The Ned Wood Archive

Joe

Joe lies on his camp bed listening to the rain. It’s been banging on the canvas for a while now, so he’s listening to it and replaying the video in his head. The video of seeing that lass walking up the Park the day before. He’s trying to remember exactly what she looked like. He’s got a better memory for tunes than for faces, but he’s sure he’d recognise her again, anywhere. And, while he’s laying there, he’s also coming up with scenarios where he bumps into her again. Just by chance. Maybe walking up to the Park as she’s walking down. Or over in the Green Fields. Or at one of the stages. Maybe he’ll see her today at Greenpeace or Atchin Tan.

He has to get up. He needs a shower. His hair gets really greasy if he doesn’t wash it. Strange, his beard’s never a problem. Just his hair. Then he thinks it through and realises that his face gets washed two three times a day, so it never gets the chance to grease up. Is that the explanation or are they different types of hair: normal top of the head hair and facial hair?

He rolls out of his bag and gets dressed. He pulls on his cargo pants, the ones with loads of pockets. He goes through his standard routine: credit card in left hand pocket, wallet in right hand pocket. He frees the phone from the power bank and puts it in the special phone pocket. That way, he’s got back-up if anything gets lost or nicked. Double back-up. He picks out his Hawaiian shirt, the one with the black background and the bright white and yellow flowers. Then pulls on his waterproofs over the top of everything. Maybe it’ll be dry enough later.

Joe always makes an effort to get a shower everyday when he’s at Glastonbury. The ideal start to the day. The Greenpeace showers are fairly handy, so he pops down first thing and then has breakfast, usually over at Henry’s Beard in the Green Fields. Sometimes the wait is too long and sometimes they aren’t working, in which case, he’ll leg it over to the showers next to the Kids Field. That’s a bit of a trek, though, so it has to be really bad at Greenpeace. There’s also a shower over at the Undle Ground, but they want you to pay there. They have a ticket system at Greenpeace, so he could get a ticket, get breakfast, then shower. But that feels wrong having a shower after eating. Today’ll be fine though. The rain means there’ll be fewer people waiting. Hey, it’s a shower. You get wet anyway.

Afterwards, after his shower, he finds a sheltered spot and combs his hair. Normally he wears his hair in a pony tail. At work and stuff. When he’s in party mode, he lets it flow freely. Like a mane. He’s not vain, but it is one of his better features. What he likes to do is comb his hair through when it’s wet so it’s untangled then let it dry naturally. That way, he ends up with long curly hair falling about his shoulders in ringlets. A bit like one of those old fashioned judge’s wigs. He likes his hair when it does that. Is that vanity? OK, so be it.