I don't know how many camper vans there are in the UK, but all of them were at Glastonbury. I know, because it took me days to track down the last available one to rent. It was located in Market Harborough, over 150 miles from Glastonbury, but that didn't seem much of a problem to a traveller like me. I cleverly plotted a route that would avoid the main traffic flows towards the festival.

It worked too, apart from one thing: the A303 goes past a place called "Stonehenge" and it was two days before the Summer Solstice. The police had closed off lanes to protect the anticipated stream of hippy pedestrians making their way to the site on foot. There weren't any, but the road restriction cost me an hour.

For the previous fortnight, I'd been struggling with the Glastonbury ticketing company SeeTickets because they hadn't sent me my camper van ticket with my festival ticket. Then they didn't send it twice more. Finally, on the day before I departed, I was promised that I could pick up the ticket at the collection point, mainly used for overseas customers whose tickets hadn't been mailed.

Predictably, based on my experience of SeeTickets continual incompetence, there was no ticket waiting for me. Fortunately, the desk was manned by the one individual in the entire company who could do her job. It took an hour, but she managed to get senior manager approval for me to get in to the camper van park without a ticket. Danielle, I love you!

But actually, it proved to be laughably easy to blag your way into the camper van park without a ticket anyway. That's my tip for you next year: turn up with a personal festival ticket and a camper van and they will let you in.

With all of the delays, it was after nine by the time the Stewards stewarded me to my parking spot, but that was still plenty of time to take a walk into the festival site and look around – a bit. The site is so huge and confusing, it takes a while to get your bearings. Little did I know that it would be the last time I walked into the main site in the dry.

Next morning, Thursday, started wet and stormy. My neighbours' gazebo blew away. But I was warm and dry in my camper, and appreciating the luxuries like an indoor toilet and the kettle. The rain stopped by 3 p.m. anyway, which was my cue to return to the main site. It was about a twenty-minute walk from my van to the main area. Although the festival didn't officially start until the Friday, the "Left Field" tent was already in operation, with our local chum Dan Donnelly playing a set, followed by London Paddies 'Neck' doing punk-folk and folk-punk.

I wandered around for over seven hours, finding all of the important sites for the next few days. "The Park", "The Glade", "Trash City" etc. But I was tired by then and went home to my warm bed. Before drifting off to sleep, I marked up the programme with the performances I particularly wanted to see. Ideally. There were some clashes, and there were some a bit early in the morning for me.

That was the end of any semblance of dry weather. On the Friday, I got rained on very hard while walking to the Pyramid stage to see Amy Winehouse. Amy was already tipsy in the mid-afternoon, and continued to drink from a tall glass throughout the set. But her singing was fine, and at the end she introduced the band and remembered all their names. Then the Magic Numbers played, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed them. About their only weakness is that they try to do some rockier songs, and just don't cut it.

After that, it was Bloc Party, and I got very bored. I'd been looking forward to hearing them, but all the newer material seems weak. I left them for Republic of Loose, who played a stormer of a set to a much smaller, but very select audience (mostly Irish). We all sang along to 'Comeback Girl'.

Over to Jazz World to hear Toumani Diabate from Mali, and that was fabulous too. Then to end my day, I went to see Arcade Fire. Maybe I was just tired, but I was fairly unmoved.

On Saturday, I was faced with a terrible dilemma, stay with CSS until the end of their set, or go and see some of You Say Party, We Say Die! It was hard, but I abandoned CSS. It was worth it.

Plus, there was more good stuff to follow them in the John Peel Tent. Calvin Harris, The Pigeon Detectives, and most especially Bat For Lashes. BFL is just brilliant: my real Glastonbury discovery.

To round off my evening, I got to hear some Dreadzone (I like it, but it does all sound a bit similar) and then !!! - crazy dudes. You can keep your Klaxons, this is the real crossover between rock and dance. But finally, Iggy and the Stooges. To be honest, the playing was a bit shit, but the energy and madness were great. And Iggy is an institution. Or should be in one.

On Sunday, I had to be up early to see the very wonderful Winding Stair at 13:40 in the Acoustic Tent. It was quite wet outside, but the tent floor had been spread with straw, and most people were happily sitting on it. TWS got a good audience and performed magnificently.

There wasn't much else on that I wanted to see for a couple of hours, so I wandered off to the Stone Circle area. It stayed dry. The field was also hosting Banksy's artistic project: a Stonehenge constructed from graffiti-daubed Portaloos. I went and said hello to the dragon.

Then it was time to go to the Jazz World stage to hear Taureg band Tinariwen. I'd been looking forward to it because what I'd heard of their music sounded very promising - a real fusion of Africa and Blues. Unfortunately, the actual performance bored me for some reason. Each tune sounded just like the last. After that show, there wasn't much that I'd specifically wanted to see, but I thought I'd go back to the Acoustic Tent for Moya Brennan and KT Tunstall. Moya was pretty much what you'd expect: a bit of diddly-dee and all the TV themes, but it was quite pleasant. KT Tunstall got a huge crowd (the middle-aged, middle classes, it seemed). Apart from the looping "whoo-hoo" that originally brought her to the public attention, I thought her material was quite weak. Just another singer-songwriter with a backing band.

Finally, finally for my Glastonbury, I saw The Who playing some of the old favourites. There was a huge crowd in front of the Pyramid Stage and filling the space right up the surrounding hill. The high tens of thousands, I'd guess. I do have reservations about a band that does no more than trade on their past glories though. And a sixty-year old singing "Teenage Wasteland"?

I'd still have watched their performance to the end, but I had more important things to do. A long trek right across the site to the John Peel Tent for the Gossip, and the best performance I saw of the entire festival. The tent was jam-packed with people, but I'd far rather see the band like that than on one of the larger stages.

It rained all night. All night. I'd set my alarm for six, so that I could leave early and miss the departing crowds. But I actually couldn't sleep at all: the adrenalin, the sound, the incessant rain. So I got up a bit earlier and was ready to depart at six exactly. Ha! I was so smart. I was going to be on the road and gone long before everyone else. At about 06:03, after a hundred metres, my camper van was immobilised in the mud.

I wasn't the only one. I went out (into the heavy rain and mud) and found some of the festival stewards. They told me that tractors were due to arrive to shift the stuck vehicles, but not until eight o'clock. There was nothing to do but wait. Of course, more and more people were waking up, starting their engines, and getting bogged down immediately. Some people were able to escape: those lucky enough to have four-wheel-drive vehicles to tow their caravans; and the people with the old, classic VW campers (which were light enough to skate over the mud). The modern camper vans and caravans towed by ordinary cars weren't going anywhere.