Monday 18th - Tuesday 26th July 2022

Monday 18th - Tuesday 26th July 2022

We left the Vegan Camp Out at around 7.15am, as we had arrived with our campsite to arrive from 9am as it was forecast to be so hot later on (around 34 degrees). Our campsite was in Harbury, so not far, but traffic was quite bad and it took us about two hours to get there. Mum had taken a Covid test again this morning to check, as she was feeling quite tired and generally a bit unwell, but it was negative. Due to mum not feeling great and the hot weather, it meant we were unable to meet up with some family, which was disappointing, as we were really looking forward to seeing them. However, it was very hot so we stayed in the shade of the van all day! 

On Tuesday, Mum tested positive for Covid unfortunately. She has not felt too bad with Covid, mainly feeling very tired for a few days and cold-like symptoms. Luckily, we had a pitch with our own water supply and so it was easy to self isolate, as it was a large pitch and quite private. We made sure not to use the campsite’s facilities. We have stayed mostly around the van, and went for a few walks on quiet footpaths around the area to get some fresh air away from the van. It went up to 37 degrees on Tuesday so rather hot! As I have kept testing negative, I went to the village shop when we needed supplies but mostly we didn’t go near anyone to avoid passing anything on.

No neighbours for quite a few nights of our stay!

We moved campsites after six nights at Harbury, to near Stroud. We have had some really nice walks around the area - very ‘Lord of the Rings Country’ which Mum has loved seeing as she was a big fan of the books! This is also the area where ‘Cider With Rosie’ was written by Laurie Lee, and there was a poem located half way round our walk, so we read that. 

Painswick

We go to WOMAD tomorrow (Wednesday 27th July 2022) to volunteer for Oxfam, as it has now been 10 days since Mum has started having symptoms and I have continued to test negative with no symptoms. Both feeling a bit nervous about the work there, but excited about visiting a new festival, as neither of us have been to WOMAD before! The next blog post will be posted once we have finished our weekend, so likely to be Monday 1st/ Tuesday 2nd August. Hopefully all goes well and our shifts are okay!  

Sunday 17th July 2022

Sunday 17th July 2022

Our last day at Vegan Camp Out today. My morning started a bit earlier, as I joined the 8.30am yoga class taking place in the Mind & Body tent. This was well-attended and a good way to start the day! No-body seemed to care how good you were at yoga, so it was a relaxing class. This festival also feels very welcoming - people say hello and chat to their ‘neighbours’ in the fitness classes, adding to the nice atmosphere. I got back to the van around 10am for breakfast, before heading to the main arena for a talk starting at 11am.

The talk focused on Plant Based Universities, pushing forward the idea of only a plant based diet being served at all university cafes and dining halls. The talk was given by students from a few different universities and gave examples of how some student unions have now voted in favour of a plant based diet being served at meetings, which is great progress. 

Following on from that we attended the 12pm talk, again taking place in the Activism tent, given by Rachel Bowcutt from The Vegan Society, explaining all about the Society and the work that it does. 

As listening to talks one after another can sometimes be a lot of information to take in, we had a break before going to a talk at 2pm focusing on veganism in education, with a panel of three individuals from ProVeg, The Vegan Society and Vegan Inclusive Education. Once this had finished, we went straight to the Main Stage to listen to the founder of Viva!, Juilet Gellatley, give a talk on her experiences of seeing wildlife in Uganda and the work her charity does. 

After another break to get some dinner, we listened to Gaz Oakley talk about his work as a vegan chef and what he would like to focus on in the future, as well as answering some of the audience’s questions. I haven’t heard of him before but his recipes sound great. 

Yum! I realise that the arena looks very quiet in this photo - everyone was listening to talks in the tents!

From 5pm, there was Question Time with Animal Rebellion, hearing from a panel of activists about the type of actions they have participated in, and their motivations. It was definitely one of the best talks to listen to, extremely interesting. 

I stayed to listen to another talk by Viva!, this time given by Tony Wardle. I missed the start of his talk, but he mainly talked about the monarchy, government and different investigations that Viva! have undertaken into factory farming. 

The last talk of the weekend in the Activism Tent was about Camp Beagle, and vivisection. The beginning of the talk and the footage shown made me cry, but I was glad to have listened. 

Finally, Earthling Ed was the headliner in the Main Stage! He was SO good - a very good public speaker, talking about how he became vegan and his conversations with strangers on their thoughts of veganism. It was really interesting and a great way to end the weekend. He did an Afterparty DJ set, but as Mum was beginning to feel quite tired, we didn’t stay for it and went back to the van. She did a Covid test just to check, but it was negative. 

