The Hay Festival, 2010

Monday, May Thirty-First, Twenty-Ten. This is the day I've been waiting for. This is the day that occurred yesterday. This is the day that as time goes by, gets further and further into the past.

Everybody knows about The Hay Festival of Literature and Arts. It's been hailed as 'the Woodstock of the mind' by Bill Clinton and is ever increasing. It was started in the late eighties, is an annual occurrence and spans over ten days. It originally only featured literature based events, but thankfully has expanded to include music, films, stand up and many other things. Is it a high society thing? Not really. Is it perceived as being so? Yes. I honestly think that that's only due to the interest in literature or arts (no matter what that may be) that you require to actually want to go. I'm not interested in drugs, I'm not interested in drink and I'm not interested in sex. I don't eat meat, I don't party and I don't have much in common with the media's perception of teenagers, and yes, you guessed it - I wanted to go to The Hay Festival.

My friend invited me to see Tim Minchin with her, and after a long conversation with my parents, which I dare not bore you with, it was decided that if I could get someone to go with me, I could go. Tickets cost a mere £15, and I say mere because he's really making a name for himself so I'm expecting ticket prices to mushroom by next year unless he does something spectacularly wrong. The person I got? My beloved Ashmlee Willie Winkie. He paid for his own ticket obviously, but it's all cocaine baby because he has a job and walks around with over £100 pounds in his wallet, which we've constantly told him not to do but to no effect. The car journey wasn't too bad, nor was it too eventful. I can't remember the time we left, or the time that we arrived, and it doesn't really make a difference to the story, with which I'm simplifying a lot to save time and energy for you guys.

We minced about for a few hours. We looked in stalls, Mother and I rushed to buy a The Guardian's Hay Festival bag each (which came free with a £1 Guardian that nobody really wanted), we looked for food but were shocked at the prices and lack of vegetarian food, Ashmlee Willie Winkie laughed at the ice cream stall that used sheep's milk to make their ice cream I stared wide-eyed in slight horror at a woolly jumper that looked like it was covered in swastikas and we caught the shuttle bus to town. We bought food from a small place called Oscar's, and I bought two CDs for £5 from the huge amount of CDs being sold, there were at least thirty standard school desk tables completely covered in music. I bought 'Nude' by Suede, and 'This Is Hardcore' by Pulp. Yes I am getting heavily involved in Britpop, the nineties scene. My parents bought me a cowboy voodoo doll thing and a pair of adorable bumblebee voodoo doll earrings which I wore to Tim Minchin. They also bought me a ladybug lapel pin, which is adorable. We roamed around two vintage stores (upon which I saw a girl dressed completely head to toe in vintage and realised that I could never carry it off), a bookshop which specialises in murder and mystery and the Castle Bookshop. We then caught the shuttle bus back to the festival sight so the two of us could meet up with the original friend who had invited me and her friend in the queue with one hour and a quarter to go. We could hear him through the tent and got overly excited. We went in and sat about six rows from the front. Tim Minchin came out and the three of us girls squealed and even Ashmlee Willie Winkie let out a smile not too dissimilar to our manic faces. He started off with 'Rock 'n Roll Nerd' and went through many songs and stand up moments. It was amazing. He went off track a few times and handed hecklers in such an amusing fashion. Of course, we all thought the hecklers were in their twenties, but it turned out they were in their thirties or forties (why isn't there a 'U' in that?) and were rather lovely. They seemed like paedophiles, but I think they were just a bit drunk and gay, and yes, I can judge all this because I met them when we were queueing up to meet the man himself. My friend made a spectacle of herself to one of the security staff men, who was oh so lovely about the whole thing. I won't go into it, because it annoyed Ashmlee Willie Winkie and myself. She is two years younger than me though. Stereotypes have some truth behind them, and there's a reason why thirteen year old girls are ridiculed. I don't care if she's fourteen, it still applies. She went insane about having to queue, I explained that it's because we're British and were raised with manners. She wanted to barge. I was sarcastic. The sarcasm might have been lost on her.

Tim Minchin signed all of our tickets, and Ashmlee Willie Winkie was so excited! I thought it would be quite sweet to all have a photo together, the three of us. It also saved a lot of time as the whole thing seemed very rushed. I don't care, I met the man, I'm a lucky bum! I said to Pa when he fetched us, "You'd be pleased to know that I was more excited to meet the Australian than to meet the drag artist," in referral to meeting Jeffree Star. He seemed pleased to say the least...

PostScript: I'm going to enter the festival's short story competition. There's a cash price, although it's not as big as you's imagine, and it has to be about Avarice. I haven't read the terms or the rules, but I'm excited nevertheless!