Willowman Part 2; Friday surprise!

I went to sleep in a fridge and woke up in an oven. Fully clothed and dehydrated I risked one eye outside the tent and saw that it was a beautiful morning. 4 hours sleep is not a great start but it was to be the norm I’m afraid, self regulation where alcohol and music is concerned is not my strongest subject. After a slow start on the stall people began to filter into the main arena  as this was the first day that the bands would fire up at lunchtime. Had a few enquiries, and a couple of bites but standing up all day is tiring, but luckily my new festival buddy Ross came over to look after my stall in true Eastenders fashion while I nipped off to the coffee van.

But Ross and I had other ideas and after much deliberating on what would be a reasonable but not desperate time to commence drinking, we decided on p.m. So at one second past 12 Ross popped to the bar for some liquid inspiration. Soon, the prototype t-shirts had been sold and several books followed. we decided that perhaps another round would keep the sales bouyant, so we imbibed in another to test our theory. Mmm perhaps it was coincidence because only one more sale was made before Ross went for a kip and I packed up the stuff and deposited it in my one man tent. Except now it was only habitable to Warwick Davis because of the clutter in there. Soon hunger began to get the better of me so I decided to try out a burger with hot chilli sauce, if only for the side effects of central heating later on in my now critically cosy accomodation.

When I came back Ross was there and he was clearly over exuberant to the point of bursting. “You’ll never guess who I have just been talking to”  he gushed. “Yeah I’ve just seen Ruffy and the boys, they’ve had a really crap day so I just left the book and a t-shirt with him, was he soundchecking?” I replied.

It was then that he showed me the photo he had just taken with the person in question. My gast was well and truly flabbered by the digital image in front of me, and while my Iris was calculating the enormity of the information Ross blurted out, ” It’s only Rick fuckin’ Buckler”!! Indeed it was Rick fuckin’ Buckler; The man who had inspired me to get into a band in the first place and was one third of arguably the greatest band to come out of the punk era The Jam. Here! Now! In the beer tent! I controlled myself and brushed off the tiny patch of wee that had secreted on to my trousers and made for the tent. He had to have a book whether he wanted one or not. As luck would have it was he very obliging and friendly, and after watching Ruts DC deliver a blistering set, and after I wished Ruffy the best,( as he was going straight back to his digs on his own due to another gig with another band the following day), we reconvened at the bar and who should walk back in but Rick and his mates Julian and John.

We left at about 3.00am after drinking the bar dry of Stella and some of the weirdly strong beers. Ross started to drink what was supposed to be Cider, but looked and tasted like it had travelled unopposed through the urinatory tracts of the whole of the bar staff, and back into the barrel from where it was being poured. Complete with sediment! During the evening 3 very drunk women came over to us and decided that Rick was famous and asked him if he was in Emmerdale!! He politely said no, but we all chipped in that he was to be seen regularly in Holby City. We eventually put them out of their misery but it was very funny.

So there ended a most surreal day. It was back home to a very full fridge.