a fairground life (border heat)

Tuesday morning 5:15am and we're up. Melrose is only a few miles away but it is tight and we want to get in before the town springs to life. Also "r" wants to get built up so he can spend a couple of days at Newcastle town moor Fair. The DZ lorry starts!! surprise surprise, but I think I better still take a look at it. By 11am we were all in and setup. "r" waited for his chums to arrive and then he was away for a couple of days.

Wednesday I never did anything, me and the missus had a lovely meal at the local Italian restaurant.

Thursday we opened at 7pm and the small fair was quite busy, in fact it was good to see as many families down enjoying themselves.

Friday was very quiet, such a disappointment after the Thursday being good, but the hot weather was still with us. "r" had came back that morning but was off to Glasgow again to a party.

Saturday afternoon was hot and a few punters did come over, it was quiet for 7pm and we closed just after 9pm. We pulled the tower down but left the miami for the next morning.

Sunday morning we pulled the miami down, then washed the Foden, trailer, DZ and "r"s pick up. All we had to do now was wait for the England Germany kick off.

Monday at 7am we get up and take the machines over to Gala, its our shortest journey of the year. Three miles later and the two rides are in. Since the fair is not set we return to Melrose and go to bed again until 10:30am then return and set them. We build up the tower and then go back and pick up the trailers and bring them in too. After 4pm we build up the miami.

Tuesday "r" decides to fit a new light controller to the tower as the old one is getting jittery. So up he goes to do that, then he replaces about 100 bulbs. It was a very hot day and working takes extra effort. Whiles he's up the pole I clean around the base of the ride.

Wednesday is another lazy day, spent a little time up the town in the afternoon. That night there is a party on the fair for a 30th. It goes the whole 9 yards with a stripper on the Dodgem for the birthday boy followed by a sing a long and good old booze up at the rear of the trailers. "r" and crew had set up a small carport as a tent, sodium lighting and music. This included the power amps and guitars from last year too. The Police stop in to see what's happening around 9pm and then again at 11pm. At that the guitars are packed away. The party fizzles out about 1am.

Thursday evening and the weather is fine. Although biz is down again year on year there is still a decent turnout at the fair.

Friday is slower though, everything is working fine so no excitement. Some locals hassling each other, drinking too much.

Saturday was dry apart from a slight spit of rain exactly on 1pm. However this dried up almost as it started. Again the plague of youth drinking applies its influence on the fair. There are several fights during the day and the Police cart off at least one youth in handcuffs. They are followed by a crowd of youths (mainly girls) shouting vulgarities at the officers. We closed at 10pm at the rear of the fair although the front was still open. I started to pull down the DZ and thats when it all kicked off. Bottles were thrown and rained down on the rides, at first I though someone had dropped a light fitting pulling down. There was a good 50-60 youths all congregated at the front of the fair now. By the time I got around there a good number of the showmen had all arrived too. We split the crowd and tried to walk them off the fair.

Eventually it all went pear shaped and a few got put down.The empty bottles were a concern and we picked up all we could see to dispose of them. The girls were trying to kick it all off again by screaming and ranting in our faces. The police arrived soon after but didn't really force the crowd to split up or leave. We let then contain it while the fair pulled down.All done for 1am I went in and watched the repeat of the argentina germany game.Kip for 2:30am

Sunday late morning we set off with the Miami and DZ (started again ok). All was fine until we got onto the bypass where I spotted the miami pulled over onto the Hard shoulder. There had been a bang and all air pressure was lost. We raised the cab (in a rain storm that soaked me through) and I quickly spotted the problem. A plastic pipe had failed near to the exhaust manifold (a common heat problem on Fodens that I will remedy by making an alloy heat shield for). I did have a push fit connection and put it on. About 1 mile later it was off again. This time I taped over it to try and keep it on. 1mile later it was off again. This time I noticed that the pipe had been repaired before a further 6 inches along the pipe. The heat was tremendous as I worked half under the cab. I cut out the 6 inches and moved the old pushfit along. This did hold and got us in the rest of the journey. Back to Gala now for the trailers an hour late. It was just after 7pm by the time we retuned with these. Now "r" and I headed off to sunny Burntisland to pulldown the skydiver and bring it in too. At 9:15pm we arrived there.At least the rain had stopped but the wind was still gusting. At 12pm we were heading out the town, skydiver infront and me following. At 12:15pm we were stuck at the top of the "Bing" (steep hill with a bad corner leaving BI) on the corner. The lorry had went to full revs! We stopped the engine and started it again but it kept screaming away to full revs. Fearing for a piston or con rod going I changed places with "r" and rolled the lorry around the corner onto the straight. We tilted the cab and using an iPhone as a torch we spotted the return spring on the fuel pump was missing. After a few minutes we had rigged a repair using a bungee out of the cab. So off we set again and arrived at destination for 1:30am. Kip for 2am, another long day over.