Saturday 7th August

We wake up early - it's hard not to when the noise of the campsite flows into the tent unhindered, along with the sound of worryingly heavy rain hammering on the roof. We're fairly warm and comfortable though, so resolve to stay put until the weather improves, which it finally does at around 9am. The first order of business is a cigarette and a can of coke to clear away the cobwebs of last night's soporific boozing, then at 10am we walk over the adjacent field with a crowd of around 200 others towards Port Lympne Wild Animal Park. Our particular wristbands (picked up for free at any rate) don't actually allow us entry to the zoo, but we're planning to blend in with the large crowd and hope for the best. As it happens, we effectively manage to rush through the gate unhindered - and head into the huge park for free. Nice.

I've been to Port Lympne a few times, but not since I moved away from Kent in 2000. I always remembered it as a fun day out - one particular time when Andy and I took his young cousins for a day out sticking in my mind especially. The whole park slopes down winding tarmac paths, past gibbons, baboons and rhinos before levelling out around the gorillas and the big cats. We spend a little while at the impressive gorilla pavillion - the animals themselves (and the other guests at the park) no doubt bemused by the sight of hundreds of unwashed rocker kids stumbling half-asleep around their habitats.

After a while, K and I get a little hungry and leave the group to head to the restaurant - whose service station prices (£7.00 for a baked potato? very reasonable!) are not enough to stop me tucking in heartily. Later we pop back down the hill to see the gorillas being fed, and to watch one especially show-offy male skid down a 20ft slide to everyone's amusement.

Having spent around 4 hours in the park, we head back over to the festival site to get on the strong cider and watch the first few bands play. The sun is properly out now and the site looks instantly less grim than it did last night and this morning, despite the piles of beer cans, crisp packets and even the odd exploded carton of couscous littering the floor. Thanks to some infintely more subtle booze-sneaking, K and I manage to get a 3 litre bag of Weston's cider into the arena and get stuck in while watching Jairus - a Folkestone band I've known for a long time, due to the fact that my friend Tim's older brother was once their bass player.

We stagger around for the remainder of the afternoon, bumping into various friends and acquaintances and taking in a few bands - the most memorable of which are Cerebral Ballzy, a New York punk band who throw so much into their live show that I'm pretty sure most of them are sick during their 30-minute set in one of the tiny marquees.

By about 8pm K and are I totally sloshed, and after getting a cheeseburger each on board we head back to the tent for a little rest. Naturally, we both pass out immediately - and don't wake up until midnight, having missed all the headliners and indeed the closure of the arena and bar. Now feeling stone cold sober again, I head out to try and get hold of a beer or two to help me back off to sleep. The site is noisy and full of hammered teenagers milling around with little to do. I bump into a few people I know but it seems that everyone we're camping with has also drunk themselves out of contention and are fast asleep too. Giving up on the booze idea, I head back to the tent to try and sleep.

It's at moments like this that I remember why I don't come to things like this. I'm now sober, wide awake and trying to sleep on the hard ground, while attempting to shut out the nosie of people talking and singing along to the rubbish music pouring out of their tinny iPod speakers. I can't exactly tell them to keep it down, can I? Instead I lie still and even try sleeping with my fingers in my ears. It's hard to judge how long one has spent trying to get to sleep, but judging by the number of songs I hear in this tortuous period, it has to be close to three hours. Camping is horrible - especially when you're the only sober one around.