Me being a Glastonbury virgin, I had no idea what to expect to be honest, so I packed like a trooper but forgot some essentials that I should have really packed first.... the wellies!!! I took one pair of trainers to the festival, and that's it...call me stupid...because I am. Don't get me wrong I have been to festivals in the past, but I had an inkling that Glastonbury may be somewhat different…and it was…

We set off at around 6.30 am on Wednesday morning in the car packed with all our stuff and headed off down the motorway, we arrived at the site at around 11 am…and the queues were already immense. It took us a while to get in, and then we had to carry all our stuff to the campsite where the rest of my mates were camping, that was hell, as it had begun to rain already; little did we know about the rain that was yet to come…(shit)

The music kicked off on Friday, and because there are so many different stages it's a task to choose who you want to see alone, because there are numerous clashes that cant be helped unfortunately, however you just have to pick and choose and try and find the stage that you need…there are so many different areas to explore you really need much longer than Wednesday to Sunday to see all the sites.

On Friday night I watched the Chemical Brothers on The Other Stage, which was an incredible show, although I got a bit bored after about half an hour and went along to the Avalon stage and watched some of the Levellers acoustic set, which was amazing because just as we arrived, the classic song "What a beautiful Day" was just kicking off…it was so much fun to be there as everyone was so blatantly happy and off their face!!! After watching some of the levellers set, I was intrigued by the music coming from the tent next door, so my friend Claire and I popped our heads in and found the best tent ever!!! There was a band called Far-cure playing, who have played at Glastonbury for the last 2 years, and they were awesome!! They are primarily a punk band, and they kicked arse!!! The skanking going on in there was crazy!!! Everyone was proper going for it, and when they did a cover of the Ace of Spades it was mental! I loved it!!

After the bands had finished for the night, there was always the glade to go to, but that wasn't really my scene as its all dance music, so I headed off to The Stone Circle for a night by the fire with lots of random people and lots of ways to get wasted for the evening!!! I stayed at the stone circle all night and watched the sunrise, which was the most beautiful I have ever seen!! I know this sounds cheesy and maybe a little corny, but the atmosphere up there was unimaginable, everyone was just so happy to be there, and there were people doing fire poye and it was just crazy up there. I didn't get to bed til about 9am, so I got up pretty late on Saturday and missed some bands that I wanted to see…i.e. The Killers - Doh, I'm so stupid!!!

I went to see Damien Rice on Saturday night on the other stage, and he was easily the highlight of my weekend. He should have been on the pyramid stage if you ask me but hey...The crowd was huge; I didn't expect to see that many people turn up for him. He played for over an hour and played most of his excellent tunes from the album "O", my favourite being Cannon ball and The Blower's daughter and then The Blower's Daughter part 2! It was very emotional!!! Also during a break between songs, his drummer and cello played performed their own version of 7 Nation Army by the White Stripes, which was so bloody good!!!

By Sunday everyone was pretty muddy, pretty tired and pretty wasted from the night before. The mud was getting to the stage where as soon as you put your feet down, it's a challenge to retrieve your mud-encased shoe and foot from the muddy depths below without making a fart-sounding squelching noise.

There weren't many bands that I wanted to see on Sunday, but I went to watch Gomez, who were awesome. I have never seen them before but I have heard quite a lot of their stuff and I was very impressed, as they sounded fantastic live!!

As Sunday night came to end, we headed to off to The Stone Circle again, to take in the last morning of Glastonbury by the numerous fires that had been made and to sit and chill out for the last time…it was lovely!!

We headed off home on Monday at around midday, after packing up our tents and saying goodbye to my fellow campers we walked for about an hour and a half just to get to the car…as soon as we got their I removed my muddy trousers to reveal my clean-ish pj's underneath!! We then sat in the car queuing to get out of the car park for about, and I'm not kidding when I say this…for about 3 hours just to get out of the car park!! Shocking.

When I got home, I had to leave most of my stuff outside due to the tonne of Glastonbury mud still attached to me…oh the memories!! I had a well overdue hot shower and cleaned my disgusting hair and then had a superb cuppa tea and went straight to bed…I was beat!

Well that's my Glastonbury story; I had the best time ever despite the mud and the rain, the lack of wellies and the putrid toilets!!! However, Glastonbury is a Magical Wonderland of awesomeness that everyone should visit at least once in his or her lifetime!!!!

Katie Gotheridge.