Hotting up on day 9

The pace is beginning to hot up. Sheila and I had a chance to meet Karen (hi Karen) who's been doing a brilliant job of the PR for the Festival. A good example of that is a broadcast by Radio Derby, featuring Harry Arnold, the event chairman, and Jenny off Tom Tug, the boat behind us. You can hear the broadcast here; fast forward to the two hour mark. Part two is on Monday.

Karen was around to meet up with Harry and arrange a group photo. Harry is a long time waterway restorer, hire yard operator and most especially waterway photographer, trading as Waterway Images. Here's the photo he took, but note well that he retains the copyright for it, not I:

Many of the volunteers

Elsewhere, things got busier and busier, as the wrg camp gets into full swing and the opening day draws closer.

Checking kit

 As each wrg kit trailer arrives, it is entirely unloaded and the kit checked off against a list, so that any losses can be attributed to the right camp.

Wrg1/Site1 conference

Meanwhile, Al the wrg leader had a planning meeting with Moose, Site Director, well away from the hurly burly. Later in the day, these picnic tables were repainted by a Community Payback team.

Signs at work

 The vinyl for the signs is cut in the cabin I showed yesterday, but the actual assembly takes place in a corner of the wrg marquee.

Entry to the wrg compound

 And here's one they made earlier.

Forks training

Elsewhere in the wrg compound, Digger, who is a professional plant handler, did a training session on the use of the telehandler. Anyone who wants to use a piece of wrg plant, whether owned or hired in, has to have been trained and issued with a Driver Authorisation ticket.

And if this doesn't work, I'll fetch a bigger hammer...

 It's usually  the red shirts who find themselves having to redo a piece of work because Site 1's changed his mind, but this time the waterspace team caught themselves out. Repositioning some of the workers' boats meant that the landing stages were in the wrong place, and had to be extracted and reinstalled. (My thanks to Martin the American for the photo.)

For removal

Strimming continued in the car park and, later in the afternoon, this fence panel was removed to allow the forks in to start moving those heaps of hardcore. Digger got stuck in with enthusiasm, and had to be persuaded to give it up in time to take part in the Race Night. This was an event to raise money for the Inglesham Lock Appeal. We didn't make it ourselves, Race Nights not being our scene, but hopefully I'll get a report on it from others today.

Day 6 and the work goes on

Today is our Ruby Wedding Anniversary. We're not planning any wild celebrations, just a trip out to the pub tonight. We'll maybe have a fancier meal later in the year, when we're somewhere a bit better supplied with fancy restaurants than Burton (it really is a pub town still).

Meantime, all I can say is that my life divides into two parts, the first 18 years before Sheila and I were together, and the last 43, including a long engagement at Uni, when we've been inseparable. I don't know what I did in the first 18 to deserve the last 43...

;)

There are no dramas to report from yesterday, just a satisfying level of progress, so I guess I'll let the photos do the talking again:

Motorised marking

This photo is a bit blurry, as it was taken from some distance by a phone camera; my thanks to Judy Hanchet for it. It shows Chris marking out the campsite with the aid of his wife's mobility scooter. That's not a moustache, by the way, it's a pen in his mouth.

Premier skeleton

The marquees are again being supplied by what's now Northern Event Structures. They are very good, and have a fast erection team. This is the skeleton of the Premier Marquee in place. By the end of the day it was covered and floored.

A lot of stuff happened in the wrg compound, getting it ready for the weekend's incursion of the main wrg camp.

Eating marquee

 The eating marquee is nearly ready, with all the trestle tables installed and covered in poly.

Adding the fridge annex

The kitchen cabin has an annex attached to the back, to hold the fridges and freezers. It's stored in flat pack form in the Tardis; here the guys are roofing it in heavy poly canvas.

