a fairground life(the crab fair summary)

The picture shows the "Energy Storm" ride with the stays in position just before lowereing the main boom. All the weight of the boom is resting on the hydraulic ram at this point.

Wednesday
I returned to Egremont on Wednesday night. It was late by the time I got there. "r" had opened the Dropzone since 6pm. It was very very quiet and some items on the fair never had a single customer. We all closed for 8:30pm. On the bright side we all went to the pub and watched Scotland beat the French 1-0 in Paris, YEAH!!!!.
Thursday
Printed off some paper work for a future event.Now all I had to do was find somewhere that had a fax service. Ended up in the local Library. The lady was very helpful and sent the documents for me. At that "d" and "c" picked me up with the van and we went for a run to Siloth. There is a local showman there who has a summer fair down at the water front. His customers come from all the caravan parks in the area. He was fortunate that his father was well liked in the town and as a result a local business man sold him an entire aircraft hanger! This is were he now stores all his equipment in the winter along with room to work on it and other showmens loads. The hanger must be 100 ft by 300 ft by 30ft tall at least! To say I'm jealous is an under statement, If only it were closer to Glasgow. An excellent building with a flat level concrete floor. I arrived back at Egremont in time for tea. Again business was poor and I was begining to get concerned. Another night out, but this time in the local Conservative club. A very nice establishment with a pool and snooker table.
Friday
Again not much to do so I went and investigated the High St. It was closed to traffic from 3pm til 11pm. There was a small market taking place and a stage had been erected for the "Gurning" competition etc. There did not seem to be many people about. At 6pm the fair opened, this time there were a few families about and the fairground did have a good atmosphere for a while. Buisness was nothing to write home about, but it did give me hope for Saturday. No pub tonight.
Saturday
11:50 am and "r" opens the Dz. There was a few families about and we pegged away until 5pm. It tapered off a bit now. Just aswell, I noticed black smoke from the generator exhaust and knew instantly I had to change the filters. There are two sets of filters on the set, I decided to remove the tank filter. It was thick with dirt, I didn't have a replacement for it so I just removed the element, filled the bowl with diesel and screwed the cap back on. The generator was re-started and after the next run on the DZ it was clear we would have to change the top filters too. After that it ran smoothly the rest of the night. We closed just prior to 10pm. We only half pulled down the ride as other things were in the way of lowering the tower.
Sunday
Up for 9am and fired into the Dz. We only had to wait a few minutes for a hoopla to finish off so we could get the tower swung around and packed away. "d" had a problem with the energy storm, he could not get the winch to work for lowering the cars and swinging the main boom. He had arranged for a hiab lorry to come, but then found a broken wire in the winch control panel. That was no doubt a sigh of relief for him. Just before noon I set off for Glasgow, the rain started to fall and the wind began to blow. It was not too bad for the lorry, but my wife had a couple of hairy moments with the jeep pulling our caravan. We made it back home for 4pm. So, all in all a very enjoyable weekend. The people seemed nice and every kid said please and thank you when paying for their ride. If only everywhere was as polite as the Egremont clientel.