So I am now, officially, a camper. And can I just take a moment to praise the gods and the weather wizard for the glorious sunshine that Latitude Festival experienced. At first I wasn’t sure if my bronzed skin was a layer of grime or a tan, but I can now assure you that it is a tan, it is a gift from Latitude.

The festival ran from Thursday until Sunday and it’s fair to say that it was jam-packed with both events and people. It was refreshing, inspiring and overwhelming. The atmosphere was like nothing I’d ever experienced, there was a warmth and generosity, there was a desire to be absorbed in creativity and to appreciate the arts. Some days I sat watching people, I saw children engaged in poetry and theatre, I saw dancers who made me hold my breath in awe of their grace and dignity. The poetry tent was bursting at the seams, the literature tent overflowed, but for me it was theatre that captured my heart. Les Enfants Terrible in their huge gypsy caravan poured out their wonderfully bizarre twisted tale and The National Youth Theatre offered a brave, dark and ambitious performance of Red Riding Hood. They had us walking around the forest and interacting with the characters.

The talent that we have in this country is outstanding. I feel privileged to have been a tiny part of this festival.

My event was on the first night, I was part of Emma B’s Table Talks. The topic was ’This house believes the book is dead’ and the debate was offered to a full tent. It was fun, it was lively and I laughed throughout. Someone suggested ’99 Reasons Why’ wasn’t a book. I loved every minute of the event and if you get a chance to see another of Emma B’s Table Talks, then do pop along.

I barely saw my middle child all festival, I think he managed to see nineteen comedians and his admiration of Daniel Kitson has reached new heights. Eldest child was all about the music, cramming in as many bands as he could and dragging me along to educate me in music that I knew little about. Littlest child spent a lot of time doing creative activities, from making a clay forest elf, to telling a filmmaker all about her dream when her family turned into pieces of fruit, to making a ringtone for a mobile phone.

And, did I mention that we CAMPED? Well… camping at Latitude starts with the letter ‘Q’, for ‘queue’…

The first queue (and an unexpected one at that) was a queue for the only mallet in the whole of the performers’ campsite. Yes, I’d missed it off my must-have purchases. The floor was incredibly hard, one man and his trusty mallet came to the rescue and the performers bonded over the first obstacle. The mallet man ensured that we had somewhere to sleep and I didn’t throw an epic tantrum.

Because, in an amazing moment of joyous luck, I had been offered a POD tent to use for Latitude. It’s a revolutionary tent designed by M2C Innovation. Perfect for a growing family, each person can also have their own internal sleeping POD within the tent. And POD is a social camping concept that enables tents to be interlinked in order to build a community. There are interconnection tunnels, to join POD tents together. The main POD sleeps 12, without internal compartments, and 8 with them. The tent is palatial, I could stand up and jump and still not touch the ceiling. I honestly think this is a genius camping solution. It is a brand new tent, so had never been seen at festivals before.

The height of the POD tent means that it was easily spotted by Littlest amongst the cluster of other tents. The POD is easy to transport and ridiculously simple to put up (took us about 15 minutes!). During the festival I spent so much time welcoming other campers into the POD, so that they could have a look around it. Campers were genuinely excited. A big thank you to Jason at One Stop Festival for letting us use a POD for Latitude and for not telling me that he’d designed it until after I’d given him my glowing feedback.

So, I thought I was being clever creating a checklist for everything I needed to take camping. And not one of you experts told me I was being RIDICULOUS! Because, being a novice, I hadn’t considered that most advice I’d seen was for single people going camping. And soon I realised that I’d not considered my car boot size and the fact that 5 people’s luggage had to fit in. FAIL. On Wednesday evening I was faced with a need to downsize, so only essentials came with me. For a moment we thought we’d have to make a choice between the alcohol and one of our children. The only real dilemma would have been which child.

So, seeing that I’m no longer a festival virgin, here are my top inclusions and festival tips:

• I have fallen in love with my Evercreatures wellies. Littlest has the red polka dot ones. They are delicious. The gnomes on them danced around the forests with me. Littlest wore her wellies at night with a bunny rabbit onsie. I wore flip-flops a lot, but wellies were perfect for forest adventures. I liked that they were different and didn’t spot another person in the same wellies.
• Waterless shampoo. No Rinse Shampoo is my new friend. It is a genius invention when avoiding VERY long shower queues.
• Wet wipes are amazing. The dirt on them after use is alarming.
• Hot Can food was a hit with the teen. They filled him up and amused him.
• These Highlander folding chairs were perfect for sitting around the tent. I cooked pasta twice, on a little stove, whilst sitting down and amazed my children with my culinary skills (I never cook at home!). I found that the chairs were good to take to some of the theatre events but not for the music events (dancing with a folding chair on your back is not cool).
• My inflatable pillow had deflated before night one but the amazing Highlander Sleephaven Sleeping Bag kept us all warm. Littlest would happily sleep in her sleeping bag now, instead of her duvet. They were a great choice, worth that little bit extra instead of cheap brands out there.
• This lantern was ace, it even had a compass on the top.
• Throwaway cups and plates were a genius idea, as there was no washing up.
• I had to leave the festival trolley at home, as couldn’t fit everything in the car. Five of us managed easily without it.
• Ear plugs are a MUST. Especially when the person in the next tent is trying to chat up a man (badly and loudly and hilariously) at 4 a.m. At one point she claimed she wanted something ‘hard to lie on’. That said, I clearly didn’t use them, as I was listening and desperate to write down the conversation for future literary use. My children slept through it, so we were up nice and early and, at 9 a.m, my wireless speakers from BassBuds brought me much joy. I am sure they helped my neighbour’s hangover too.
  
• Wee bags. Oh yes the TravelJohn portable urinals and a Shewee. The Shewee had me in fits of laughter (especially after vodka) and at one stage the TravelJohn was used purely to see how it turned into a gel and to avoid the long toilet queue. I can see how useful these items would be in the rain. Thankfully (I, again, can’t thanks the gods and weather wizard enough!) we had glorious sunshine.
• Highlighter pens for marking which events to see in the guide were a must. Getting the programme (I’m mentioned on page 40!) and seeing how much there was to experience was overwhelming. Highlighters to the rescue. Although one of the great joys was stumbling on unknown and unexpected events.
• Relax Mats are amazing and perfect for carrying around the festival. Easy to use and lightweight. I am so glad we had these, as they were perfect whilst waiting for bands to perform.
• Can you believe I didn’t use any of my millions of toilet rolls? The performers’ toilets were well-stocked. AND I found a toilet with a flush and a sink. I WIN at camping.
• And a phone charger was one of the best item I took. That makes me a little bit shallow. I managed to charge my phone three times and eldest child’s phone twice, so the BlackRock Juicepack 8000 meant I could take a million photos on my phone and eldest could text all his friends updates and photos. The festival was charging £6 for one recharge, so this charger was an ace purchase.

And (now, this will shock some of you) I’m already looking to see which festival we can try next. Am I a convert to camping? Possibly not quite. But I think that festivals are all kinds of wonderful.