a fairground life

Its been a while and although I've been busy, it seemed there was not much to write about. Nor did I have much inclination either but to my defence I have felt a bit tired. So lets recap the last few of weeks. The last Saturday in November I was at Alloa for the x-mas light up. It was 6am when I left Glasgow on a foggy, icy morning (-5). Just after 7am the first rides appeared on site. As in previous years I was alone in the High St with the candy floss barrow while the fair was set up in the car park just behind Woolies. Only a couple of cars parked in the way this time and I quickly re-arranged the layout of the fair to compensate. By 10:30 am we were already to operate, but before we did it was up to Tesco's for our breakfast. This is getting to be a bit of a tradition now. We opened at noon and biz was about on par. After what seemed like a long cold stand it was 6pm and everything was packing up again. The frost and fog returned once more. The last ride to leave site was the ghost train, I had waited behind for an hour so he wasn't alone and at 8pm we were slowly driving through the thick fog Glasgow bound.

A week later and we were to attend a small west coast town for their Friday night Yuletide parade. We pulled down the Miami at the mall that morning and it took us as long to get it off its plot as we were tight for space since other attractions had come into the fair. Then I had to remove the 125A plug so I could roll up the cable as the new attractions had built over the top of it. Borrowing a dolly we pulled the miami off the plot with a chain. Just on 2pm we were heading West to the town. The Fair is set up on a long narrow street running down a STEEP slope. So steep in fact that the only large ride we could take was the Miami because we could erect this not level without it affecting the ride. So although the road was closed at 3pm, there were still cars in the way at 5pm. We managed to just get set up in time for 6pm opening. The parade went past and the fair was busy until nearly 9pm. At that we closed and dismantled. I had the miami back at the mall for midnight. It was a bit of a juggle to get it back on the plot ready for re-erecting it on Saturday morning. We didn't use the dolly this time, but managed to jack knife the ride back within 3ft of the original plot. Saturday morning and we erected the ride again for normal business. In between this I have been getting organised for the SECC. I have ordered the paint to touch up the tower, taken in the rides skirts to have minor tears repaired and run about providing management with extra documentation. A week today and the DZ should be in and setup.