a fairground life (eureka)

Very rarely, I mean almost non existent, a little event comes along and surprises the hell out of you. I' ve heard tell of these one hit wonders that other people attend where cosmic forces merge and the punters flow like water. I've never been to one, that was until …

      So at 3am we climb into the dz unit and head south down the M74 all the way to the M6 and then some. It was a little after 7am when we reached our destination near Manchester. The council workers where already onsite setting up the market stalls. We pulled on to our allocated pitch, never properly measured but paced out quickly some weeks prior and then best guessed using google maps. We wasted no time getting stuck in to building up as the plot was literarily an island, a traffic island in the town centre and this meant that the tower would encroach over the road until erect. Shortly after the other equipment arrived and our small island turned into an oasis of fun in the middle of  town ocean. Oh, and it was packed tight, too tight for comfort but just enough space to get open. The pub was just behind us and we all filed in around 10am for breakfast. Soon after this I  noticed an oil drip at the rear of the lorry and on inspection found that the rear oil seal on the backend had went. The oil was all over the rear end and propshaft. So I decided to dip it to see how much we had. After breaking two sockets, running away to a tool suppliers (twice) I finally had the plug out and 4lts of HP90 gear oil put in. This had taken until around 4pm to complete and though the fair had been open from 2pm it was quiet, very quiet and it looked like we were going to make a loss. The town was open on this ordinary Saturday but the punters were shopping, not riding on rides. So I got some kip in the sleeper until a little after 5pm. I let R have a break before 6pm and just when we were thinking of calling it a day, the heavens opened and it rained customers as hard as it could until 11:15pm. Every street was jam packed with people coming out for the town festival. Woop, woop, woop, Blakey had alway had faith in this event, it seemed too far, too risky to me, but he had persuaded me to come and it was a eureka moment. Our little oasis was engulfed and the rides were packed. It was just around 12:30am when we were pulling out of the town. The tight space had hindered our pull down. The final hurdle was the two hundred and fifty miles home. I was relieved that I had got oil in the back end. The night life was livening up and we left not a moment too soon as the night clubbers started to appear. The trip home was uneventful (thankfully) and as we approached the 24hrs mark I was getting noddy. At about 20 miles to go I poured a bottle of water over my head to keep me awake and soon after we arrived at destination home. Tired,aching and wet, but most of all........rewarded.