Earthling Ed

Having never been to the Vegan Camp Out before and  being unsure whether or not we should book tickets, I am so glad we did! It was a great weekend. There were so many good talks, and so many other things to do as well, like swimming in the lake, fitness and yoga classes, and listening to music, that it was impossible to do it all. It was such a nice atmosphere with everyone enjoying the festival, despite the heat on Sunday. There was also hardly any litter anywhere around site - there were litter pickers but people weren’t dropping anything really, so it was noticeably clean even in the main tents, especially compared to Glastonbury where the litter was a problem. All in all, it was definitely worth coming to. Looking forward to returning next year to Vegan Camp Out!! 

Saturday 16th July 2022

Saturday 16th July 2022

We decided to head to the main arena around 10.15am, with the talks starting from 11am. I joined in with the ‘Dance Vibes’ class for the last fifteen minutes of its duration - it was really good fun and I should have gone to join in from the beginning! 

The first talk was postponed to midday, so we wandered around again for an hour before heading to the Activism tent to hear the talk ‘Animal liberation is really our liberation’. If I’m honest, I can’t remember exactly what was talked about, but it was well attended and he was a good speaker!

At 2pm, I went along to the talk on how to ‘Change the world with your wardrobe’. This mainly focused on the issues with animal- derived clothing materials, and the options available for choosing animal-free pieces. Whilst the talk covered an important subject, I would have liked to have known some more affordable options that also do not feed into the fast fashion industry, as it is difficult to know how to shop as ethically as possible. 

In the Activism tent at 4pm, the talk focused on ‘Know your (vegan) rights: employment’ - a really interesting talk on understanding discrimination and prejudice in the workplace. 

We quickly headed back over to the Main Stage for Heather Mills’ talk at 4.30pm. She spoke about the work she has done over her life and how she got into veganism. She has had a busy life! Her main message was about finding solutions to problems, rather than focusing on the problems themselves. 

Heather Mills. For each talk, a British Sign Language interpreter is also on stage 

Later on, we got some Churros for dessert to share! They were so nice! At 6pm, we went to listen to Laura Hellwig’s talk on ‘How to save more animals’. She was talking on behalf of Viva!, the charity that Vegan Camp Out are partnered with this year. Some of the talk was quite upsetting though, so I didn’t stay for all of it. 

The last talk of the day in the Activism Tent was given by Animal Rebellion, about climate change and the impact on veganism. The two speakers were very powerful and sounded close to tears at times when explaining why it mattered to them. They were given a standing ovation at the end! 

Lastly, the headliner of the day in the main stage was Evanna Lynch, speaking about her decision to become vegan, the work she has done since and the ways it has affected her life. The message she gave was ultimately to continue doing your best by all living things, but ensuring that you are also not pushing yourself too far. She then took part in a Q&A with one of the hosts, talking about her role in Harry Potter, the acting she has done since and her ending message to the audience. 

A busy day - I’ve never done so much in one day at a festival before! The talks were timetabled to take part every 30 minutes, so none of them overlapped, making it easy to see as many as you wanted. We didn’t stay for the Afterparty this evening as we were quite tired. I hope to get up a bit earlier tomorrow to take part in a yoga class! 

Friday 15th July 2022

Friday 15th July 2022

We left the campsite in Cambridge to drive to Stanford Hall, near Leicester, where the Vegan Camp Out is being held. The journey became quite difficult as we missed a few turnings on roundabouts, and then reached a closed road so had to be diverted. We finally got there about 12.30 and were given our wristbands and programmes. After setting up and admiring some of the vans around us (some amazing van conversions!!) we headed into the main site to have a look around. 

I think there were about 10,000 tickets sold, with 50-60 food vendors and around 20 stalls either with information about charities like Viva! and Greenpeace, or selling other things like clothing. There are four main tents - the Main Stage, Activism, Music and Mind & Body. There are no main talks or entertainment scheduled today, only a Preparty DJ set this evening. However, it gave us a good chance to have some interesting chats with the stalls.

Most of the afternoon was spent looking around, eating some nice food and sitting reading as the sun went down. I began reading This Is Vegan Propaganda by Ed Winters (Earthling Ed), one of the speakers at this festival, which is so well written and extremely powerful.

Some of the food vendors - the desserts look amazing! 

The queue for the vegan fish and chips remained the longest all weekend! 

We stayed for a tiny bit of the Preach Preparty, which started about 10pm, before heading back to the campsite ready for tomorrow. There are mindfulness meditation classes starting from 6am, although I’m not sure we will be up in time for that!! Looking forward to the next two days - lots of talks to attend. 

 

Wednesday 13th & Thursday 14th July 2022

Wednesday 13th July 2022

The start of our Roadtrip Part 2! I never finished writing up leaving Glastonbury, so here is a quick explanation. We woke up early on the Monday at around 4.30am, leaving before 6am. We had booked a campsite in Longleat, in case Mum felt too tired to drive, but we really just wanted to get home by this point! We arrived home around 10am - very pleased to see Dad and Rusty!! Our two weeks at home were so nice, great to be back all together as a family, able to see some friends and get the MOT done for Marvin - a pass, thankfully! 

