8pm on a Sunday. The sky is blue, the balmy summer evenings not yet behind us. Across town, 55,000 people are drinking too much Bacardi Breezer, discovering that their mobile phone has no signal just when they need it most, and fervently hoping that the crunchy bit in the baked potato they’ve just eaten won’t result in a liquefied stomach at 3am tomorrow morning. Not to mention hoping that they can actually find their own canvas in a sea of identi-tents.
This means that Reading is currently awash with soap-dodgers. They are everywhere – you can’t move for pink-haired, begrunged teenagers with a dubious taste in music. Not that I have anything against pink hair – apart from the colour, of course. Now if it were purple, that would be a different matter.
Mind you, I’m not complaining too much because walking through town today I saw more eye-candy than I’ve seen in the last year. So it’s not all bad.
Sainsburys looks like a swarm of inebriated locusts has swept through, the shelves almost completely devoid of vodka. Tescos is packed to the rafters with people pushing trolleys stacked with beer which will all be undrinkably warm before they even get it to their tents.
As last year, I have been desperately avoiding all mention of the festival, mainly because there are a whole load of bands playing that I’d love to see, but I can’t afford it, so I’m not going and I’m very jealous of anyone who is. Maybe next year. Of course, next year I won’t be living here, so it won’t be anywhere near as convenient.
So, instead of skulking round fields, being fleeced by the beer sellers and trying to decide which food stall is least likely to give me food poisoning, I’ve been packing. My friend Kate came to visit and help me. What an angel. I’m lucky to have friends such as she.
Between us, we’ve got most of downstairs done – two bedrooms, bathroom and toilet. All packed up (except for the things I use on a day to day basis) neatly in archive boxes and stacked in the kitchen, half of which has also been cleared and cleaned. I don’t think that downstairs has ever been so spick and span. Shame I won’t be around to appreciate it.
The lounge, however, looks like it’s been ransacked by a couple of blind burglars on speed. I need to sort through everything before I can pack it up, but unfortunately there’s an awful lot of ‘it’ to be sorted. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, I feel like just sitting about and watching a movie instead.
For the next week, in an attempt to keep down the amount of stuff I have to move, I shall be eating whatever’s in the fridge/freezer/cupboards. I’ve already polished off the remains of the JD today, and the bottom of a bottle of vodka, so I feel I’m doing quite well. Now I just have to polish off that bottle of vodka I accidentally bought this afternoon, and I’m sorted.
One thing though – the 18 month old beetroot from my fridge has gone. So have the eggs I bought last year.
I really do have friends with strong stomachs.
Comments on this entry are closed.