It wasn't a great start: on arrrival at the festival site, we were waved into the first entrance we got to. It turned out to be the 'drop-off only' gate rather than the car park. I, along with many other people, had to navigate through a maze of unsignposted tracks to the correct car park.
We arrived much earlier this year, so managed to get a better spot for the tent, closer to the arena. After exchanging our tickets for the wristbands which are needed to get into the arena itself, we had a wander around the 'shopping village' area. We bought ourselves a couple of cheap folding chairs (2 for £10) to replace the ones we bought last year. We were going to bring the old ones with us but we left them outside in the rain at home. They weren't ruined but were too wet to bring with us.
As we got back to the tent, there was a loud and impressive thunderclap and it started to rain. We retreated into the tent and the rain got louder. It wasn't until we left the tent that we found out it was actually hailstones.
The festival proper doesn't start until tomorrow night. After our tea (of bbq'd chicken) we checked out the shops in the arena. They were mostly clothes and there was nothing which really caught our eyes. We went back to our tent for a few glasses of wine.