The world goes on, and so does my blog, because I said so.

The next morning dawned bright and way too damned early for me. I crawled out of my tent, fired up the stove and made preparations for tea, coffee and hot cross buns. My friend and the BF crawled out of their tent looking dishevelled and somewhat discontented. Neither of them was in the mood to talk, so it was breakfast to the sound of puking festival-goers, squawking birds and baa-ing sheep. We cleaned up and caught a bus into town to wander about and see what was what.

The odd snipe from my friend or her BF alerted me to the fact that something was seriously wrong in paradise. I enjoyed the sunny weather and snooping around shops and strolling along the beach and tried not to pay attention to the bickering. Along with never getting involved in a land war in Asia and never going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, one of the classic blunders is to intervene with an arguing couple while holidaying with them. Sides are picked and everyone loses. I left them to sort themselves out.

Torquay doesn't hold much interest unless you are a surfer or an inveterate collector of nautical memorabilia. So one turn around the main street and we had run out of things to do. None of us wanted to go to the surf carnival (and reveal our complete and utter ignorance about surfing, although I can say 'grommet' fairly convincingly) so it was back onto a bus and back to the festival.

We puttered and pottered, watched skaters, browsed the little tent market that had sprung up and generally mooched until the bands started playing that night. Apart from the odd moron peppering the stage with full beer cans (what a terrible waste of beer), the music was good and the vibe was fantastic.

About 1am, my feet were getting tired and the band about to come on didn't really appeal, so I took my leave and headed back to the tents. On the way, I saw the shower block. Deserted. Utterly deserted.

Now let me give you some background here. We were in the middle of a sheep paddock. The shower block and the toilet block were enormous caravans wheeled in for everyone to use. All 14,000 of us.

Have I mentioned we were in the middle of a sheep paddock? A dusty, dirty, sheep-shit filled sheep paddock? Where you ended up grey with dust from head to foot just walking from one end of the camp to another?

Good.

I just wanted to make that bit clear.

I'm a pretty fastidious person. I don't like going long without a shower. By the end of the first day, the toilets were noisome and your chances at getting any hot water at all in the showers during the day were nil.

It was 1am. Everyone else was grooving along to Spearhead. And the shower block was deserted.

I believe I broke land-speed records hurtling back to my tent, grabbing my gear and bolting back to the showers. Sure enough, there was not a soul to be seen and the hot water tank was full to overflowing. I nearly went berserk with glee. I peeled down to my dusty bare skin, cranked on the hot water and just stood beneath the showerhead, moaning in delight. I lathered up my hair several times, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Bliss. Utter, unadulterated bliss.

After a criminally long period of time, I finally got out, towelled off, dressed and walked back to my tent, grinning like an idiot. I felt sparkly clean again and warm and snug. I just wanted to curl up under the covers in my cosy little tent and sleep like a log.

Which I did.

To be continued...