You'd think that packing for Glastonbury was a last-minute-chuckitinaholdall-no-worries-mate experience. It's not. When you go on a summer holiday all you need are last year's shorts and a bottle of Ambre Solaire and you're off. By contrast, packing for a festival has become more like preparing for a trek to the North Pole. Taking stuffed bin liners out of the loft last week brought back some great memories. Flimsy fabrics in those gaudy colours made me feel wild and optimistic. Finding a bikini in the loft after months of dark afternoons and rain sends me right back to Majorca, to the sound of girls named Sam laughing through mouthfuls of tequila. I imagine that this year on the beach I will look more like Demi Moore and less like Bruce Willis. I remember the cotton dress; the Sangria stain on it makes me feel like the Monica Lewinsky of the Balearics. Great days, great clothes.
I realise, with 48 hours to go, that rooting through beach clothes has become a way of avoiding packing for Glastonbury. But I can't bear it. It's as if one missed pen, one forgotten beer-cooler, could spell life or death. Hurry up and get well, Ranulph Fiennes. I need some advice on what to take.
Finally, I try to track down the yurt. Being prone to spending huge amounts of cash on stuff I don't need, I bought an entire Mongolian home instead of a lightweight two-man tent. Having nowhere to store it in London, it lives for 51 weeks of the year on a Welsh commune.
With only days to go to the festival I call my friend Pete.
"Can Azi bring my yurt down with him to Glastonbury?"
There is some muffled talk off the phone. Then Pete comes back on the line.
"You took the yurt after the last party, didn't you?"
The roof was missing last year; we improvised with a bit of plastic and some string. This year the flooring (builder's membrane) may be missing, too. It's our fault. Don't buy things you can't put in the loft - or a backpack. I am holding an excited, jittery sense of panic at bay. Then I see the weather report.
"Hot," says one. This happens late June every year. The first long-range forecast promises a heatwave. "Average rainfall . . . risk of sunburn . . . thunderstorms . . . rain overnight," say the rest.
So that's T-shirts, rain gear, warm clothes and party stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know I could just live in a pair of jeans and peel them off when I get home, but after the bad experience last year with the smelly hitch-hiker from hell, I refuse to inflict my filth on anyone else - even my husband.
After a day spent staggering from field to field on too much cider, you splash yourself with cold water and change your T-shirt for a loose, sexy shirt. Then you just about remember to tie a big jumper round your waist and put a lightweight, waterproof jacket in your backpack so you don't freeze watching the sun come up by the sacred stones. Best to change sandals for trainers or boots after 6pm. Nothing worse than waking up with wet feet after a late-night visit to the free-flowing sewers laughingly referred to as toilets. By the time I've stuffed all these "essentials" into my backpack it is nearly full.
On the day we leave comes the real panic. The "equipment" for our expedition south-west of civilisation must be found: miner's torch, Swiss army knife, lanterns, wash kit, wet wipes, eye covers and earplugs . . . Oh dear God, where are my earplugs? Candles, foot lotion, aspirin, plasters, towels, car phone-charger, sunblock, deodorant, sunglasses.
It's not that I behave like Joan Collins when I'm there. It's just that sleeping in the daytime with the light streaming in through the hole where the roof should be and drum'n'bass vibrating through the earth where my groundsheet should be will be difficult enough.
