What a life it would be, if you could come to mine for T...

Zanna drove. She's better at that than she is at drinking.

The day began sodding early. I'd planned to head up to my sister's the night before after a couple of quick drinks at my friends' engagement party, and sure enough, after a couple of quick drinks at my friends' engagement party, my friend Jerry punched me in the plums, I had a few more drinks, and went home to bed. But that, children, is another story.

And so, the next day, I got up extremely early, and was on the 07.20 to Warwick Parkway, where my sister was due to meet me at 9.30 so we could start the [insert spurious number of your own here - we certainly didn't know] hour journey up to Kinross. She turned up at 11.30. We were off to a fairly mediocre start, but at least my balls weren't aching anymore.

And the journey...? Well, there's not a huge amount to say about most of it. We didn't take the M6 toll, we just took the M6, and England sped past - England at its best, you might say. It leathered it down with rain sporadically, and whilst spirits remained fairly high, the thought of camping in the Scottish mud was starting to weigh us down a touch.

But the sight of Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge ushered all negative thoughts away. It's a city I've always adored, and the fabulous span of the Firth of Forth always gets my pulse racing - particularly when it means that Balado and T are but an hour away.

Or so we thought.

About three miles from the front gate, we hit the traffic. By Christ, did we hit the traffic. There's always something slightly surreal about the incongruity of a country road traffic jam
- your classic M25 jam is characterised by beeping horns, shouting and furious lane changing in the desperate hope of gaining an extra couple of yards. Your country jam, however, is normally inordinately peaceful - broken only by people wandering over to the car in front for a quick chat, and, in the case of the Tennent's-soaked T-bound hoards, people nipping out to the bushes to have a piss. Bless.

We really weren't going anywhere, and a quick walk ahead revealed the blue domes of King Tut's Wah-Wah tent in the not-too-distant distance, so I suggested that I walk on, set up the tent and then come back to meet Zanna when she'd parked the car.

It was fucking miles. And it was raining. And as such, I am forever grateful to three people - the tractor driver who gave me a lift for about half a mile through what was (at that point at least) the worst of the mud, and who was the most Scottish man I've ever met (I'd tell you his name, but I couldn't understand a single word he said) and the first two people I met while I was setting up the tent, who, to cut a short story shorter, gave me tequila (I'd tell you their names, but I can't remember them. They gave me tequila.).

So eventually, the tent was up, the car was parked and I met my sister with a pint of Tennent's in each hand. At this point, we'd already missed Lily Allen, The Coral and Bloc Party on the main stage - we'd also met a bunch of strangers, got fucking muddy and drunk free tequila.

It was muddy, and it was grey. But we were drinking.

Our Festival experience was already paying off. Hell yes.