Back to 13th July… we left home at 7am, with our first destination for two nights being near Cambridge. The traffic wasn’t too bad, a couple of holdups but otherwise all fine. We arrived close to the campsite very early though - about 3 hours before the campsite opens for check-in! We spent this time in the services on the motorway, and also getting some shopping at the Tescos superstore, before still arriving half an hour early :) 

Our pitch is really nice, and as it was such hot weather, we have spent most of the afternoon sitting in the shade, before going for a walk around the local area. After dinner back at the van, we went to the pub for a drink, and also planned our day in Cambridge tomorrow. A pretty sky this evening! 

Thursday 14th July 2022 

We caught the bus into Cambridge, getting there for around 10.15am. After speaking to someone working for the Tourist Information to best plan our day, we headed to Christ’s College to have a look around the university. The buildings were so beautiful! It was so nice to be there in person, as I have never been to Cambridge before. They also have a statue of Charles Darwin, who was a student there. 

We also looked around the grounds of Emmanuel College which again had amazing architecture. We then stopped to get an ice cream from

Jacks’s Gelato as they had amazing vegan flavours! 

We both had coconut & raspberry ripple, and I also had gooseberry sorbet!

We walked past King’s College, although didn’t go inside. We reached the river and saw lots of people punting! As we only had one day in Cambridge we decided not to take a boat trip, although we should have done really! 

We walked along the other side of the river to see views of King’s College again, as well as the Mathematical Bridge. Unfortunately most of the riverside is not accessible to walk along, as it is divided up into different colleges, some of which charge admission fees, so we couldn’t see some of the bridges, but it was still really nice to see parts of Cambridge. 

For our meal, we decided to eat at Stem + Glory which had a really varied and interesting menu. Following on from our meal, we weren’t quite sure what to do for the rest of the day. There were some adverts for a David Hockney exhibition, with free entry. We only had half an hour left before the museum closed but it was good to do something different and see some artwork. 

To finish our day, I read some poetry by the River Cam and by King’s College, trying to get as close to the real locations the poetry was inspired by as we could. 

After quite a long day, we headed back on the bus,  ready to leave the campsite tomorrow morning. Wish we could have longer to explore more of Cambridge - there is so much to do! It did get busy in the afternoon due to lots of tourists and students taking part in summer schools though!  

Day 79: Sunday 26th June 2022

Day 79: Sunday 26th June 2022

Our last day here at the festival! :( We left the campsite by 10am in order to have time to explore a few more areas this morning before our last shift. One of the areas we wanted to go back to was the Sacred Space, with the Peace Garden. The previous days we had ventured here, the Peace Garden hadn’t been open, so I’m pleased we got to look around it close up finally. It was really pretty - lots of garden envy here at all the beautiful flowers! We also saw the stonewall that Michael Eavis had wanted for the entrance to the Sacred Space, having read about it in one of the copies of the Glastonbury Free Press. 

IICON by day

Part of the Peace Garden

We walked back through the Green Fields, and were given some free vegan cupcakes on the way!  Lunch was paella again whilst watching Ferris & Sylvester on the Avalon Stage. We were given two huge portions of paella for £5 each due to being Oxfam volunteers which was great! 

I felt quite nervous about this shift, as we were back on the vehicle and pedestrian gate, where we were for our first shift on Thursday. It actually was fine, and went quite quickly. Mum and I were mainly checking with traffic which direction they were going, but everyone was starting to leave the festival for good and so it was fairly straight forward. We had to dismantle a gazebo as it had blown over the fence onto the road, but other than that, the shift didn’t have many problems. About 9pm, it became clear that we would be the last stewards guarding the gate, and once our shift was over, only security would be there. This meant that the roles decreased so there was no longer a need to scan the EPO wristbands, then no longer a need to count people in and out. By 9.30pm, we were just waiting for the equipment to be picked up and then we were done! We took some team photos by the gate, then headed to the Other Stage with a few volunteers. 

So strange leaving the gate without more stewards arriving!

Mum and I decided to go and see the South East Corner before it got too busy. The South East Corner is the place to go at night - some of the music / DJing doesn’t finish until 6am! There are a few main areas - Block9, The Common, Unfairground and Shangri-La. We have never been to this area before at night, so it was fun to see a different part of Glastonbury. It is just incredible how much to see and do at this festival, in the Shangri-La area alone there is so much art to look at, and lots of different smaller venues. 

