A catch up now that the show is over

23rd to 28th August

Here I am again, beginning to recover from another hard working National. I'm sorry to have gone missing for the last few days, but at least this is better than last year, when it took me until the middle of September to get going again on the blog. Admittedly, that was partly because we were slogging up the River Nene as fast as practicable in order to avoid being flood bound yet again. The event itself went reasonably well under the circumstances, which were that we had to tip a total of 80 tonnes of woodchip to make the site at least half decent for the paying public to walk around on.

We had a frantic three hours at the start of Saturday, from seven to ten, taking down the night fence, arranging the fence around the pay booths and flinging woodchip wherever it was especially wet.

The show opened just ten minutes late, which was amazing under the circumstances, but it wasn't in the completely ready state it should have been, with some of the traders still setting up, and various bits and pieces being tidied away.

I spent a chunk of the afternoon helping to collect yet more woodchip from a new source (we'd already cleaned BW's Norbury yard out of their stock). It was only a couple of miles away, but our efforts to take the plant trailer over there to get it were compromised by the fact that the wrg Pasty Wagon*, which we were using to tow it, decided to break down on the way off site.

At the end of the day, the main jobs were putting the night fence back up, and litter picking.

Sunday saw us breakfasting at 7.15, though some had already been out on site from 6.30, opening holes in the night fence for the traders to get at their stands. It proved to be an easier day all round, and our spirits were lifted by the belated issue of the show t-shirts to us (we get a new one every year, with the show logo on it as well as the words waterway recovery group).

The weather began to improve, but woodchip spreading continued through the morning. We also put down some three metre by one metre mats made from recycled tyres, which proved very effective at covering places getting a lot of wear, such as in front of popular stands.

Monday was the easiest day of the three, during the day at least, and we all had a chance to look round the show at last and buy some stuff. I got a pair of warm trousers for each of us from the Regatta stand: fleece lined combats, which have proved excellent in the evenings outside, and some second hand books from the wrg north west stall. The ground was now perceptibly drying up.

Close of show was the herald for a burst of concentrated hard work, as always, as we tore round collecting up tables and chairs and fire extinguishers and the like, before the traders made off with them. (This isn't paranoia; for some reason traders tend to regard such items as fair game.) We also had to put the night fence up, and make a start on dismantling things like the market stalls which we rent put to some traders.

Dinner was at 8.30, but we'd been kept going by a supply of home made pasties from the cooks, brought out to us in those clever bags that keep them warm.

Tuesday we collected up the folding picnic table type seating – it looks really good, and works well, and is a great replacement for the white plastic garden chairs and tables we've used up to now, but boy are they heavy. Each unit is a four person lift, ten to a stillage, and we had around 100 of them to collect together, fold up and put in their stillages.

Other tasks were collecting together and emptying 110 wheelie bins, and generally clearing rubbish away, including loads of mud soaked cardboard. In the evening we had the traditional Tuesday night party for all the volunteers left around, blue and red shirts together. It went as well as I can recall any of these going (five now, though that's nothing compared to some of the old lags around here, who have done 15 0r 20 Nationals).

Yesterday was craning day, when the land based exhibition boats get taken away. It's organised by one of the blue shirts, but wrg provides the security screen around the area of operation. This means standing around with a high vis vest and bright red hard hat on, preventing passers-by from wandering under twenty tons of boat dangling over their heads.

It can be a bit of a bore, but parts are quite interesting, especially of you are into seriously large road going cranes. In this case we had a five axle beast capable of lifting 120 tonnes, and all went quite smoothly, finishing only forty five minutes after it was scheduled to, which is probably something of a record. This time the cooks brought breakfast out to us in the form of warm bacon baguettes.

The rest of the day was mainly taken up with taking down fencing whilst the site was dismantled from around us. It's a bit tricky, co-ordinating the removal of the fence with the reduction of the area needing to be protected, and some bits had to be re-erected at the end of the day to secure tempting piles of marquee frame and the like, but again, it wasn't anything like as bad as it can be.

By the end of the day, I was seriously tired, and aware that my body was making signals about going on strike if I didn't ease up, so I knocked off a bit early and went and had a shower.

We had the final wrg meal, consisting of iffits (as in, "if it's there, we'll eat it"). There were pork chunks on kebabs, huge numbers of roast chicken legs, pizzas, salad and I am sure some other stuff but I can't remember it. (Well, I was tired.)

Today we've dedicated to sorting out the filthy tip that the interior of Sanity had become after three weeks of staggering back to it in the evening to collapse into bed, and then jumping off it in the early morning to go back on site. We've also made two trips to Morrison's to restock on perishables, so that we'll be ready to set off in the morning, exactly three weeks after we got here.

It's fish and chips with the remaining blue shirts tonight, so an easy return to self catering, goody, goody.

*It's an ex Central Networks box bodied Land Rover Defender, used to bring the wrg stock of power cables and other electrical kit to Festivals. So called because it is fitted with a microwave, which Bungle uses for heating pasties. Tells you all you need to know about the wrg attitude to life, really.