Tuesday 24 August 2010

It's That Time of Year Again

When, for many people in the UK, thoughts turn to the fabulousness that is a Bank Holiday weekend. Ahh, the joys. An extra day off work to potter or to do exciting, meaningful, useful things.

But if you live in Reading, August Bank Holiday means one thing: it's time for the Reading Festival.

And, if you're not a festival-goer/fan, it means one other thing: how to best avoid the traffic, the mess, the crowds, the all-round chaos that the weekend can bring. Reading can become gridlocked, it really is a VERY bad time to be driving in/out or around the town, unless you know where you're going and can plan your journey carefully in terms of route and times. And the side of town we live on gets the absolute worst of it because we live literally within shouting distance of the venue; so we don't just get vehicular gridlock, we get pedestrian gridlock, right outside our front door.

That said, the people-watching is top-notch and second to none. We can cosy up in our living room and watch the world and his rucksack go by. So far, and it is only Tuesday, I've seen three ultra-keen festival goers arrive; clearly desparate to get themselves a good pitch.

This is what it looked like immediately outside our front door this morning: lots of lorries with deliveries for the site as well as gazillions of catering vans offering all manner of tasty treats from Chinese to Thai to Fish 'n' Chips to a lovely cup of coffee:
Step outside, turn left, walk about 100 yards and turn left again; stacked up:
but notice how it's only on one side of the road, the side heading to the festival site. You can just about make out the main stage for the festival at the very, very end of the road - it's the big white (actaully silver) structure in the centre.
And a little bit further along the road, here's the pedestrian entrance to the site.All of these photos were taken as DC and I ambled along to softplay at the leisure centre which is right in the thick of the Festival site. Think we might give it a miss for the rest of the week...

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