My husband, lucky man that he is, won two camping tickets to the Oxegen festival. Since seeing the line-up I was desperate to go but we couldn't figure out what to do with our almost two year old breastfed toddler. It was 'advised' not to bring under fives and he would have needed his own ticket anyway. Granny was happy to take four year old who is quite comfortable spending a few nights with her away from me but baby has never been apart from me for more than a few hours. Weaning on the spot seemed a bit unfair. I would have liked to be the type of wife that said, 'You go, enjoy yourself take a friend. I just have to accept I can't go.' but unfortunately as the day approached and I found myself crying into my coffee and switching off the radio at any mention of it I realised I could not be that cool.
After much deliberation, soul searching, arguing and worrying, we compromised. He would go down Saturday and I would follow on Sunday. I managed to sell my weekend ticket on http://www.toutless.com and I bought myself a day ticket. Four year old stayed with granny from Friday so I was only alone with two year old Saturday night. On Sunday I drove him down to Granny, armed her with bananas, DVDs and chocolate and left.
I got there in time to catch The Specials first gig in 26 years. It was great although they have certainly aged. The skies opened. My husband had nabbed me a plastic poncho which did the trick relatively well as long as I kept dancing to keep warm. We spent some time in the Bacardi tent where the pumping music reminded me of the bar in Schipol airport, ate some falafel and then ventured over to the O2 stage where Jane's Addiction were about to come on. Immediately the average age of the crowd increased by about ten years. Razorlight were on at the other stage. I had always liked Jane's but they put on a great show. In fact it was the sexiest gig I had been to in years. We danced right the way through.
We caught the opening ten minutes of The Killers who sounded great but we had to leave for our last chance ever to see Nine Inch Nails. The last time I saw them live was at Woodstock '94 and I have to say the set hadn't changed very much. It was great to rock to the old favourites though. We got home with only a short delay in park n ride at about 3am to discover that both children had been fast asleep since 11.30, there had been no crying or any trouble at all. In fact the little one didn't wake for milk until about 8.30 next morning.
We paid though. Despite hardly drinking at all, every muscle in my body ached next day. I couldn't keep my eyes open and I'm still only half way through the muddy laundry. Would I do it again? As soon as I kick this hangover.
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