Glastonbury 2016 - Day 5

Today started where yesterday left off, at the Arcadia dance area at midnight. We were here because I (Annie) had won an eBay auction (run by the festival and proceeds to Oxfam) for an Arcadia experience. Chris had made the mistake in September of leaving me in the house with eBay and a glass of wine - and the result was his Christmas present.

Arcadia is dance area dominated by a massive spider made of recycled metal. He has parts that move, with dancers suspended from his arms during his light show, and fire shooting out of his head. When not a show in himself, he's a DJ booth in his head, with the lights and fire adding to the dance experience. We love visiting him every year for the tech geekery if nothing else!

Our treat was to press the "fire" button on his big flame (to give you an idea of the size, the flames you see here are the little ones). The Arcadia guys were so friendly and welcoming, and got us into the backstage part of the spider as the main DJ set was kicking off, and thousands of people were partying underneath. We each (Chris, our friend Ruth and I) went up one by one onto the ramp by his head and were given the box with the big red button. With many upturned faced watching it was overwhelming - and we had to concentrate on our job of timing our flames best with the musical drop (the dance music crescendo). When we each did them, the crowd roared - it was quite overwhelming. Thanks, Arcadia - we love you.

We finally made it back to base camp at around 3am, buzzing. We slept late...

The rest of the day was rainy, and the mud had really got out of hand now. It was hard to walk round the site (great exercise though), so we settled on only a couple of stages. Years and Years, Ellie Goulding and Beck led up to the festival finale of Coldplay. Neither of us are big fans, and it was so cold and wet, we debated heading off. Not seriously though - as we knew it would be a good show. With Barry Gibb and Michael Eavis joining them on stage, and the audience all wearing synchronised LEDs, it was a great party to end with.

Just the fun of removing our cars from the muddy fields now - but at least for us that's tomorrow's job.