Amuse bouche...

Catherine felt sick. Her husband, Mark, was eating a burger. From a festival food van. “Oh my god, Cath,” Mark said, juices flowing down his chin. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Of course it is,” she snapped back. “You’re stoned out of your head. Did you think I hadn’t noticed? Did you have a smoke while I was changing Ferdia’s nappy?”

Catherine didn’t know what bothered her more, that her partner in veganism was eating meat, or that he was enjoying it so much. Or was it just that he was enjoying himself so much altogether.

Catherine was not having a good time. How had she thought that bringing Ferdia to the festival was a good idea? All those stupid Instagram shots of toddlers in teeny shorts and bright-coloured Hunters. All those asses who told her that festivals were so amazing for families, so cultural, so chilled.

Ferdia might be only 10 months old, but Catherine knew by now that there was very little chilled about bringing him anywhere. His needs and behaviour didn’t vary according to location: if he was down, he wanted to be up in her arms, and if he was in her arms, he wanted to be down — which was not really possible in the mud.

Also, Ferdia had a tendency to do poos that went right up his back and needed a bath nearby to sluice them away.

Luckily, Ferdia was still partly on the boob, so at least Catherine could mollify him with that. The downside of this was that she couldn’t drink.

Mark, on the other hand, had no such restrictions on his festival behaviour. He had been drinking. And appeared to have found a joint, and maybe more.

Catherine was hungry. Which explained in part her crankiness. She had always loved festivals. The music, the random wandering around bumping into people and discovering new bands. The messy eating. The messy drinking. The not knowing what would happen next. Catherine missed them. She also missed meat, she realised, as the smell of sausages and burgers on hot coals seemed to be everywhere. Catherine hadn’t previously noticed that this was the smell of a festival — beer and barbecue. Catherine had only turned vegan — with Mark apparently willingly in tow — since Ferdia was born.

She didn’t want falafel. Breast-feeding a wriggling baby in a field of mud demanded more than chickpeas.

“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Mark said, wiping ketchup off his beard. “It’s really not that different having a baby along,” Mark said.

“A cheeseburger. Now!” Catherine replied.“Non-vegan cheese!”