Working at the Festival 3

17th August

Yesterday was a fairly typical day for the fencing team, in so far as we could be said to have one.

We started by taking down some fence we put up on Saturday, and moving it up to the tracking that had since been laid behind the bar area. (Yes, John, I agree, it's a lot like the OwnerShips Show, except it goes on for longer, and you have to walk a lot further!)

Then, as we were preparing to put crowd barrier around the Arena location, a wagon bringing in some Portakabins demonstrated that we hadn't left enough room for him to swing around a tight corner by catching a panel on the corner of the cabin and towing the fence a short distance.

We nipped over there and dismantled the wreckage, and assessed how we could reconstruct the corner to leave more room.

Meanwhile, I managed to gain an advantage in the chronic struggle to get the use of the telehandler to bring the packs of crowd barrier to where we needed them. At the moment, we've only got one dedicated forks driver on site, so he's a very, very popular man,

The rest of the morning was divided between crowd barrier and fixing the fence corner. It may seem early to fence in the Arena, but it's so central to the layout, it's really handy to have it visible in the centre of the showground. It's very big this year, 100 metres by 50, as it will be the target for paratroopers from the Princess Royal's on Monday.

The afternoon was taken up with a few fiddly jobs, adjusting the fence here and there, and that will go on for today, I expect.

We had another relaxed evening. Bungle had managed to sort my chair swivel problem (he hit with a big hammer, skilfully), so we've both got recliners again – many, many thanks, Bungle, you are a star!