Saturday morning sunshine began to breakthrough. The hard core all night few of the crew were still happily hyper by the time the remaining crew were awakening. Or did we more likely wake them with our wandering wibbling ridiculous hilarity. Tripping over tent pegs. Stumbling into caravans. Had base camp got smaller?

My dearest friend and cook awoke to find me laying right outside her tent door, upside down, giggling furiously at the variety of guide ropes wrapped around my foot. On my back I looked up and over my forehead as she unzipped her tent and stared straight down into my bewildered befuddled face.

“Good morning?” I inanely grinned.

Taking my face in her hands as I rolled over like a happy Labrador in front of her, she calmly stated “once I’ve cleaned up your face, I want some of what you are on!”

“Me darling? I’m running on nothing but Pink Tent Dust but happy as Larry. Just keeping going until I drop!” As long as I spent time with the tribe and saw the Wickerman burn I was happy to end my day.

I was promptly wiped down with wet wipes, makeup sorted, lip scum removed, redressed, recharged and my unruly hair brushed under a hat. All the while we fixed her shots and slammers, gathered the tribe for morning tipples and slippery nipples and staggered into base camp. My darling creative genius took the time to adorn my face with blue giraffe print and my half shut eyes were decorated with huge blue elephant sized eyelashes.

Cook found her mojo and promptly set about discussing how she felt everyone has an animal inside them. Characteristically so. Obviously maybe. Or unconsciously. We put her to the challenge and spent the next THREE HOURS discussing, debating and finally arguing hysterically about animal traits and who was what. We wrote it all down (it is important to take notes on occasions like this). We refused to allow her to choose her own BFs animal for she was not objective enough. We eventually awoke everyone else to the increasing sounds of our animal noises and howls of laughter. Cook point blank refused to accept our decision that she was a stick insect. We based this on her sticky thinness. Her ability to blend in and her slow yet steady stealth like movements.

No way, said she. “I’m a peacock!”

Define that, we all said. We discussed this and wrote it down. But then two hours later she announced,

“I don’t like being a peacock. They always have a fan fare look about them. With their huge fancy conspicuous tails. They are centre of attention and can’t even fly properly!”

The monkey, turtle, queen bee, squirrel, chipmunk, lion and bear eyebrows all raised and eyeballs rolled.

“I AM a flipping stick insect!”

We wrote it down. Closed the book and decided...that was enough of that.

We made it onsite just in time to catch The Dumfries Community Choir. As impressive and engaging as ever. Incredible renditions of Underworld, a Kylie/Pulp medley of Your Disco / Disco 2000, The Doors, Blur, New Order and an old favourite of mine Lovely Day by Bill Whithers. Bringing us all to our feet from the moment their voices sang out through the tent. We sang and danced along, unable to tear our ears away from the sounds and our eyes away from their choir conducting leader, Graham Main’s, furious wiggling bottom. The cover of the Stone Roses Resurrection was absolutely incredible as was the standing ovation and raucous cheers from the crowd as they finished with La Vida by Cold Play. They are a choir unlike any other.

I flapped my elephant eyes in appreciation and tried not to care as the energy moved me emotionally to tears and moved the face paint down my neck.

More wandering and weaving around the main arena. Holding my head high to cope with the ever increasing weight of my eyelashes upon my tired eye lids.

I have only flash memories of the next few hours. My body was lagging behind my peripheral vision and my mind. My back was beginning to get the better of me and a piercing pain became my companion with every step I took. I just about managed to stand and watch the Wickerman burn. Explosive and impressive. Yet always a little sad too. I watched from the good side of a huge falafel.

Painkillers did nothing but swamp my eyelids with tiredness. I began to limp homeward bound with a few helpful friends. Grunting like a boar, whining like an old woman. I could take no more. I was about to be fallen. As we walked along the track towards home, the familiar sound of a buggy swept upon us. I recognised the friendly face at the wheel and as soon as he came to a stop I sprawled across the tiny bonnet.

“Please take me home?”

He kindly obliged, even carrying me from the buggy seat to the floor of base camp as I fell asleep beside him, the distant jogging shape of BF trying to catch up silhouetted against the moonlit sky as I was cradled into his arms and onto a rug.

I slept for a while. Awakening to the sound of laughter and familiarity. Looking up I could see nothing but pink. Pink warm wombieness.

“where am I because it’s so pink and luuurrveeelly?”

The soothing sounds of BFs lulling voice announced “base camp ya numpty”

Oh.

Cook snuggled beside me under blankets for a while and we whispered ridiculous drivel to each other until BF eventually spooned me into bed.

What an amazing 42 hour reward those two days were. Thank you Blue Crew.

Sunday came far too soon. But remarkably I felt brand new. Must have been all the water BF forced me to drink and the long awaited 10 hour sleep.

Jumping up fresh as a daisy I was greeted by a host of bleary eyed crew members. Giggling at their expense I gave out a few orders and headed into the main arena to begin the break down. I collected a buggy and trailer and spent the next 6 hours with the core creative crew, now seriously dwindling in numbers breaking and taking down everything. Moving it up to our storage unit at the main farm building. And repeating the whole scenario again and again.

Here’s how I would describe the breakdown: tiresome, relentless, tough, punishing, hard, harsh, weary, weakening and solemn. We all looked so exhausted and miserable. Which is a shame. But I knew this would pass. As we finished the task. Got home for a bath. The memories would be of the laughs. And not the aftermath.

A series of external influences meant we lost more members of the team until there were just eight of us left, and two of them were under five years old. By 7pm we were ready to leave the site with as much as we could carry. Leaving just the big pink tent, standing a little bent and bewildered as we left the lonely vacant site. The vacated fields scattered with small piles of smiles and the leftover signs of a good time had by all.

Sunday six of us came back for base camp and again, two of them were under five years old. It was a gentle come down after another good night’s sleep. The sun still shining and our memories amusing us as we worked. While keeping watch over the two youngest members of the crew, chilling out on the arm chairs with bread sticks and a jar of Nutella. The chairs the only items to load as the four adults tried to safely dismantle the huge pink tents. Eight poles each side is a tricky conundrum with four people. But we managed, supervised from afar by two cool kids with chocolate and crumb covered faces.

Reminding us that no matter how much ridiculous adult fun we had. The kids loved it too. Wickerman is a family festival after all.

My final paragraph in this explorative dive into the Alice type wonderland that is my Bluetopia view of the psychedelic epic experience of the Wickerman creative work, must be dedicated to the Crew.

My gratitude cannot be expressed in just the words: thank you. For you are more than workers, paid or unpaid. You are more than enthusiast’s and volunteers. You are more than creators and designers. You are the embodiment of the words: incredible, outstanding and impressive. I could not have done it without you. I can’t imagine how we would ever do it that way again. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you put into it. I know it was painful. And I am grateful. Some art takes effort. Together we created something beautifully bonkers that I will treasure for the rest of my days. Even through the haze. For what I remember most of all after everything, is the happiness, the laughter and the pride on your faces.

How I cried when you all said you did it for me.

I love you all.

Article and photos Lou Hyland