Left at a farm gate to walk down a steep field, what looked like a pyre burned at the bottom of the valley. From a distance, the thud and hum of electronic music. The detail lost over hundreds of yards of damp grass, a great chest of still air above it. A sudden drop in the music, followed by a massive kick-in that launches a rousing chorus of screams, it rises up and screeches around the darkened valley. The pace had quickened. High reaching hills were all around, silent and visible. Clusters of trees only emerged in sound though; when walking near them through a breeze.

There has always been something pagan about the Brits and their festivals. A return to the mysticism of the druid, an echo of defiance against the foreign institutions of Rome millennia ago. A few hundred people in a field, many of them escaping the ordered streets and modern comforts of London. All of them gathered under a tent, writhing to the sounds of Toxic Funk Berry.

Above us a new beacon of sound and light, our little sanctuary in the darkness, the sky had cleared completely. Millions of stars like punctures on a canvas of dark blue. Nebulae crushed into the painting like grit from broken glass. The meteor shower had peaked Friday, completely obscured by the thick cloud ready to downpour for hours. At last the party had begun anew.

Many of our number had not made it to Somerset. They saw something lunatic in resorting to porta loos and tents cast down on uneven ground. They thought they’d found safety inside their homes. Protection in their amenities. But not those that made it. Those of us who had made it had sacrificed the amenities to run amok in beautiful countryside, the rolling hills and, by morning, the grazing animals. But until the morning however, there was a sky that one just couldn’t see in the big city. Not even from the stone circus' of Bath. That sky, presented in glorious high definition, belonged to the country. The rain was a bit of a bastard. But the music was fantastic. As were the people, the surroundings and the food.