Starting the wrg camp, and almost finished the fencing

15th & 16th August

Yesterday was rather a day of more of the same. I spent a lot of it doing yet more fencing, though much of it was redoing sections that weren't working for some reason. The marquee contractors had found that the inner line of the perimeter fence was too close to the side of the bar tent, so rather than call us to sort it, they had shoved the inner line right up against the outer, bending one of the panels at 30 degrees to do so.We had to dismantle both lines along the side of the tent and re-erect them properly.

The main activity in the afternoon was moving a whole section around the workers' campsite. Unfortunately, we'd had a break-in there the day before, and a laptop and wallet taken from a trailer tent, so we had agreed with the Council to close the footpath that runs round that side of the site, and push the fence line back into the trees alongside.

By the end of the afternoon we'd done about two thirds of the outer line, which takes longer because of the security clips that hold it together. We finished the rearrangement this morning, with some extra input from wrgies who had arrived last night.

The main other event yesterday was a visit from Graeme, Cathy and Daniel. They were on their way back from Bath where they had been visiting Cathy's brother. They could only stay for lunch, but it was great to see them, of course, and to see how much Daniel has grown in the short time since we saw him last.

This afternoon we had some odd bits and bobs of fence adjusting to do, but I've spent much of the time helping set up the wrg camp, unloading trailers, shifting stuff into the kitchen and brew hut and the like. Truth to tell, it's not been a huge effort on my part. New arrivals are coming in all the time now, so there's plenty of workers available, many of them very experienced, for whom the routine of setting up camp is almost automatic.

One of those was Elanor, who turned up after lunch; she'll be here for a week, but sleeping in the wrg accom, rather than borrowing our side berth. This means a) she can party until late without worrying about disturbing us, and b) we don't have to clear the junk off the berth.

I know Sheila has been working hard too, harder than I, probably, but doing office type stuff instead.

I'm also spared the cooking chores from here on in. Last night we had fish pie with wrg, and tonight we are heading for Wolverhampton Boat Club, 15 minutes walk up the towpath, for a barbeque. The weather has turned wet again, just at the end of the afternoon, but the club has, we are told, a decent sized club room.