a fairground life(21 and a half hours)

7am and the alarm goes off. I get up and shout "R" up. Its dry and bright so it looks like we may get a dry Saturday. I start to build the show up and "r" appears a few minutes later. At around 8am I went down to Tesco's garage and got Derv in 25lt cans to put into the lorries so that tonight after we have pulled down we can leave. At 9am I get in the jeep and head for Ingliston to mind the DZ there while "r" and the missus look after the rest of the kit at Blairgowrie. The jeep is messing about a bit and I keep it at 50 mph all the way to Edinburgh. It is bright there too and I do a little finishing off work before we open at noon. Skyliner "c" shows up to give me a hand on the DZ today (big thanks to him ) and at noon we open. The crowds are slow coming in but at 1pm we are riding full with a Q in the pen. I was worried about the 80 kva hire set not being man enough to run the DZ but it did so fine, even though its amp meters were maxing out on the big drops at over 100 amps per phase."C" looks after the DZ while I more or less take it easy. There was a lot to see and do at this gig and I watched the "Strictly" stars do a turn on the stage. The numbers were about a couple of thousand strong, they were also a nice class of people attending with their families. At 3:30pm we stopped for half an hour while they attempted to break the world record for the most people doing the air guitar. The record was set at Glastonbury so it was a tall order but they did manage to beat their sister event in London last month by 100 people with 1300 and odd people doing the head bopping, feet stomping air guitar. At 4:15pm we opened up again and rode full until we closed at 6pm. "Bjorn Again" was on stage and Abba music rang out as I left the event heading back to Blair, hopefully just in time for the gaff starting around 7pm.The rain started at Edinburgh and continued all the way to Perth , then it stopped. I was hopeful it would stay dry at Blair. At 7:15pm we pulled into the town. I could see all the crew had arrived and were at their posts. I went onto the skydiver and the missus moved over to help "r" on the miami. At 7:30pm the crowds started to arrive. It stayed dry until closing at 10:40pm. I had pulled the show down first and "m" took this away while Mrs showman followed with the trailer. Two hour later "r" and I left with the Skydiver and Miami. At Perth I lost all gears! The lorry was still in gear but the selector was sloppy, I realised that it was probably that bolt again that had broken two years ago and cost me a clutch. Having learned my lesson the first time I pulled into the kerb. "r" pulled in behind me. It was pitch black and I didn't have a torch but then "r" suggested the light from the Skydiver lighting set. He removed it from the case and attached it to the batteries on the lorry. The cable was just long enough to reach under and from the faint light I could see the sheared bolt laying on top of the gearbox. All we had to do now was find an 8mm bolt 50mm long with a nut. Eventually we removed one from the miami paybox chair. It was 50mm long with a nut but only 6mm in dia. It got us moving but the gear change was rough and the gear sometimes jumped out again. Around 2am we pulled into the services near Dumblane and put more Derv in the lorries. We continued on and after 3am we arrived at the next port of call and set the vehicles. Mrs showman arrived shortly after to pick us up with the car. Off we headed for home and at 4:30am I finally got into kip, 21 and a half hours after leaving it.