a fairground life (mud, glorious mud!)

8:10 am.

I couple big Kip's Kiosk up to the jeep and take it out. The jeep just managed it in 4WD. This cleared the front off the skydiver. I want to get the ride out before 10:30 am as "r" will be leaving to go and watch the DZ at the other fair. I go to start the unit. Funny, the isolator switch is ON! Right enough I go to start the lorry and its dead. It turned out T-Tango had moved the unit while I was away last week. He forgot to isolate the batteries again! We put the charger on, but a bigger charger and 50 mins later still no go. That's when we decided to remove the new batteries from the show and used them to jump the unit, then put them back onto the show lorry again. We moved the show (6 wheel DD) behind the unit and towed it back onto the narrow path. Next I shunted the unit until I lined it up with the skydiver about 30m away. I took a charge across the sea of mud, expecting to get stuck within 5m. It kept going all the way until I had to stop before running into the skydiver! If only I had lifted the ride for coupling up before hand. I would probably have made it. Any how I had stopped, lifted the ride for coupling but the unit would not pick away again-stuck! Plan B- we attach a snatch block to the skydiver, run the wire rope out from the show winch in a V formation. Right enough the winch pulls the unit nearly under but the unit slides and we loose the line. So we have to reposition the show to correct it. Nothing for it, we have to take it right into the muddy park. It does manage to get into position. We begin to pull the unit under again, suddenly the attaching point on the skydiver chassis bends. We stop and change to another anchor point. This time success and the unit is coupled up. Before we finish with the winch we attach it to the first attaching point and use the winch to bend it back straight again. Minor welding required next week. 11:45 am "r" leaves to mind the DZ. With the unit coupled I leave it running for a while to charge the batteries, that's when I notice that the suspension is not lifting. Crawling under the ride I hear a hiss, one of the airbag pipes had bust. On closer inspection I find heat damage from when we inserted the new chassis plates. Luckily I still had spare pipe from being in the shed so it only took 10 mins to change the damaged piece.

With 80% of the fair still built up I can't find a route out so I took the Hobby caravan away first. On my return I expected to use the winch to pull out the skydiver now the ground was clearing. Not to be, in my absence "d" had decided to use the winch on the energy storm (51 ton), I knew instantly when I saw the winch rope coiled around the back doors. He had F****d it, not knowing what he was doing he had blown a seal on one of the piston caps of the hydraulic motor (hope this is all) . If only he had phoned, I could have told him how to use the thing properly, using a snatch block to increase the winch power. So now we had to do it all the old fashioned way with several lorries chained together. After about three hours the skydiver and energy storm were out. I could not turn the right way so I had to reverse the skydiver out the park and onto the road. Several others had to do the same. I was feeling tired, the heavy muddy conditions saps your strength. I take the loads back to the yard.

7pm, I arrive at the DZ and miami in time for pulling down. Only "r" and I so we do the DZ first. At 9:30 pm we leave with the DZ. I take it straight to Coatbridge to get it on site in the car park (its harder in the morning with cars in the way). At that "m" arrives with the show. I go back to get the skydiver and bring it in. It was now after 11 pm. Feeling tired I return to the yard, I will collect the miami tomorrow night after erecting the DZ in the morning.

All day the trailers,rides and lorries were towed out of the park. There was some tracking down that helped, but we really need more. The cost for what we had was £1400 for the two week fair and then there will be the reinstatement bill on top for the park.  Next year will cost more.

The video clip is from the skydiver cab leaving Alloa, look out for the Toboggan trailer no2 parked on the left in the lay by.

The photo is the Toboggan trailer no1 reversing out the park.