Less than twenty-four hours and hopefully my tent will be pitched at Glastonbury, before it starts pouring down as it’s allegedly meant to do so for the entirety of the festival.

Being my usual organised self by Sunday night I had mostly packed (although I do still need to go through my clothes again one more time as everything doesn’t fit into my bag yet!) and just had to pick up a few eBay items from my local delivery office, including the essential festival item – wellies. Last night I returned home with them, all smug that it was Monday night and I was pretty much ready to go, only to try them on and find they didn’t fit. Cue the panic, and manic internet research of where I might find a replacement pair that don’t cost the earth at this late stage.

I should have known this would happen… rewind to Glastonbury 2004, the last time I went. The day before I was running up and down Winton High St in Bournemouth to try and find the illusive wellies, along with a number of the student population, who it seemed had also left it to this late stage to buy what is pretty much the one thing you cannot turn up to Glasto without. Thankfully I found some that year, but I swore that the next time I went I would be much better prepared.

By the time I was on the tube to work this morning I was even more stressed about the idea of not finding wellies. I did what anyone would do in this state of panic, decided to take the afternoon of work (thankfully my boss said that he could do without me, according to him my mind was at Glastonbury already!) Obviously the 2004 feelings of panic didn’t teach me to buy wellies well in advance, maybe next time I will buy them in advance to avoid giving up another half day of paid holiday for the pleasure of trundling round London trying to find some of the bloody things!!!

At lunchtime I packed up and headed off on a well-plotted route that encompassed anywhere mentioned on the internet that sold wellies. Starting at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford St and having no luck, I headed to Millets in Kensington and walked in to overhear “Sorry, we don’t have any wellies in, but we’re getting some more tomorrow”. So then to Camden market (the mecca of brightly coloured wellies) where I found the last pair of size 6 they had anywhere in the area (possibly in London!). Unfortunately I have just parted with £18 for a pair of pastel pink and blue argyle pattern wellington boots. I am mortified these will be my footwear for the best part of the next week, but at least now the predicted knee-deep mud will have one advantage, it’ll keep them dirty enough not to be seen!

The thing that puzzles me the most is where do all the wellies go? There are only 170 or so thousand people going, and not all of them live in London. Considering the people that buy theirs on eBay, or those that are so prepared they buy them more than a couple of weeks in advance, and those that are loaded and send their personal assistants off to get a pair of Hunters or something similar, there can’t be that many people around London today desperately trying to buy them (although enough people that you bump into them wherever you go searching). And as Glastonbury happens nearly every year, by now have those that sell wellies never realised that demand is always more than supply by the week of the festival? Maybe I should go into the lucrative wellington boot business.

So I now have wellies (and you have an explanation as to why I appear to have absolutely awful taste!) I just have to go through my clothes one more time and see if I have anything at all that won’t clash with my footwear!!!