2000 trees - It rained and I came home early

I'm not really one of those people who gives up if it rains a little bit. I'm not even willing to give up on a festival if it rains A LOT. After all, I am a veteran of Glasto '97 and '98 where it was soooo bad the only way to stay was to take so many drugs that you didn't care that you were in three foot of sludge that was made of pooh and wee from the portaloos that overflowed.
2000 tress wasn't that bad. It was muddy and in places it was VERY muddy but nothing that a pair of wellies and a bit of firm determination couldn't sort out.
No, I didn't come home because of the mud but because of the LACK OF ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING TO DO!!!!!!
I knew it was going to be small, I'd done many small festys before, but it was only one field. It had a very small stage, an acoustic marquee and a shed that played dance music. There were only 2 stalls you could buy stuff at and it was Bumi tat (craply carved balsa wood animals and glow sticks) and 3 places to eat (expensive pies, greasy burgers, Thai) and two beer tents.
I don't know haw many people went but it was too many. The tents were packed in tighter than Glasto 2000, the toilets were brimming, you couldn't get anywhere nears any of the stages and so most people hung around their tents drinking cider. There were a few children but most of the people there were teenagers who had bought their own body weight in beer.
After two nights of having drunk rude people crashing into the tent and standing on my sleeping children, the 'Rubin Camp' who was made up of 40 people singing weird death metal songs loudly and in a slightly cult-like manner into the night and two children that just cried at me and said they wanted to go home....I went home.
2ooo Trees is a terrible festival; over priced for the tiny amount of stuff there is there. Just a few cafe tents would have made it nicer. A few more stages, a few more stalls, a few more toilets. Don't go. I was told there was quiet camping that I didn't know about. "Perhaps next year" The steward said. "There isn't going to be a next year" I said grimly.
But I have learned a few lessons and there is some good to be gleamed out of this:

• Don't listen to anybody say they have been to a good festival unless they have been to the Big Green Gathering to compare it to.
• In fact don't really bother to going to anything that isn't the Big Green Gathering.
• Osiris got to run about and be a real festival kid. The place was too small for him to get lost. (I think I will write a whole new post on that later)
• I got to see a few Bristol friends and spend some quality time with Hayley. We sat around in my tent for the whole time so we could have done that in my garden.
  
• Polly won the Open Mic night and got a slot the next day. She's so fab.
• As we were sitting in the tent listening to the rain the Red Arrows flew past and we got a wonderful view of the air displays that were flying at Fairford.
• At least it was local and I was able to come home early.
  
• It was actually really nice to come back home and I haven't felt that for a loooooong time.