Up in the air

We decorated our large teaching tent, made signs to attract children, rosined bows and even tuned the violins and cellos, though the heat means that the tuning won't survive until tomorrow. I had a long walk all over the site to imprint its map on my feet and was pleased that almost all is still there from last year. But the sense of familiarity is so much more mundane than the awed excitement I felt then, that I started to feel that I shouldn't have come: don't want to hike miles, don't want to teach, don't want to sleep in a tent, don't want to feel sticky in this heat, don't want to have to trudge upwards from my tent to get to a loo, don't have the energy for all this...

This mood will be grim for me and for the children I'm supposed to be enthusing. I need to think positive.

Last year the opening ceremony was split across two sites to reduce overcrowding and I chose a drone display at the Pyramid Stage rather than fireworks at the Stone Circle. Mistake. That the drones were boring seems to have been a consensus and this year there were fireworks at both places. At sunset I went to the Stone Circle even though my feet knew perfectly well it was much further away and uphill.

Nymphs in wafting gauze with flowers in their hair stood on the stones catching the occasional movement of air. High above the view right across the site were three beings, balancing on sticks. As the light fell, they swayed slowly to and fro, dancing with lengths of fine cloth catching the light.

Impressive skills but my excitement has still not arrived on site. 

After the fire was lit and the huge effigy was burnt, I trudged back across the site to my tent, cross with myself that I'd watched the fireworks through my camera lens, not with my eyes. And certain that I won't return next time to put that right.

Extra: a skateboarder at Greenpeace's skatepark