a fairground life

Things have been slightly busy around here the last week or so, in fact I had to read the blog to see where I had left off last time.

While the DZ sat in the park at Dunbarton awaiting the pipe bands event, "r" and I organised the skydiver for Cupar Agricultural show. We headed up there on a gloriously hot Friday afternoon, "r" in the EC10 and me following with the L200 and Hobby caravan. I was only about 10 mins behind him, but we took different routes, him right into the town centre via the A914 and me through Freuchie on the A91. This meant I arrived before him. I called to see where he was and he had missed the turn onto the A913 leading to the farmers field. So I waited patiently while he turned around and made his way back. He made his turn in Wiseman's Dairies and about 5mins later arrived at the field. It was a good job I stood at the road side cos he said he would have missed that too. Any way crossing the baked soil we go on site, the ground had a slight slope but we got set on the plot no problems. I positioned the Hobby caravan and we set to building up. It took us about 5 hours, stopping for some lunch (beef burgers), a blether to the organiser, a drink of juice etc etc. Well it was sweltering heat. The miami arrived of JW's and it got stuck! It must be those wee wheels it has. After a couple of shunts he finally got set too.Around 7pm "r" headed off back to Glasgow as he was doing the Dunbarton gig in the morning with the DZ. Mrs Showmen arrived soon after and being the social person she is, it wasn't long before we were in company drinking a few glasses of adult refreshments. One thing about being in a field, when it's dark it's dark and with no electricity the party was over around 11pm, heading back to the Hobby it was supper time (beefburgers). The next day we opened at 11am (after more beefburgers for breaky) in even more blistering sunshine, the event was well set out over two fields with a third one for car parking. At 3pm the crew arrived ready for the pull down. The day went off without a hitch and we had a good pulldown, the only thing was that whilst picking up the packing around the ride I noticed something unusual. There hanging by two hoses was a brake chamber, the case had rotted around the mounting bolts and the pressure of braking had finished it off. Saturday evening in a field didn't appeal to me so I tied it up with a bit of rope and set sail homeward bound.On the way down, I called "r" and he was also heading for the yard. He had gotten away from Dunbarton fine and one of his pals was driving his pick up for him. The next morning in the yard we had a look at the axle. It was the rear of two axles and the other chamber was on its last legs too. It must be the spray from the axle in front that has done the damage as the front two chambers were fine. So we stripped them off in preparation for fitting new parts in the morning. While doing this we decided to fit two new shockers too. The next morning I picked up the two chambers and searched through the warehouse to find a couple of shockers to fit. However it turned out that the new chambers were metric and I had to get parts to convert them to imperial. Then the shockers were too short and I searched the warehouse again to find another pair that were 75mm longer. After 4 trips (8 if you count returns) back and forward to the supplier I finally got all the parts needed. After a few hours the job was done, two new chambers and a pair of shock absorbers, won't VOSA be pleased!

This morning we headed off to Drymen to build up the skydiver, totally opposite of last year the ground was firm and we drove right on.There was a faint smell of ferodo so the brakes must be working well. We erected the ride ASAP as we wanted to get the floors painted. So 10 ltrs of aluminium paint later (and 50 litres of sweat) the job was a goodun!

I hope the weather lasts until we get back out of the field.

the pict is a small selection of the vintage tractor display at Cupar Show.