a fairground life

The month of July has passed really quickly. After August the year will turn into the backend run. August has always been my favourite month, I don't know exactly why, maybe because the hype of the summer is over, maybe because I liked the places we travel in this month or maybe because by this time of the season we used have a couple of quid stowed. Not wanting to spoil it for myself I think I'll not ponder too deep into the reasons.

So, for the last couple of weeks "r" has had a new pal stay with him, an Australian Showman who has been touring Europe for a few months.He has spent a while on a busmans holiday staying with friends on the fairs.He is going with "r" to help him do the North run while I stay at BOA for this week. Anyway we all pulled down on Sunday night. The weather was lovely all day until about 7pm when the heavens opened. The lads were well into the skydiver by now and I was just starting the miami. I quickly got a hat and rain coat out from the Foden and carried on. It wasn't long before "r" came up and said that the EC12 wouldn't start. It had a brand new set of batteries on it, but that dead problem from WL had appeared again. I told him to put the EC10 under the ride to get it ready for the road. This was so I could take the skydiver away while "r" and the crew finished the DZ and miami. I took the skydiver away and arrived onsite a BOA around 9pm. It was 10pm when I got back to the mall. The EC12 still would not start, I bridged the batteries with a jump lead to check the isolator but it made no difference. Eventually I started the lorry by crawling underneath it and bridging the starter connections with a bolt. The engine roared to life. I was hoping the lights would come on from the alternator, but they didn't. The dash was all opened up from us checking for fuses so we took a jump lead, attached it to positive on the batteries, ran it along the cab and into the passenger window and connected it onto the largest positive bolt connection we could find on the dash console. This gave us power to run the cab electrics,lights,horn,wipers etc. So with that jury rigged we coupled it all up and set off. It was no problem all the way there and just after midnight we pulled into the fair, me in the DZ and "r" in the miami. We jumped into the jeep and arrived home for 1am. Monday at 11am we left the yard with the trailers. When we got onsite they were set and it was time to erect the skydiver and miami. We needed to get these up for teatime as "r" and "e" were heading off to The Black Isle with the DZ as soon as we were ready. The build up was fine and at 5pm both rides were setup. We went to change lorries on the DZ from the EC12 to the EC10(with generator) so "r" could get away, but the EC12 wouldn't start again. I tried to do it with the bolt underneath but all we got was a judder noise. Eventually we had to attach the EC10 on the front with a chain and blow off the air tanks with the emergency line to release the brakes. We dragged the unit off far enough to get the EC10 coupled under. I suppose we are lucky that the EC12 isn't the unit with the generator attached (there's that lucky outlook again). It was 6:30 now and "r" and "e" set off with the DZ and jeep with trailer for the Isle. At 10:30pm I got a call from "BS", he asked if I had a lorry on the A9. I thought "r" must have been stopped but he told me he was moving along fine, in fact he said tell him he's going too fast!I was also relieved to hear that the jeep was behind with the trailer too. It wasn't long after that that "r" phoned in to say they had arrived ok.

This morning I went and visited a mechanic in Stirling that my father knew. He put me onto an auto electrician that would come out to look at the EC12. (He had done this for me before in 2005 when at BOA the EC10 wouldn't start. It turned out to be a broken wire from the key barrel to a relay behind the dash. Funny enough I started the lorry by bridging the starter then too so I could make my journey). The electrician arrived and tested the batteries, no fault there. I tried the key but the dead problem was gone, now the starter just juddered. The sparky had the meter on the batteries and quickly deduced that the isolator I had fitted two years ago was faulty (same isolator and problem that we had on the Foden). He fitted a new bridge and the lorry started fine, only thing is, I cant help but think I bridged that with a jump lead??? or was that the night before but why didnt the dash lights go then? or was the lead not connected properly yesterday or is there another intermittent fault waiting to appear again??? At the moment its all working but for how long?

We open at The Black Isle and BoA tomorrow at 6pm, hope all's well.