Who's the Daddy: Festival fever in your fifties

Me and the boss went last Thursday and Saturday and loved every minute. We’d have liked to have gone to them all but at our age four consecutive days at a festival would’ve meant a trip to A&E and a lengthy stay in hospital that an already overstretched NHS could well do without.

Daughter #1 and her friends rocked up last Friday and she was right down the front for headliners Rudimental, whereas we stood on the sidelines for the likes of James, Rag’n’Bone Man and the excellent Lottery Winners, flexing our creaking backs as darkness descended and the chill set in. I’m 51 you know! I’m still alive!

We’ve bought tickets every year an event has been on, what with living a five-minute walk from Williamson Park our house has become a magnet for uni friends from the late 80s/early 90s who fancy a night out at a festival without the cost and inconvenience of booking somewhere to stay.

After the festival some people went on to after parties. Sorry but those days are over. We sat around our kitchen table hoovering up chicken korma, sipping light or alcohol-free beer and swapping lower back injury stories until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

In the interests of fairness, not everyone enjoyed the weekend. Not just the Facebook Karens who whine and bitch about stuff that Karens always whine and bitch about on Facebook.

Some revellers’ post-festival behaviour would shame a barnyard animal after rolling out onto the normally quiet residential streets, doing things that barnyard animals do in barnyards.

But to residents who were upset by their antics I’ll say this. For next year’s festival list your house on Airbnb for what you think is a reasonable amount, treble it, and let someone else pay for your weekend far, far away at a five-star spa hotel. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Or for what you could charge over that weekend, caviar.