[N.B. this was written in my head and started on screenpaper when I got back. I fell asleep between uploading the pictures and finishing the text so I finished writing after the evening and backdated to fit]

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Someone was singing here when I rode past. Sounded pretty good so I made a note to put on a dress and come back once the tent was up.

Once the tent was up and I’d unpacked a bit, I was tired and cold and kind of sticky. I wanted a shower and to curl up in a ball somewhere soft and warm. I didn’t want to ‘people’. I could hear the music from the campsite, I didn’t need to go anywhere.

I unpacked my shampoo and my comb and my towel and put on my flipflops and my cycling jersey-windstopper-combi so I could leave the relative warmth of the tent..

..and then I put my shower stuff down and zipped up the tent door and walked along the beach to the party.

Like you do.

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It wasn’t actually cold, probably 19 or 20 degrees, and there was a good path directly from the campsite to the bar. It mostly wasn’t actually on the beach, but so close it makes no difference. It was dark, but not so dark that you couldn’t see the white sand of the path against the dark of the grass next to the path. There was no mistaking the direction either – the music was loud enough to be heard from the campsite a good kilometre and got louder the closer I got, although there were a few competing stereos on the piers..

15 minutes later I was there:

The first people I noticed outside were so drunk that even wiggly lines were difficult. What looked fun earlier was now distinctly not fun-looking. The beachy-look had been exchanged for a ‘going out’ look. My bike kit might have been a tiny bit odd earlier but now it really really didn’t fit in. But I was there and so was the music and turning round and going home seemed wimpier than I wanted to be. So I looked for somewhere to sit that wasn’t inside.

The third pallet-bench was free part from the backpack to one side, so I sat on it. That meant the band was behind me and that felt stupid so I turned round and knelt on the cushion and leaned over the ‘fence’. That gave me a super view of the guitar players and all the drunk people around them.

One of the drunk people leaned over the fence from the inside and asked if I didn’t want to come in properly (which in retrospect and in a different mood might have been fun) but I absolutely didn’t. She turned back to her friends at her table and poured everyone more of whatever they were drinking.

Half an hour later the bands (they swapped every 10-15 minutes) had all finished.

Background music was turned on and the general noise of people ‘talking’ drowned it out.

I got up and walked back to my tent, picked up my shower things and went to the shower block to discover that the shower block was open but the showers only worked with 5 SEK coins of which I had precisely none.

I gave up and after a ‘Katzenwäsche’ came back to the tent..

..and was asleep more or less instantly.