a fairground life (hard times a coming)

A month since I last posted! To be honest that is bad.

Stranraer.

I left Egremont shortly after 6am. It had been a good fair for us this year being slightly better than the year before and in this financial climate that was no small feat. Now it was time to head for Stranraer 150 plus miles away. It was a good journey, nothing to speak of except some heavy patches of fog between Dumfries and Newton Stewart. That said I arrived on site just before 10 am. "r" had left Glasgow with the miami around 7am and had arrived here about 20 minutes before me. We set the Hobby caravan first, all the trailers were in a new position, in the long stay carpark as the pier was to be clear this year. It did make the fair look tidier and it was a bit more sheltered from the coastal wind. Only draw back was that to get out meant getting your neighbours to move for you. The miami was set on its plot, then the DZ. It was the latters first time here and stood directly in front of the miami. Handy for minding and running the mains to the same generator. The plot was occupied by the other DZ that had been in Scotland before being sold off to the East. For 2 pm both rides were ready for opening. We returned to Glasgow for a few days and moved into the house!!!

The first weekend opened at Stranraer was poor, numbers were down and that set the trend for the duration. There were a couple of other new comers this year, the large funhouse of "ep" and the matterhorn of "rj" stood pole to pole at the end of the fair. Thursday saw the generator of the funhouse go down and he had to close early. The Friday night saw the generator of the matterhorn go down about 8pm. I offered him the use of the DZ generator. He went down to fetch it from the carpark, but someone had parked their car in the gap that we had been using as a gate. The police would not move it as they said it was not parked illegally so "rj" lost the final 2 hours of business. On the bright side we found the problem on his generator later that night. It was only a broken wire from the alternator.

The second week the weather hammered rain every night. I could not get out to do any work but I did make an attempt to go to the library and get some internet access. Unfortunately my previuos years account had been cleared from the system and I had no ID wih me to open another. So that was the end of that.The heavy rain and salt air started to affect the lighting on the tower as it began to trip off, by Friday all the electrics were so wet that I could not even get the ride to work. After 3 hours probing, jiggling and cleaning connections, "r" and I gave up, the ride had lost Friday nights earnings altogether. Just before 10pm the rain stopped. I tried the ride and it worked??? What can I say, this is the most temperamental thing I've ever had. As they say, the more complicated the plumbing the easier to stop up the works. Any way it did work for the following week, but it rained every night and the fair stayed closed Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday give us wind, very strong wind, in fact it was the first time that I saw the tower moving. About 50mm at the top, that was it, at 8:50 pm I closed it. Most others started to close early too and the dodgem tilt had to be reefed. Friday was wet again but it didn't make any difference as the Banks going belly up finished any chance of the punters returning for the last weekend anyway. Saturday was dry and biz was poor. This was a good fair for the showmen, but it just goes to show that a good fair can fall away to nothing in a very short time. Three weeks business with two rides and I never covered the expenses, never mind about eating!! Everyone was in a similar state of affairs.

Saturday night "r" and I pulled down both rides. We were slightly delayed as the fair is so narrow that we had to wait 45mins on other items clearing out of our way. We set off for Glasgow and arrived there at 3 am. We were to open the two rides next day at noon. Off home to bed.

The next morning we started to erect the rides again. I notices a small pool of oil from were the Foden had been siting over night. I mentioned it to "r". A while later he told me he had found the cause. It wasn't from the engine or gearbox (the most likely culprits) it was from the rear axle off side hub! The oil seal had blown and all around the back of the hub is covered in backend oil. So that will be a job for this week. No doubt I will need a set of brake shoes aswell. However I have seen showmen burning oil off shoes with oxygen & gas torches. I'll make my mind up when I get them out. A nip in the air this week, time to check the anti freeze too.

the photo is of the matterhorn, it looks better than it did in the shed during the winter.