Thursday 8 July 2004

Week 72, Day 468

Woah! What a few damn good weeks it's been! Not only did I turn 24 (oh dear God), but I went to the world's best music festival... no joke, it really is!

Glastonbury.

Couldn't have timed it any better myself really - travelled down on my birthday (Thursday) after sorting a few things out that morning. Alex and I went in my car and followed Steve and his girlfriend, Becky. We stopped off to pick up Steve's mate, Bass and then stopped at Steve's place in Dursley, which is near Glasto. Here's a funny bit of trivia for you. Dursley is the town that inspired JKRowling to name the Dursley's after because she despised the place when she visited. Charming.

After getting through all the traffic, we made it into the festival carpark. Alex and I hadn't really planned things all that well and realised we had to carry quite a lot of items. And it's not a short walk to the camping grounds from the carparks either. We managed somehow though. I think the fact we knew we wouldn't be carrying so much on the way back was a big factor. It did take us a long time to find a campsite that wasn't full. We also got held up due to the thousands watching the England vs. Portugal match on the big screen. Eventually though we ended up at a campsite inbetween the Glade and Other stages. It turned out to be quite a goldmine as it was easy to get to all the stages from there,the bathrooms and shops were also not far.

After pitching our tent and having a few drinks, we wondered around to check the place out. We ended up at the Radio 1 stage which was spinning out some good tunes. Though I'm not clued up on local DJs, apparantly there were some decent names playing that night which was weird because the festival hadn't even offically opened yet! We boogied until the wee hours of the morning. A while later Ciaron finally met up with us so our Glasto team was complete.

Friday we were blessed with gorgeous weather. It was so sunny and warm. We wandered around for a bit just checking out the place. We headed to the hippy area, and sat in Greenfields (a small hill where everyone goes to chill out) for a while. Alex and I headed back to the tent where we could hear The Rapture playing. We headed to the Pyramid stage for Groove Armada. They were a great start to our evening. They were so into it and so was the crowd. Everyone was bopping around like made. They were brilliant. Next was Franz Ferdianand who were a little disappointing. It was mainly due to the bad sound - there was a lot of wind around the Other stage which made the sound cut out a lot. Then onto the New tent, Alex and I watched every shoegazer's hero, Mark Gardener who played mainly his solo stuff (not bad actually!) and threw in two good Ride songs :) Then we rushed over to catch what we could of Lamb. High on Alex's list of bands to see, I wish we had been able to be there for the full set. The tent they were playing at (Avalon) was not big enough for the crowd that turned up so where we were we couldn't even see the band. However, the lead singer was awestruck by the enthusiasm of the crowd and when he told everyone this would be one of their last gigs, he began to cry and the crowd went wild. Again, rushed over to the Pyramid stage to catch Oasis. Made it just in time too! Boy did they play a lot off Definitely Maybe! Liam was quite clearly off his face, but it wasn't too bad either. And as Oasis are such a laddish band, the large amounts of alcohol consumed by that time of the evening helped their performance! After recovering from the days events back at the tent, Bass, Alex and I went off for some more boogeying at the Radio 1 stage and stumbled home to our tents later.

Saturday I woke up to hearing the rain on my tent. My heart sunk. But then I realised that it wouldn't be Glastonbury with out rain and lots of mud. And boy was there mud! Unfortunately, due to the late night before, Alex and I missed seeing Sister Sledge. We did make it for the Scissor Sisters who were fantastic! So much energy, and boy are they dodgy and as camp as a band can be! A great combination, it must be said. As we had some time before the next band AND we had run out of beer, Alex and I took the long trek back to the car to fetch more supplies. Made it back in time to watch late eighties legends, Soul II Soul Soundsystem, who were a lot better than I expected. It was very hard to not dance while they were on and the crowd went wild when they finished off with 'Back To Reality'. At one point they did this great mix of Michael Jackson's 'Billy Jean' that had everyone going crazy. After that, it was back to the tent (we missed seeing Chikinki a second time round!) and hung about listening to Damien Rice, who really surprised me. He did a cover of Radiohead's 'Creep' in the middle of one of his songs - and a good cover too! And then it was time to make our way over to see the legendary Paul McCartney play. This had to be the highlight of the festival. It's the closest I can ever get to seeing the Beatles play so I was pleased to see that he did perform many a Beatles track including 'Hey Jude', and then there was the awesome 'Live and Let Die' which was accompanied by some great pyroctechnics, and the finisher, 'In The End' which I was hoping for but didn't expect. He did of course play some Wings songs which were good, but the amount of Beatles stuff was incredible. For hours after the gig you could hear chants of the 'Na na na na' part at the end of 'Hey Jude' being sung by people all over the festival. Brilliant!!!

Still on a high after seeing Paul, Bass, Alex and I decided to check out the tent near us that played music 24hours. We danced for a while, until we got bored. Alex and I did a lot of wandering around the grounds at all hours of the morning. We attempted going to the cash machine for a second time but discovered that the line was still pretty long, and would probably never get smaller. We ended up sitting on the hill at Greenfields listening to hippies banging on their congos, and watching the sun rise. Got to bed at about 10am!

