The real day 2

Thanks to Brian on Harnser who drew my attention to yesterday's deliberate mistake! It's this doing the blog first thing in the morning; not only am I having to remember that I'm talking about the day before, I have to have woken up enough to to cope with the time juggling. Anyway, on with the motley...

It was indeed very wet, yesterday, as forecast, and we were very glad that we could legitimately stay snug in the boat working on the newsletter while it hammered down outside. Talking to folk later in the day, I gathered that it had been too much even for the wrg team, who had postponed starting work until gone ten. (Thanks to Grumpy Nick for the info.)

Thursday's edition is now almost as far as we can get it without the last minute stuff, so yesterday's job was getting Friday's issue into shape. It may seem strange working so far ahead, but with just the two of us to do all the tasks involved in publishing a newsletter, there won't be any time to spare on the actual day of publication.

Last year, we had loads of stuff in advance, because the theme was anniversaries of various sorts, and Sheila had emailed the relevant societies and trusts and got copy out of them. The result was that we arrived at Beale Park with all the issues half made up. This year, much of the copy is going to be self generated, though folk are beginning to send in contributions, so more work is being done on site.

In the afternoon, the rain had more or less stopped, and we were able to get out on site, looking for stories, meeting up with old friends and enemies (mostly the same people) and taking photos.

Plumbing team in conference with Supplies

There are two Bradshaw golf buggy type transports about at the moment, one for the plumbers and one for the chippies. They can tow a trailer, and make so much difference to getting stuff moved around site.

Inside the Tardis

 In effect, it's a mobile quartermaster's stores. John Baylis is the QM; least likely saying "Take as many as you want, we've got plenty!"

The pasty wagon

 So called because it looks like a van that might be selling pasties. In fact, it's an ex-CEGB field vehicle, and is used by Bungle in much its old role, moving large amounts of cabling and connection boxes around for wiring up places like the admin village, the wrg compound and the workers' moorings.

Tardis compound

 The workshop of the Festival, with a fully equipped chippies shop (goes with the pasties, I guess) and storage for materiel.

Who let the dogs out?

Woof, woof! Actually, it's the water supply. With permission, we've tapped into a fire hydrant, and a network of water pipes with radiate out from here to the entire site.

Day 1, good stuff, bad stuff

As readers of my other blog will know, I don't think of Shobnall Fields as a particularly safe overnight mooring in normal circumstances, but we had hoped that the sheer numbers of us about would mean that we needn't worry too much just now. It transpired that this wasn't altogether the case, as at 2 am yesterday morning, one of the boats tied near the footbridge, Jenny Wren, got a huge lump of concrete on its roof, and another which smashed one of their windows.

The police were on the scene quite quickly, as the gang of yobbos responsible had already been attacking parked cars nearby. Jenny Wren's window frame will have to be replaced, as the bottom edge has been buckled by the force of the blow. Needless to say, she's moved to a location further away from the bridge.

The problem is that the footbridge is the walking route from a couple of shall we say down at heel estates on the park side of the canal to the city centre pubs and clubs.

Apart from this unpleasant start, it was a good day yesterday; the sun shone, the wind wasn't too bad, stuff started arriving in the right order, more or less. For example, this site has a couple of water mains and a gas main running under it, so we need to have tracking laid down over them before heavy vehicles can cross.

To everyone's relief, the tracking arrived before the Tardis.

That last sentence needs a bit of explanation to those not familiar with the IWA Festival. The hardware needed to set up and run the show is stored in a big pantechnicon, and kindly looked after for us by Andy Taylor, who runs a transport firm at Barton Turn. It's called the Tardis because you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff there is inside.

Here comes the Tardis, IWA style

First thing out once it's parked up? The step ladder to get inside.
Second thing? The gazebo that serves as the tea shelter for the workers in the Tardis compound, naturally.

The day's work had started a good bit before this, with the obligatory Health and Safety talk. It's one of the more sensible ones: don't do a job you are not sure about, remember the telehandler driver can't see you if you can't see him, a tidy site is a safe site, these are the first aiders, stuff like that. After the talk, we all signed to say we'd had it and were aware of the risk assessments, and were then issued with our "three week worker" wrist bands, which are in effect an access all areas pass.

We were also told a bit of news hot off the press. Because IWA has won the contract to manage the Olympic moorings next year, representing around six weeks work for the volunteers, there won't be a Festival in 2012. The payment for the Olympic work will replace the revenue from the Festival. There will, however, be an event in 2013. It seems to me (and note the disclaimer at the top of this blog) that this gives IWA a chance to take stock and think about the purpose of the Festival. I'll be returning to this theme as the next three weeks go on.

Dave Jones gives the H&S talk

Then the work could start in earnest:

Strimming  the bank where the workers boats will be moored

Starting fencing the show site

The start of the admin compound, and a typical denizen of it

and still the fence grew and grew...

As forecast, it's turned wet today, which is hard luck on the wrgies who will be coming this weekend to help get the majority of the fence up.