The Temple

IICON by night

Shangri-La

Seen in Shangri-La

Feeling quite tired now, we walked back, stopping at the Pyramid Stage for the last time, and getting back to our motorhome at 12.30. I am tired and looking forward to getting home, having nice toilets and showers and most importantly of course, seeing Dad and Rusty again! But I really have loved it here. It has been brilliant!! Working here has been an interesting experience, and there are definitely both advantages and disadvantages to volunteering, particularly with missing out on some of the bigger acts due to needing to work, like Billie Eilish. However, being onsite for two days before everybody else was so much fun, as it made getting to know the site a lot easier, and also nice to see some areas without the crowds. I am so pleased I got to go to the festival this year - we loved it in 2019, and have again had an amazing time over the past week. 

There were a few things we didn’t get to see this year, including going to Glastonbury-On-Sea, Shangri-La during the day (to see the art in better light), taking part in some of the crafts in the Green Fields, watching debates in the Left Field and free vegan cookery classes to name a few! Obviously there is just too much to do at Glastonbury that you can never do it all, especially when having to work for 24 hours over the course of the festival. However, it was really cool to work at the festival and be part of the ‘crew’! We also didn’t have to pay for our ticket, so managed to see Paul McCartney, Rufus Wainwright, Sam Fender and so much more for free! It was such an incredible week, and the best way to end our first roadtrip!!!

We will be leaving for our second, shorter roadtrip on Wednesday 13th July. Our trip will be going to a few more festivals - we will be working at two of them, and as a ticket holder for the other one. We will also be travelling round some of Wales, and a few different places in England too. I haven’t quite decided about how to do the blog for this next trip yet, but am really glad to have done a day by day account for our first roadtrip. Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and the amazing weather!! 

Day 78: Saturday 25th June 2022

Day 78: Saturday 25th June 2022

Despite feeling a bit tired from the nightshift, I woke about 10/10.30am, having gone to sleep at 7am!  I had originally wanted to watch one of the debates taking place in the Left Field at midday, but realised we were not going to make it there on time. Instead, we decided to watch Joy Crookes on the Pyramid Stage at 1.15pm, as I had listened to some of her music from some of the Glastonbury playlists on Spotify. 

Joy Crookes

Once Joy Crookes had finished performing, a message appeared on the screens to say that Greta Thunberg would be appearing on the Pyramid Stage at 5.15pm! Deciding we’d like to see her give a speech, we headed off to look around the John Peel Stage area where The Woods was located - a treetop walk which we hadn’t seen before. We had some lunch by the BBC Introducing Stage, before heading past the Other Stage to the market areas, and then the Pyramid Stage again. 

We got to the Pyramid Stage at 4.45pm ready to watch Greta Thunberg, followed by Haim. There was a delay meaning that Greta Thunberg didn’t start until 5.30pm. We had started to worry we were at the wrong stage but luckily just as we were starting to consider how to check what stage it was, Emily Eavis appeared to introduce her! Greta Thunberg spoke for about 10 minutes, with a big crowd coming to watch. Her speech was powerful to listen to. 

Greta Thunberg

Haim then performed until 6.30pm, with lots of energy on stage! Their music is particularly ’festivaly’ so a good band to see live! 

Haim

Leon Bridges was performing at West Holts at 7pm, so not having much planned until Paul McCartney’s concert at 9.30pm, we headed to West Holts. I don’t know much of Leon Bridges’ music, and we decided to sit down while he was performing as by this point our energy was going! But I was really glad to have listened to his performance live, as it sounded great. 

Leon Bridges

When Leon Bridges finished his set, we realised we should go towards the Pyramid Stage again, as crowds would be building up for Paul McCartney’s set. The theatre fields were much quieter so it was easier to get around. On the screens at the Pyramid Stage, there was a montage of photos and music of Paul McCartney. We were there quite early waiting - about 45 minute before he came on at 9.30pm. 

A big crowd building up for Paul McCartney

His set was AMAZING!!! Just being there in the crowd was so much fun, everyone sang along to the well-known songs and it was a great atmosphere!!! We knew it was a once in a lifetime moment to see a Beatle performing live!! The first half of his concert was good, but I feel the second half was really really good, particularly as the crowd went wild when both Dave Grohl and then Bruce Springsteen appeared as surprise guests!!

Paul McCartney!

Dave Grohl on stage with Paul

Bruce Springsteen on stage with Paul

I cried quite a bit during this concert once ‘Hey Jude’ was performed - I just found it so emotional being there with everyone singing along!!!! Another touching moment was the duet with an audio track of John Lennon’s voice being played at the same time. 

All in all, it was a really brilliant evening, particularly when considering he is 80 years old - amazing he is still able to perform for well over 2 and a half hours! Having had little sleep over the last two days, we got back to Marvin around 1am. I can’t believe it is our last day! The festival has gone so quickly!! We have a shift at 1.45pm- 10pm, and plan to go out for a while afterwards so that our last memory of Glastonbury is not of working but instead of the festival itself. Going to bed feeling tired but so happy. I love Glastonbury!!! 

Looking at the lights of Glastonbury whilst walking back to the campsite!