Sunday wasn't as hectic. I heard the sounds of the Zutons and Divine Comedy from the tent in between short naps. Eventually we got up in time to catch the soul brother, James Brown. Despite his age, he still kicks arse. And boy is he one big pimp!! It was amusing to watch, and fun to boogy to. The Libertines were supposed to be next but to my pleasant surprise, Supergrass had replaced them as they pulled out. So I got to see my favourite band for about the seventh time. Unfortunately it started to pour with rain during their set but it was still great to see them. Alex and I searched for a tap to get some water on the other side of the Pyramid stage where we hadn't been before. There was a leak from one of the taps that caused this huge puddle that we had to wade through. Being the snaphappy tourist I am, I had to get a picture of me in it ;) Made our way back to the stage to catch Morrissey. Again, I was hoping for my favourite Smiths song to be played and it was!! It was great listening to him sing 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' and have so many of the crowd sing along too! I never realised just what a miserable git Morrissey is though. I also thing he'd make a great crooner at one of those cabaret or dinner nights. He has the moves and the voice for it. Then it was time for the last gig of the evening. Orbital. Everyone had been eagerly awaiting the gig as it was the last of theirs in the UK so the crowd for them was massive! So not only was the vibe perfect, but the band themselves put a great performance. To be honest, I don't remember much after that as I had skulled a little too much vodka and lemonade, and the tiredness had kicked in and made me ill. I know I got to bed at about 2am, woke up at 4am to go to the loo, slipped over in the mud on my way (the only time I did it!) and cursed myself for it.

And so that was Glastonbury. We left the next day around 11am. It took us about 3 hours to get out of the Bristol area, and made it home at about 7pm. I was very ill by that evening and glad I didn't have to work until the next day. I was horrible the next day though. I had to as the two staff who were coming in to work to come in earlier to help me out with the set up. I was constantly feeling nausious and my throat had swelled up. I'm still recovering from it but it was all worth it!

Alex and I went for a snowboarding lesson on Thursday. Level 3 is where you learn to turn. And I just couldn't get it. It didn't help that I was still feeling rather weak from being ill but I finally got the gist of it at the end. Alex did pretty well but unfortunately we both didn't progress enough for the next level, so we have to do that level again. Oh well!

I spent much of last week at home trying to recover. I also worked a lot. I had the shift from hell on Saturday. We were full from 5:15pm and things were hectic but running ok until one of the guys, Dave came to tell me that there was water leaking through the roof of the kitchen. He and Adam went to investigate to discover that the tub for the water softner had over flowed and was dripping down into the kitchen. All the lights in the kitchen and back area of the restaurant went out and naturally, I was concerned for everyone's saftey as the water was dripping through one of the light fittings. In the end, I had to close the restaurant at 9pm. We had done a record taking by that hour and I know if we had stayed open, we would have made the most money ever on a Saturday night yet. As a result of the leak, our ovens stopped working and it was all very chaotic. To top it off, I had a customer's child get ill (he has a nut allergy) and throw up in the ladies' bathroom sink, blocking it up. I also had a few angry tables at the delay of their food, to which I offered them some free vouchers for another time and then they were ok. I was so stressed out I was crying at one point but I can look back and laugh, and pat myself on the back that things went reasonably well considering. In fact, on Monday we had a Mystery Shopper result faxed into us (that's where the company hires people to anonomously test us out by eating there and evaluating just how much we're following the Nando's standards on a day to day basis). Naturally as Murphy's Law would have it, the Mystery Shopper turned up at 7:30pm on the Saturday night. I was ready for a bad score which would have dropped our 92% average quite a bit. Instead, we got 91% for that evening! I was so impressed. We had a 100% trade level, we had a kitchen that was out of use and we managed to get a high score. The things we lost points on were just the fact that the food arrived 30mins after ordering, not the 20mins we quoted them, and that the ladies' bathroom was messy (which was the result of that kid throwing up). The comments were great - the person said that they overheard about the problem we had, and that we closed the doors, but despite that, the team worked well and made sure everyone was still being served. They were offered free drinks as a compensation for the kerfuffle which they liked, and mentioned that I came around to all the tables to apologise for the problems. I was so proud.

This week was a little calmer. I did stay at work on Monday night until 6:30am the next morning just chatting to Emma and Breezy after a heavy shift. We just couldn't stop and couldn't have been bothered to get up. It was nice. Last night, Alex and I FINALLY went to Teppanyaki, after I had booked it three times and had to cancel. It's a poshy Japanese restaurant where they cook your food infront of you. We chose Duck with Pineapple, and King Prawn and Monk Fish in garlic oil, both of which were lovely. We then attended the Wednesday night music quiz at the Cockpit and were pleased withourselves for coming joint 2nd place. Unfortunately, we lost the tiebreaker, but at least we did well this time!

Today I sulk as Alex and friends prepare themselves for T-in-the-Park this weekend. I can't go anymore due to work which makes me really pissed off. To top it off, next week when I was supposed to have Thursday and Saturday off, has all been changed. I had planned my belated birthday party for Friday night because of the Saturday off, but now I have to work Sat night because Andy decided he'd take holidays this week and we can't get any cover for the weekend. So pissed off. It doesn't help that the two weeks after that Les is on holidays and Andy and I will most likely be working 6 days weeks. That'll be 3 six day weeks for me. I'm going to be shattered. All I keep thinking is that there's only 6 weeks left of work. I'm just concentrating on that!

That's it for now. Still planning my Oz trip (the dates are set as I have the tickets - 18th Sept we arrive in Syd, and leave on the 13th Dec) and also planning on going to Amsterdam the day after I finish work so that'll be cool.

Time to go...

x
Vanessa