that....that he was...okay just have a look for yourself at the picture.
Turns out he is completely normal.

AWKWARDDDDD.
Yeah I feel awful now. Sickening isn't it, the guilt. 


Another experience I would like to painfully share will need to be dug deeply out from my repressed mind. Moshing.

the expressions say it all really

I had never been close to doing anything like moshing before. And let me tell you, it was a mother of a shock to the system. My wolfpack and I bounded up to the already heaving crowd, fresh faced and ready to see our first band of the weekend. We all agreed it would be a terribly wise idea to wade as far into the tightly packed cluster of people as humanely possible. And then a bit further. So, we find ourselves comfortably wedged in between a huge crowd of lairy lads, ready to show the girls how hard they really are by heaving the entire crowd back and forth by force. We were wedged so much so, that my feet could have lifted off the ground and I would still be standing tall. At one point, I decided to stop battling and let my arms rest against my chest and face, as I did not have the energy to muster enough strength to move my own hands to sit by my sides. Before the music had even begun I was already starting to break out in a sweat. I calmly told myself to grow a pair and stand this out, as I had been desperate to see this band performing live and could certainly not give up now. As the drums began to boom and the guitars began to strum, the crowd I was being propped up by began to rumble, and I could feel myself moving back and forth with them, through no movement of my own accord. After a while, my lungs decided they fancied a break, and I proceeded to spend the next five minutes gasping in the (lack of) air and struggling to catch any sign of breath. Fantastic. The organ which is used to pump blood around my body decided to work overtime to compensate for it's slacking coworkers, so therefore my beating chest was also moving of it's own accord. Was I controlling any of my bodily movements and functions during that horrendous 10 minutes? No, no I don't think I was.

JUMP ON SOME MASSIVE SHOULDERS

But no fear, I have found the most satisfactory solution to my problem...
Shuffle up to a strong(ish) looking man and politely ask if he would mind crouching down, enabling you to firmly wrap your legs around the back of his neck. I'm sure he wont object. Then, when he stands up you can see everything, and be protected from the crowds. As well as being the envy of the entire arena whilst you give them the two finger salute.










Everyone needs a skankin' buddy.

you just can't beat it. 

Thankfully, I've got mine. Melanie Seddon. Manz is Mel. Boy, has she got some moves. Take this girl into a place with some pumping music and you are done for. If a the building went up in flames she would start skankin' to the beat of the fire bell and imitate the flickering of the flames. However, a new discovery we made at the festival called a Silent Disco was still no match for mel. You walk into a collossal tent full of people hopping and jittering around, and all you can hear is a chorus of incomprehendable, out of tune nonsense which one could only assume is an attempt at singing. However, once placing massive DJ style headphones on your head and entering the floor, pumping dance music floods your ears and you immediately realise what the fellow festival go-ers were trying to sing and your body immediately starts jigging around to the beat (or to any kind of beat in mel's case). The most ingenius part of this whole experience is, that you can change the song.
With this feature in my hands, anything is possible. You could be gettin' low to some bump and grind whilst your skankin' buddy is letting loose to some filthy drum and bass,  or your festival lads could be swaying to some Beyonce whilst you're getting down and dirty to the Macarena. And the best part is; no one cares. 
The funniest part of having Mel as my skankin' buddy, is that neither of us can dance to save our lives. Our other quarters, Imogen and Emma, are only slightly better. Emma is prone to pouting and flicking her hair but not doing much else. Plays it safe. Still gorgeous though, that's something she can't really help unfortunately. Bless.
Imogen is, lets say, relatively gifted in the boobs department, and makes very good use of these and her A Level dance skills to work her way down the floor, as well as around every single breathing male in the Arena before coming up for air. On the other hand, Mel and I have no technique, no rhythm, no flexibility, and certainly no charm. This is how we were brought together and decided to take up skankin'. This involves the pair of us taking centre stage of the dance floor and proceeding to shake and dart our hands and arms around to the beat of the music with a moronic expression on our faces, occasionally kicking our legs in the air to remind everyone we still got style. Ah. Facing the floor and shaking our arms in the air is also a method in our book of tricks, however we usually have to watch out for other dancers so as not to injure them. Hmm.
But before you try any of this at home, remember this one thing..


'You can't skank in a ski jacket' - Mel Seddon, Champion Skanker