Green Access & Mobility Areas - GAMA

Monday before the festival

Well it didn't start well, with the site closed due to rain, mud and flood, when we were meant to be setting up. We stayed with family close by and decided to attempt to get onto site on the Tuesday.

Tuesday morning..

..looked slightly more promising and the sun was out! We arrived to tractors towing people on site, (not a good sign!) but our bit of field didn't look too bad and being next to the hard standing helped. We worked out how we were going to set up the field and settled into our stay waiting for the marquee, loos etc to arrive, with the weather being so bad everything was running a day or so late. We didn’t really leave our area other than to get our crew food, in a marquee which had been flooded out once already! Tuesday was the only day we could put our baby on the ground.

Wednesday/ Thursday

It rained a lot and the ground got really bad. We worked out that we could only put tents in 2 areas and that the vehicles would have to be parked in the muddiest bits (soon to become a bog!) and pulled out on the Monday!! The marquee was erected over a few inches of water (not a great emergency shelter) and the loos were getting very boggy, we were really starting to worry for the safety of people coming to our field. Then I looked at the rest of the site. Oh my... a flood with small boggy patches and the ground totally churned up by the tractors so the ruts were hidden under the water one minute, up to your ankles and then over the top of your wellies. It appeared to us that for most of our punters that even if they got on to our field they weren't going to be able to leave their vehicles. By this time our crew food was under a foot of water and very dangerous to get to and some people were starting to worry about the river overflowing. We tried to keep our spirits up as much as we could, but the rain kept coming.

Friday

On the Friday morning (which was sunny) we headed out to the track to inform GAMA visitors of the site situation. This was a awful job appreciated by most but the full extent of the bog was not really understood until seen by those that had arrived early and wanted to carry on because deep down we are all hardened festival goers and we don't want a bit of water ruining our fun!

Saturday

Finally the festival was closed and we had the slow job of getting the few people on the field off after just one night. Saturday morning most of the crew woke with tents finally flooded (how they lasted that long is a miracle) The tractors came and pulled out the cars and trucks and some skilful driving and pushing got the rest out! Everyone just "mucked in” and enjoyed what they could as we tatted down. We left the site with a fountain of muddy water and hopefully some big lesson learned. Love and Hugs Jo and Oska (age 18 months.) xxx