Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Alison Taylor on relationships: 'Probably the most deviant thing I've done at a festival is go off-site with the guy I met'

 

Alison Taylor
Thursday 26 June 2014 18:50 BST
Comments

You know how festivals tend to be either really, really good or really, really bad? It's the same with festival romance – there's no middle ground when wristbands are involved.

Take a few years ago, this very weekend of Glastonbury. I woke up, sweating like no woman should, next to a man I'd been sort-of seeing in his itsy-bitsy crappy tent.

We were both feeling the effects of way too much fun and not enough sleep, and the tension (not good tension) was as stifling as the heat.

Forced to ask him what was wrong, I enquired, why the weirdness? He replied: "I just had a funny turn because I thought I heard my ex's voice". What? Literally haunted by an ex – I'd heard it all now.

"Are you still troubled by her then?" I asked him, somewhat weakly, as we stumbled down the grass banking, my flaccid sleeping bag trailing sadly behind me. "Aren't we all?" he replied, gazing off into the middle distance. Not to the point of hearing voices, no.

I didn't hear from him for the rest of weekend but – and here's the festival lesson to learn – I saw him every single day making the most of the deluxe showers in the posh teepee field where I was camped.

Like an idiot, I'd procured him a hallowed gold wristband the night before, when we liked each other.

"Isn't that XX?" my friends would ask, pointing out the shifty-yet-really-clean bloke exiting the A-list cubicles. Talk about an endless hangover.

But let's not dwell on the negatives, because festivals can also be wonderful places for romance. It's the escapism, the adventure, the... mind-altering hedonism. You do things you would never normally do in real life, like getting off with a feather boa-wearing violinist, or holding hands with a Hollywood star (really should've made more of that one).

Probably the most deviant thing I've ever done in the name of romance at a festival, though, was last year, again at Glastonbury: I went off-site with the guy I met. Off-site. It was a risk.

What if he was an idiot once the hangover had set in? What if I couldn't get back in? As it turned out, he was wonderful and I'll never forget having a cuddle the next day on the clean sheets in his hotel room watching All Star Mr and Mrs featuring Eddie 'The Eagle' and his missus (I kid you not), wondering what time to schlep back on site for The Rolling Stones. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in