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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2010 Blog - 6Latitude's First Night - Friday 16 July 2010Woke up in my tent with a dry mouth, a blocked nose, a bladder full to bursting and a ringing headache. Sounds about accurate for a morning at a festival, eh? In truth, I had just endured one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life. Not the most uncomfortable night ever (that accolade goes to a night in which I shared a bed with about 16 cats when I was house-sitting for a friend some years ago) but a close second. To say that last night was windy is to say that Hurricane Katrina was a light breeze. It didn't rain buckets, it rained bowsers, reservoirs even. In the face of such weather, my tent took on aspirations of becoming a bird. It seemed to be determined to launch itself from this earth and try its luck as a flying object. I swear there were several moments when the entire tent lifted off the ground, the only thing weighing it down and preventing it from becoming airborne being my body lying uncomfortably on the cold mud. I spent most of the night wondering when the moment would come that I would have to evacuate my tent and head for higher ground. This wasn't such an exaggerated concern. It's happened to me once before. I've already mentioned my time as a boy scout when I was a kid. Well, it so happens that I was a pretty good one. I had badges and all that stuff. Therefore, it stood to reason that I should be allowed to take my patrol of a few half dozen other kids on an unsupervised camping trip. It seems incredible now that not only was I allowed, but actively encouraged to take a group of young kids, none of them older than about 12 or 13 years, into the countryside for a long weekend of completely unsupervised camping. Not a single grown-up accompanied us. Not a single person past puberty was in charge. In an age before mobile phones, before email even, we headed off on our own into an adventure-filled world. I don't believe we lasted a night. We pitched our tents and spent the rest of the day setting up camp. I remember being extremely proud of a large wooden gate I'd built at the entrance to our campsite, made of broomsticks and bits of rope. In the evening, we went to bed. I woke up some time in the middle of the night to the sound of rain pouring down and could hear voices in the night coming from the other tents as some of the other boys dealt with water entering their tents. The fools, I thought smugly to myself, they should know better than to touch the tent when it's raining (apparently water only comes through the tent if you touch it - this could be true or utter bull, I don't know...look it up). I went back to sleep. I woke up a few hours before dawn to find the inside of my tent was rather wet. Outside, the rain still lashed down unceasingly. Thunder and lighting crashed like it was the end of the world. I could hear lots of voices outside. People sounded very worried. For goodness sake, I thought, it's only water. Time to step outside and exert some authority on those over-excitable kids. The scene that greeted me when I unzipped the tent entrance was something I will always remember. The ground had vanished. All I could see was water. It was pitch black except for the occasional flash of lightning which allowed me to take in the scene of utter chaos. The campsite seemed to have shifted several feet downhill (we were on a slight slope). I stepped out of my tent into the water. Then someone grabbed me and we ran towards the only stone building in the vicinity, past my wooden entrance gate which stood at a very sharp angle. The building was a small shelter of sorts with one side completely open to the elements. Apparently, some of our parents had arrived in time to rescue us, my dad included. We spent the rest of the night in the stone shelter. I remember helping to build a small dam of mud to try and keep the water out. As the sun rose, the rain stopped. We emerged from behind the mud barricade, shivering and confused. The campsite was gone. Literally, there was nothing left. Instead, all that remained was a new layer of mud. The rest of the morning was spent salvaging what we could. We decided to go home. That day was my thirteenth birthday. The memories of that night came flashing back quite suddenly as I lay in my sleeping bag on the first night at Latitude, being careful not to touch the sides of the tent. My other problem was a lack of a pillow. It's incredibly uncomfortable trying to sleep without a pillow. I used to be able to pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere without any problems. However the older I get, the less I'm able to do that. I couldn't believe I was missing my pillow. How freaking unmanly is that? I then had a brainwave. I gathered together all the rolls of toilet paper I'd brought with me, bundled them together in a bag, and used that. I figured the loo rolls should be soft enough. They weren't. So don't bother trying that one. And that is why I woke up early on my first full day at Latitude feeling like I'd spent the night wrestling with a badger...although that might have been more fun. |
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