It takes courage to grow up/Splendour Report

Well, hasn't it been a time and a half? I have officially been 21 for just over one month, and so far - so good. I took those previously mentioned two weeks off at my birthday, went to Agnes Waters and had a ball. Ate so much amazing food, fished and boated, listened to 50's style jazz floating out the doorway and down into the garden of our beach house at breakfast time, laughed a lot, played in the sand and drank Jagermiester. The whole weekend blends into itself in my memories, and I can only remember good things. What only made it sweeter was the pre-weekend surprise party my Boy threw for me on the Wednesday of my birthday. I've always wanted to know what a surprise party was like, but I always thought I was too nosy to ever get a proper one. He pulled it off! I was very amazed, almost bursting into tears and laughing at the same time.

We travelled home on Monday tired and sandy, but I was filled with glee when everyone else had to go back to work on Tuesday and I was still on holidays. On Thursday morning, bright and early, I was up and packed to leave on our Splendour-bender with my darling friend Wickers. I went over and found her in a state - nothing packed, none of her tickets printed, cash strewn all over her bed, and her self downstairs smoking cigarettes in the garden. Needless to say, we left a little later than planned, but we had the most smashing time. We met Harvey and P in Woodford at around 7pm; one bottle of wine and half an hour after that we joined the line for the festival entrance which is 1.5km from town. We got into the festival 5 hours later, and by sheer luck nabbed possibly the best campsite in the history of earth. We couldn't believe it. We beat 20,000 people to it, set up the tent in pitch darkness, and so began the Best Weekend of my Life.

I'm not going to lie. I don't have one photo from the whole 4 days. All I know is that it was amazing fun, and I wouldn't swap the memories I have for one million dollars and a season pass to the Dodgers. We'd wake up in the morning to my cousin crawling through the tent flaps loaded up with coffee, then we'd get up, brush our teeth in the bushes behind the car, and chill out with the guys from the next campsite until the first good band. All our phones died on that first night so we didn't really seperate the whole weekend, but we still managed to catch up with Wickers and J once a day. Mother Nature was an absolute daaaahling about the whole thing, each day presenting us with the clearest, crispest weather - even though we were camping in the depths of winter. Coffee, Vodka Redbulls and Cinnamon Suger Langos breads were the order of the day, along with numerous sessions in a very smoky car, otherwise referred to as the Woodfire Pizza Oven. And then, we would dance. And run around the giant festival trying to catch as many acts and go to the toilet as many times as we could. FUN!

On Monday morning, when everyone had fillled up on coffee and our very last Nutella rations, we piled back into the car to join another line, this time to exit. Driving back towards Brisbane through the rolling hills, Florence and the Machine blaring through the speakers and the windows down, was the meaning of elation in a teacup.

The rest of my holidays were spent visiting my Nan and Pa and my two best friends from high school. My cousin and I also went up to West End to scrounge op-shops and secondhand bookshops, and pay a visit to Happy High Herbs. I acquired a pipe and a set of Bohemian Lifestyle Cards, and a white cardigan with large skulls peppered across it.

The next morning, Wednesday, was time for home. I had the windows down on the freeway til Maryborough, which is where I met up with Wickers. She spent the last two days in Hervey Bay with her boyfriend and brother. And that's how our bender ended. We had the most amazing time, and there is no way I am not going back next year. Winter festivals are the shiz!

All my love, OTIG