Download Festival 2014 in Diary

Done and survived! It was ok, I definitely wouldn't have paid for a ticket, the line-up wasn't all that exciting, but I do love the festival atmosphere and wouldn't turn down a free ticket.

My favourite of the weekend was The Offspring, but I knew that would be amazing as they did the entire Smash album to celebrate its 20th anniversary. My workmate was telling me this morning some random bloke struck up a conversation with her, saying how excited he was that they played a lot of new stuff. She pointed out that most of the stuff they played was 20 years old and his response was "Well I've never heard it before." If you were excited about hearing it, I don't know why you've never heard it before you strange man.

Linkin Park were also great, another full album played by them. This was Hybrid Theory, their first album and the only one of theirs I have, so I was singing along to them all.

We saw Royal Blood in one of the smaller tents and I was surprised to see how popular they were, people were spilling out of the tent and singing along to all the songs; they don't even have an album out yet!

Steel Panther played the main stage on Sunday and they were hilarious. If you haven't heard of them, they're basically a parody of 80s hair metal. They take the mick, but they're actually all really talented musicians. They got a load of girls up on the stage, and they were all walking about topless! In front of 80,000 people! Steel Panther made them do a catwalk display commenting "Boobies number one. Boobies number two. Boobies number three." No shame! No shame.

The last band of the festival was Aerosmith. I've never been a huge fan, but they were worth watching. And of course, the lighting was top notch ;o)

But sadly, Download 2014 will be the one I remember for having my phone stolen :o( It disappeared out of my bag on Saturday night. Jay was calling it and sending texts, politely asking for it back, with no reply. I checked lost property about 10 times but no luck. When I got back, I checked my bill online and someone had used it to make £50 worth of phone calls to Romania! I called my network provider to cancel the sim, wipe the phone to stop them accessing my stuff and put a block on the handset so they can't sell it. I also asked if I could have the phone calls refunded. At first they said no because I didn't report it within 24 hours. After I explained that I was at a festival and so had no access to a phone, because mine was stolen (!) they agreed to refund £25, which is better than nothing, but then charged me £3 for a new sim. So my bill this month is £60 instead of £20. Add to that the £75 excess I had to pay to claim for a new phone on our insurance, and the bastard who stole my phone has cost me £115 :o( It spoiled the weekend and I've been without a phone for three days now, which is very disconcerting. Some people are just totally selfish.

I have a list of the numbers that they've been ringing as they appeared on my bill. I'm debating whether or not to get the police involved or just put it behind me as a bad experience.

Thankfully when I get my replacement phone, I should be able to put all my contacts, apps etc. straight back onto it from the cloud. The only thing I'm disappointed about losing is the 1,300 photos I had on there, going back about five years.

Thankfully I've uploaded most of them onto Facebook so I should be able to download them all again. But I had some good photos from the weekend, including one of an enormous, bright orange full moon rising over the festival crowd. It looked amazing. And that is why there are no photos to accompany this entry!

Anyway, I guess it could have been worse; I could have lost my car key and been stranded. Or they could have stolen all my money and my credit card.

Jay had to call in sick to work today. He says he feels like death warmed up; I think he's too old for festivals now! Three days of drinking alcohol, eating bad food, trudging around Donington Park racetrack and listening to very loud rock music has taken its toll!

51 working days remain.