A cunning plan

Daughter number one has a cunning plan. If we leave Glastonbury around twenty minutes before the end of the carnival, we will beat the thousands of others also trying to exit the town. We strategically place our collapsible chairs on the pavement at the end of an alley leading to the car-park ready for the quick getaway. We do this at 3.30pm which is roughly about four hours before the carnival will commence and six hours before the estimated time of departure. No-one else has put out their chairs yet and Lisa, who is a Glastonbury virgin, is embarrassed to set up camp and immediately leave. We have no such qualms being old hands; we know that, for one Saturday in November, this street in a small Somerset town will eventually become lined with fishing seats, deck chairs, sun beds, picnic hampers and other regalia normally associated with the beach in August.

Having decided to split into pairs, we re-group within minutes at The Blue Note Café courtyard where the obligatory hot chocolate is as ritualistic as the evening dog burger and chips will be later. Three hot chocolates with everything and one with nothing. Everything = cream, maltesers, flakes and sprinkles. Mine is the unblemished one. I am holier than thou and they look thoughtful. And we all look at the weird and wonderful world of Glastonbury as it opens its ancient doors to more tourists than it can reasonably cope with.
In fact, my favourite three storey emporium has closed before five. We are not to be thwarted and knock on the door. The shop assistant stares out anxiously.

You’re not closed are you? I ask with polite incredulity
Yes. I can’t cope with so many people.
Get a grip man. It’s carnival day. You’ll make a fortune. Actually, I don’t say this. I assume my pathetic face.
Could you let us in please? There are just the two of us and we really like your shop.

Amazingly, he unlocks the door, hurries us inside and locks the door again quickly. Of course, now we feel obliged to buy something but that shouldn’t be a problem. Up and up we climb the rickety staircases, quite alone in the vastness of this Tardis-like building, oohing and aahing at the eclectic mix of goods. Daughter number two decides to buy three cushions and asks for a discount based on the fact that she’s taking them off the shop assistant’s hands. I’m shocked at her cheek. Where does she get such nerve? The worried shop assistant immediately deducts £8 and sends us on our way, firmly locking the door behind us.

Now here’s a thing: later, we discover that daughter number one and Lisa had been in the same shop just before us. With just the two of them on the top floor, they are joined by a couple of ghosts. Well, that’s what they said, but they do indeed have some inexplicable photographic evidence. And later still, whilst I am in an endless toilet queue in the George and Pilgrims, the three pass by the closed and empty shop and look up to see a white haired lady in the upstairs window.


There is a flaw to the escape plan: it only works if you’re at the end of the town where the procession begins. We are not. We are at a point which takes the floats 45 minutes to reach; so all the early escapees from the beginning of the carnival are already streaming out. We are the only folk leaving the car-park and the only ones on the first couple of roads and it’s looking good. Then we hit the first road block, become lost in a small industrial estate, drive backwards down a one way road and reach the second road block. We open a window and ask a passing pedestrian how we might find the road to Yeovil.

Turn left at the roundabout says he. Easy enough except the left turn at the roundabout is blocked. We ask one of many important men dressed in high viz jackets how we might find a road to Yeovil. It’s a conundrum.

Well, you need the Street bypass, says he. But you won’t make it through. You could go straight on over but you’ll end up on the peat moors and you don’t want to go there. No, we definitely don’t like the sound of the peat moors.

Of course, he continues, your sat nav won’t work round here and it certainly won’t work on the peat moors. Damn those peat moors.
The only thing you can try is to pass over two roundabouts, cross the little bridge and turn left.

So that’s what we do. With absolutely no idea of our location, and having lost all sense of direction, we make our way along a lonely lane and after about three miles cross a little bridge; whereupon, we we’re faced with the headlights of a thousand other lost vehicles and no left turn. We have to go right: no other option and as we snake along a track that becomes narrower and narrower with ditches the size of moats on either side, we know one thing only – we are on the wretched peat moors.

It’s ok says daughter number one. The sat nav says we’re on a red road.
Yes, but the arrow’s pointing in the opposite direction. Are you sure you reset it or is it still on Glastonbury?
Daughter number two tells me to shut up before proceeding to tell daughter number one how to drive. Lisa puts on an old Petula Clark favourite and we pass our time by singing along. Well I do; that lot are too young and only know one word.

Downtown we yell into the darkness.
Why aren’t there any other cars on this road questions Lisa?
Lisa is told to shut up.

Downtown.

We’re lost on the bloody peat moors says Lisa
Shut up
Downtown

Reader, we were saved by modern technology and good road skills. To be fair, there were four of us driving that car so we were in with a chance. AND we escaped the clutches of the monster from the peat moors AND were safely ensconced in the Royal Oak, Dorchester by 11pm in time for a welcome glass of rouge.

Downtown.