Well, we’ve emerged from the rabbit hole that was Secret Garden Party 2010 battered, bruised, and somewhat tattered around the edges. And all the better for it! My knee is swollen like a grapefruit from an unusual injury, and I lost some cash in a dreamy haze, but, frankly, I’d have it no other way.

On the first after work train out of King’s Cross, armed with a headdress, fancy dress and copious amounts of glitter, John and I got to the site at around 8pm and headed for press camping. Dave took our heavier items down cling-filmed to a hand trolley, and we arrived to find our 4 man pop-up tent ready assembled. So we headed out for fun. After getting mightily lost in the dark, we found friends Heath and Kat’s camp in the Live-in Vehicle field, where we were treated to a veritable banquet of barbequed squid, lobster and steak! What a way to start a festival.

Full and happy, we took our first wander on site. It was exactly as I remembered from last year (or not, as I was insistent that I knew what field I was in, despite the fact that the year before it’d been camping): inviting, vibrant and captivating. First stop was The Artful Badgers; a new stage in a clearing, with hammocks and a small area for performances. We watched some brass Balkan/Arabian style music, I took my first outdoor wee of the festival season and, aptly, fell down a badger set.

Feeling pretty cozy, John and I wandered to Twist and Spout, a small tent where we chatted to some new friends, and witnessed what can only be described as a renegade band of spandex-clad male dancers, who ambled in and took over the dancing poles in a spectacular fashion. We happened upon a tent playing swing, ska and meringue, and after a spontaneous break-out of Hey Jude on a piano inside a tree, we hit our tent, sweaty, a bit pissed and very content.

The earliest I think i’ve even risen at a festival, 7am for a bacon sarnie and a sauna! The best way to release all the toxins from the night before and start afresh, it would come to be our saving grace at SGP, and the cleanest i’ve ever been at a festival! We decided to kick the party off pretty early, which was to be our downfall later in the day, and got on it at 11am. John decided it would be a great idea to get some video footage from the top of a carni ride, so we got on the ferris wheel. Pretty terrifying, but fantastic views of the entire site and a great way to spot the best and wildest costumes. The lake and the blimp looked spectacular from that height.

After the nausea subsided, we listened to some techno with a falafel, and watched as Pete from Big Brother and cronies (one most tattooed man, one extra from Mad Max, plus a few groupies with baps out) moseyed by in a huge pink plane on wheels, stirring up the crowds with jeers and taunts. There was more to see at SGP than can ever be done justice in this short review, some dramatic, some hilarious, all fabulous. On Friday alone we saw awesome break dancers, bikini mud wrestling, BMX jumps off homemade ramps and giant jenga. We wrote rude messages inside a huge cardboard structure and umpired a superhero flying contest. At some point during the day we found the ‘Ketamin’ bridge; a very wobbly structure made of tessellating tiles which, when walked across, gave a woozy and dazed feeling to even the most sober Gardener.

I don’t mind admitting there are a few lost hours between about 5pm and 11.15pm. I can be so precise about the later time as I know that’s what time we went to sleep! Destroyed.

Back to the sauna for some naked fun and very cold showering. So clean! I really wanted to go for a swim in the lake, but decided I might wait until Sunday when it should have have warmed up. Plus the queue for the boats was enormous. After Friday’s fail of an early night, we decided to stay on the ‘soft’ side of the lake until it was a sensible enough hour to hit the ‘hard’ side and party. Hard and soft hard being the appropriate terminology for the intensity or tranquility of the certain parts of the site. You can work it out. We passed a circus workshop on our travels and decided to have a go at hula-hooping and stilt walking to varying degrees of success. We spent a fair few hours on the soft side, exploring the Sanctuary where you could get various massages and lovely treatments, the Living Room to watch a female MC spitting rhymes, and some folksy stuff at Where The Wild Things Are.

On a walk back to our camp for a warm beer, John and I were witness to a most delightful sesh of frigging off by some bins. Girl - legs akimbo, guy - on top, giving her a right good fingerey seeing to. It was enough to put me off my two-types-of-vegetarian-curry-thali!

Back on the hard side, we were strangely drawn in by an interestingly offensive man who seemed to be gathering large crowds by the mead bar. Long story short, he got us swearing loudly at passers by, bottle-necked a poor couple into the middle of his audience and proceeded to marry them both, with vows we all made up. “You will not put it up my bum. That is not an entry.” “Shut the fuck up, sometimes.” I provided the ring, which got a standing ovation! After the wedding, we all set upon a fish and chip stall, where we had a tuneless operatic showdown, gave a birthday girl a stolen chip and then pretended to be ostriches (“heads down! Arm up!”).

Saturday night was ace! We donned our outfits – me as Star Trek and John in homemade Daft Punk helmet with flashing LEDs - and hit the Pagoda for a bit, which was a club arena overlooking the lake. Then, on to the Dome where John got on stage in his outfit and danced behind the DJ booth to Around the World! We danced so hard in the Temple of Excess in the Future Retro field, which is a great little venue, despite smelling so strongly of shit as it’s right near loads of portaloos. Some great tunes in there! There is so much to offer in this small field, like the Dome (Loose Cannons – AMAZING), The Collysillyum, which is the mud-wresting venue that becomes a mecca of Jungle and Drum & Bass once the sun goes down. Plus the Valley of Antics which is like a mini festival all on its own.

After watching the burning of the Blimp (a dance arena in the middle of the lake) and fireworks, I had a bit of a disaster; after so much dancing, my knee was having none of it, and I sprained it pretty badly and had to ask He-Man (he really was) to help me back to where I needed to be. Sadly, we missed Crystal Fighters in the Remix Bubble due to my hobbling, so headed over to the soft side.

This turned out to be something of an experience, as in the state we were in by now, the stuff over there began to look like a wonderful sepia postcard/burlesque dream. I’ll never forget seeing a group dressed up to the nines having a real Mad Hatter’s tea party under a tree! After watching what we thought might be Dreadzone’s early set at Gaia Soundscape, we were drawn in by the vicar compering the Village Hall with awful yet compelling karaoke, episodic abuse and comedy, and what felt like mind control! He had us in a trance, for what must have been two hours. Then he encouraged the audience to get up with him and ‘join the band’ and we all ended his set singing Sugar Honey for ages because John told him he wasn’t allowed to stop!

You guessed it: sauna. Some of our group headed off on Sunday as they were completely destroyed and in dire need of sleep and a meal, but John and I soldiered on! We watched the most hilarious dog show at the Village Hall, followed by a fashion show with some great examples of outfits, including a tin of Spam and a couple of mannequins. I got some great fashion shots of a few of the many stunning Gardeners.

We took it relatively easy all day, watched Darwin Deez from the side of the river overlooking and then went to the main stage for some Skatalites. As the sun came down, we stuck around the Valley of Antics, where a beguiling woman in a corset played the accordion from her treehouse and a violinist accompanied her on a swing. I so was not ready to say goodbye to SGP and wanted to squeeze every drop out of the place before we all had to pack up and return to reality, but, finally succumbing to exhaustion and my proper gammy knee injury, we hit the blow-up mattress.

Regrets? Not stealing that boat we found in a hedge and hitting the lake and not getting on the Blimp before it burned. Other than that it couldn’t have been more perfect and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thank you Secret Garden Party! We love you!

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