That Glasto Feeling

We're less than a week away and i know i won't be able to escape the Glastonbury coverage.

the live coverage, the rumours, the weather forecasts, all of it on my frequented websites, tv channels, radio stations and social networks. 

we're less than a week away and already i'm overwhelmingly missing that Glastonbury feeling. 

it's there in the warm weather and the ever-present threat of rain storms just around the corner. 

it's there in the lighter evenings and the prolonged enjoyment of alcohol in the company of friends. 

it's there in the smells wafting from food market stalls scattered on the streets and the bbqs in numerous gardens. 

it's there. any time a like minded group of people come together. 

it's there. in the traffic queues approaching Worthy Farm. in the trek from the car, laden with tents, backpacks and your chosen tipple. in The Park, or at the top of the field looking down towards the Pyramid Stage. 

it's everywhere. and yet sometimes it feels like it is nowhere to be found.

was it there when Brexit campaigning split the country? was it there when Donald Trump became President Elect? was it there throughout the UK's latest election?

is it here as this country picks up the pieces after the dreadful scenes played out at Grenfell Tower, as we scrutinise the cost cutting measures and safety failings, as we count the true cost, now that families and lives have been torn apart.

we're united in grief, but we're still divided - us and them.

i sometimes have to turn my back on the news.  too heartbreaking to bear or too real to comprehend.  

but sometimes news can be good news.  

sometimes bad news can result in good news.

and the recent, heartbreakingly sad, anniversary of the murder of Jo Cox being marked by a campaign of Great Get Togethers is a perfect antidote to bad news, turning a negative into a positive, using the power of human spirit to conquer grief and sadness.

as a population on our island, and as a shared human race, we are a very long way from 'getting together'.

but for one weekend, in a number of farmer's fields in Pilton, we are one.

Whether we are there slipping and sliding in the mud or enjoying (or missing) it from the comfort of our sofas, whether we are holding on to our well-earned position for the Pyramid Stage headliners against the will of our bladders, cherishing time with young families in the Kids Field or drinking ourselves into a cider-fuelled oblivion, whether we are asleep by midnight or up until sunrise in a far flung field losing our minds through legal or illegal means or simply through sleep deprivation.

I miss all of that.

I'm overwhelmingly missing that Glastonbury feeling yet again.

but it is comforting to know that in that microcosm of liberal and like minded society that will be congregating this weekend without me, whether they know it or not, these words of Jo Cox will be ringing true...

'We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us'

from the many, varied, dance tents, to the headliners, stage openers and weird and wonderful performers and revellers that make this one weekend as glorious and unique as the human spirit, never a truer sentence has ever been spoken...

and that is the Glastonbury feeling....