On the Road with Marvin 2022!

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Day 74: Tuesday 21st June 2022

Happy Solstice! Some people got up early to go to the Stone Circle/ the Glastonbury sign to watch the sun come up, but knowing that our sleep will be disrupted for the next week, we decided to try and get as much sleep as we could, so no getting up too early!

We had breakfast and sat in the Oxfield Marquee chatting to another volunteer for a while this morning which was nice. I think it was a bit daunting yesterday when we arrived, as some people were arriving in groups or already knew others there. However, we have now chatted to a few people including those camping nearby, so it is nice to get to know a few more people.

I decided to head down to the festival site early to explore, while Mum stayed at the campsite for a while before meeting me later. I really enjoyed just following the different paths and seeing where they took me! It was great to see more of the Green Fields, and also the South East Corner, where there was still a lot of construction being done. They were still painting quite a lot of the Shangri-La area! I also wrote a long list of where all the best vegan options were situated around the site so we know where we’d like to eat each day.

The Greenpeace area, before it opened

The Shangri-La area still being painted!

I met up with Mum at William’s Green for lunch, and then we walked back up to the Glastonbury sign and around the market areas in between some of the stages. There are quite a few traders who open their stalls early for volunteers and staff, so we also had some delicious cake!

William’s Green

The Park Stage & The Ribbon Tower

The Glastonbury sign, and the view of the festival!

We decided to use one of our meal vouchers for the Oxfam catering for dinner to get the Thali option, as from tomorrow onwards we are likely to be in the festival site most of the time, so getting a meal in the Oxfield will be too far away. We managed to get in early, as there were big queues soon after - everyone must have had the same idea!

Our evening was spent having a last wander back in the festival again, knowing that there will be big crowds from tomorrow. Queues have already been building up for ticket holders, as car parks were open from Tuesday evening onwards, so we are relieved that we haven’t got Wednesday morning shifts as I know how busy it will be and stressful trying to get tickets checked as quickly as possible!

William’s Green. The top part of this structure revolves, and a bird came and sat on it for a while, being turned round to admire the view of the festival, which was so sweet to watch!

Monday, July 4, 2022

Arriving at Glastonbury!

Day 73: Monday 20th June 2022

Travelling to Glastonbury Festival!!! We left Bath Chew Valley Campsite at 9.30am, as we were able to arrive at the Oxfam Campsite (Oxfield) from 10am onwards. It took us about an hour to travel there, following the Purple Route as we got closer to the festival site. Both of us were feeling nervous but excited about the coming days!

It took a little while to be checked in for our motorhome, but we were parked in our spot by 11am. I did wonder beforehand whether Marvin would be too big to take there, but most of the other vans in the Oxfield were at least the same size, and some much bigger, which was a relief to know.

Registration opened at 1.30pm, so before that we decided to get our bearings of the campsite. The Oxfield has its own big marquee with caterers 24hrs a day from Wednesday onwards. There are also lots of toilets and showers - not many showers in the Glastonbury arena other than in the Greenpeace Field, so definitely a luxury for volunteers!

We queued to register from 1pm. In our registration packs, we received our tabbards, shift times/ more information about the festival, meal vouchers x3 (given a free meal per shift you work, which can be used at any point during the festival), shower tokens x4 and our Oxfam ID. We then received our wristbands, and were able to wander into the festival grounds once wearing our ID lanyards and wristbands.

The shifts we are working are Thursday 5.45am - 2pm, Friday 9.45pm- 6am and Sunday 1.45pm - 10pm. We were mostly pleased, as most of the bands we wanted to see were Friday/ Saturday during the day. It did mean we would miss Billie Eilish on the Friday headliner spot, which Mum was disappointed about, but I was pleased we would be able to see Paul McCartney headlining on Saturday!

As we had a briefing at 4pm, our only venture into the festival site was to help someone to a campsite with their luggage before heading back to the Oxfield (which is located just outside of the festival boundary).

Here is a copy of the festival map. Our entrance to the festival each day was to go through Pedestrian Gate B

The briefing covered information about the festival and the various aspects of the stewarding role, including ticket checking. This made me quite nervous - I didn’t want to get it wrong when checking tickets as they send through ‘mystery shoppers’ who check you do the job properly!

We had our own cooked dinner back in the van, and did have an issue with the gas locker which made us a bit stressed. However, we managed to sort it and then were able to explore the festival site properly, which was great!!!

It was amazing to be on site when the ticket holders hadn’t arrived yet - easier to explore and find everything without the crowds. The main areas we went to were the Glastonbury sign, the areas around the Park stage, and reading a poem about the Solstice in the Stone Circle, as it is the Solstice tomorrow!

It was especially strange to see lots of construction still being done, and the fields so empty without any tents!

After walking to the Other and Pyramid stages, we headed back to the campsite. There are the infamous crew bars with a big bar crawl which everyone seemed enthusiastic about, but we decided against it! Looking forward to another day tomorrow to explore the site before everyone arrives on Wednesday for the festival to actually begin properly!

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Day 69 to 72: Thursday 16th June to Sunday 19th June 2022

The weather is very hot at the moment, so we haven’t done much over the last few days. As we have done a lot of walking and will be working at Glastonbury next week, we have wanted to ensure we are well rested!

