The first acts will be taking to Glastonbury’s stages as this lands in your inbox, and I’m trying to process the fact that I’m not there. For the past decade, I’ve been to every festival that’s taken place on Worthy Farm. The soggy, sad ones (2016), the blisteringly hot ones (2019), the absolutely shiny golden ones (2022) and the others, which merge into a haze of Solstice skies over the Vale of Avalon, the tang of a Portaloo flush (luxury, in comparison to the long drops) and feeling the baseline of dozens of different parties beneath your body if you go to bed before 4am.

I was chuffed to be asked to go this year, but it’s not a place for me to take a baby - although plenty of people do, and good on them. I’m not traditionally a fan of watching it on the telly, and my world has telescoped such that I’ve forgotten it’s happening several times over. I am hatching a plan to return next year. Part of me longs for the unique excitement of getting up and out for another day on site. Another part of me is quite content to see how the rest of the world exists as the festival rumbles on: much as it does during any other part of London summer, it transpires.

Because while Glastonbury may only take a weekend, it expands to fill the days either side. Some years I have gone down on the Wednesday and by the point I’m writing this - Friday morning - the rest of the festival can stretch out like a kind of mountain to be climbed. It’s probably my favourite place in the world, but it’s also an ordeal, a marathon, a challenge of energy and sustenance. I thought about it in labour. I have thought about it, while looking after the baby, since. They combine a similar mix of delirium, rank humanity, wonder and exhaustion.

I’ve therefore wound up with an extra week. These are the good things it has contained:...