We have wandered to Bath Chew Valley Lake a few times and also met some family members there, which was really lovely to see them and catch up! Other than that, we have been revising the Glastonbury map so we know where everything is located, have listened to a few podcasts and have been doing the ‘chore’ tasks so that we are all ready to go on Monday.

A big rainbow over the campsite!

I haven’t been able to update the blog until now because the mobile signal hasn’t been strong enough to upload the photos. I won’t be able to update the blog until Monday 27th June at the earliest I imagine, because I’ll be trying to save phone battery as it will be difficult charging it.

I am feeling excited about Glastonbury, but quite nervous about a few things too, especially the shifts, as I am not quite sure what role we will be given yet. I’m sure it will all be okay! Just fingers crossed its not cleaning the toilets!!!!! 😉

Day 68: Wednesday 15th June 2022

We left Pencelli around 8am. The main stop was back to Abergavenny, in order to get most of our food shopping for Glastonbury Festival, as we are aware we might not be passing another supermarket - the campsite is quite a long way from Bath and so we won’t be visiting any main towns or cities whilst we are there.

I made us visit Aldi, Waitrose, The Grape Tree and Holland and Barrett before I felt we had enough of the right snacks to see us through our shifts! It gave us a good opportunity to explore more of Abergavenny, it is a really nice town, especially as it is surrounded by hills.

After spending three hours there, we headed on towards Bath and Bristol. We crossed the Prince of Wales Bridge, and then the journey got a bit trickier!! We had a choice of either driving through the middle of Bristol, or at least 10 roundabouts on the ring road. I opted for driving through Bristol, as I thought it would be easier to navigate! Luckily we did not get lost, and Mum did really well with the driving despite never having wanted to drive through any towns or cities in the van before we began this roadtrip. We were very relieved once we were back on to quieter roads!!

We arrived safely at the campsite. Again, it is very different to previous campsites, but our pitch has lots of grass around it so a nice place to relax and get organised ready for the festival. Not long to go!!

Day 67: Tuesday 14th June 2022

We planned not to do too much today, still being a little tired from the walk yesterday. We decided to walk along the canal to Talybont-On-Usk, 2 miles from the campsite.

It was lovely being by another canal again. There were lots of narrowboats motoring along, as well as lots of primary school children learning to kayak!

After looking around the village, we decided to walk to the reservoir, which was another 1.5 miles away. I read another poem there, but unfortunately we couldn’t actually get close to the reservoir as it was closed off.

We perhaps walked too much, as the journey back to the campsite did feel quite long, and my feet started hurting again due to how much walking we did yesterday! It was a nice day again despite being tired, we enjoyed seeing the canal and saying hello to people on their boats.

We had a relaxing evening though, and got ready for our travelling tomorrow to a campsite near Bath.

Day 66: Monday 13th June 2022

A long walk planned today! We headed off around 9am, after getting ready and making lunch to take with us.

It took us about an hour to get up to the top of Bryn, faster than yesterday, as we knew we had a lot longer to go so were pacing it out. It was much less windier today and so definitely more pleasant walking, with a clear day, so the views were excellent. We followed the ridges along towards Pen Y Fan. For most of the way, it continued to look very far away - it didn’t feel like we getting much closer!

The walk ahead of us! The highest peak is where we were heading for.

The path up Pen Y Fan was particularly steep but really worth walking. We were quite tired by this point so pleased to reach the top around 1.15pm and have lunch. However, we also knew we had been walking for four hours, and that this was half way - we had to walk the same route back, so we were a bit apprehensive!! We could see for miles - great to see some more of the Brecon Beacons from up high and also see the town of Brecon and the smaller villages below.

The summit of Pen Y Fan still seeming quite a long way away!

On the way back we had an interesting chat to two other walkers, one of whom is thinking about selling her house and buying a van. We continued on and enjoyed the walk back, although our feet were beginning to hurt.

Pen Y Fan from across the next hill

We got back about 6pm, and worked out we had walked 18.5 miles in total! Which was unexpected, as the guide book had estimated the walk to be 12 miles!! Exhausted this evening, but really enjoyed the day.

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Day 65: Sunday 12th June 2022

Mum has really wanted to see the Brecon Beacons, so we made sure to do a walk around the National Park today. We left around 11am in the end as we were a bit late getting organised for the walk, but luckily for this walk we didn’t need to get any transport anywhere - we could walk straight from the door.

We headed towards St Meugan’s, Llanfeugan Church first, and met a few people coming out of it who told us that we could look inside. They also told us more about the Yew trees around the Churchyard, which are thought to be 5000 years old!! Amazing to think how long they have lived and how life has changed around them.

Leaving the church, we followed the footpath through some woodland before reaching a lane and a few fields, climbing upwards. As we turned around to look back at the path we had come up, there was already a great view of the surrounding fields and villages. We continued uphill and got to the top of Bryn at about 1pm - perfect time for a picnic! It was a great view and really worth the walk.

As we would like to go further tomorrow, we continued along the path a way in order to make sure we know the way. We passed lots more sheep and also a few wild ponies. It was much more windy at this point, so we turned back, but look forward to tomorrow!

We got back about 3.30pm. We hope to walk to Pen Y Fan tomorrow, the highest point of the Brecon Beacons at 886m. It is quite a long way from the campsite so we aim to leave early!