Activity outside the eating marquee

 For many years, Moose was a leading red shirt. Quite rightly, he plays down the distinction between red shirts (wrgies) and blue (Festival volunteers) but strictly speaking he's a blue shirt these days, as Site Director. Some might say,therefore, that this is a typical picture, the red shirts in the background are working, and the blue shirt disguised as a red shirt in front is having a sit down.

Sleeping marquee

I can't remember another camp (and this is our eighth) where the sleeping marquee has been ready in such good time. It's been floored and carpeted, and all it needs now is the blown hot air heater installed.

Veg team take a break

They worked through to Horninglow yesterday. Here they are taking a break, well deserved in view of their efforts.

An example of the work

The householder whose garden is behind this tree has been asking BW to trim it back for him for years. They quoted him £800 to do it; it took the veg team maybe half an hour.

This raises an interesting question. In the early spring, the heavy scrub along the embankment where the workers' boats are tied had to be cleared off before the birds started nesting. BW gave IWA £600 towards the cost, and IWA then hired contractors at a cost of £1600 to do the work.

Wrg has a skilled forestry team, for whom this would have been a couple of weekends' work. Why weren't they used? That way, IWA could have kept the £600. I'll try and find out the answer (there may well be one, I just don't know it).

Horninglow basin

 This is where the Friday night Illuminated Parade will turn round, and good luck to 'em, say I. I could just about wind Sanity here, (she is 60'), but I wouldn't like to try the same with Sanity Again at 70.

Granny Buttons

This is the boat which has starred in so many blog posts by Andrew Denny. That space alongside is technically the winding hole and access to the service block. What you can't see is the bridge hole behind the camera that makes it amazingly difficult to swing into or out of the slot.

That's it for today; more tomorrow when I sober up ;).

First Tuesday

Those three week workers (BODS in the jargon; it stands for Build Operate Dismantle) with boats had been told that the swing bridge guarding access to the lake moorings would be open between 8 and 9 in the morning yesterday, and then again between 5 and 6. The big question was which slot to choose. The Waterspace team has installed short finger pontoons, with space for four, five or six boats between them as the bank edge dictates.

Moose as Safety Officer testing a finger pontoon

First thing, I went and spoke to Mike Moorse who was organising the whole thing, and found out that we were in the middle of a trot of five. This implied that we would be better to go in later rather than earlier, but on the way back to the boat, I saw Wandering Whimbrel, the boat we would be tied next to, heading in, so we decided to follow.

This would have been fine, but by the time we got into the lake, things had been changed from the rejig of the rejigged plan, as some boats had proved to deep for their allocated spot. Having come in beside Wandering Whimbrel as instructed, I had to pull out again and reverse into a different spot. Now we were against a short boat with a cruiser stern, and physically couldn’t leave Sanity Again. This was sorted temporarily, and during the day, the Waterspace team built a new pontoon between us and our neighbour, Amy Em.

This will be extended today, to give Amy Em a better exit, as one of her crew is disabled. We’ve ended up with a very nice mooring with a good pontoon, so all’s well that ends well.

Much of the rest of the day was spent putting fencing up and taking it down, as will today, I suspect. The other big task for WRG now is brushcutting around the mooring sites out on the river, and on the other side of the lake.

I must say, the fencing has been even more frustrating than usual this year. (Mind you, I say this every year.) Some of the adjustments have been as a result of conditions on the ground, but many of them could have been avoided with better planning and marking out. It sometimes feels as if the site team don’t appreciate the sheer hard work it is erecting long runs of Heras fencing.

The cabins have arrived for the WRG compound, being the one which will be the kitchen and one which will be the brew hut. Only cooks are allowed in the kitchen, except by invitation, but anyone wrgie will be able to use the brew hut. It will contain a pair of Burco boilers, toasters, washing up facilities and a supply of bread, biscuits and tea and coffee.

Positioning the kitchen cabin

Red shirt/Blue shirt liaison in progress

At the end of the day, there was a celebratory tea party for Alan and Rosemary Whiffen, two longstanding volunteers who have just celebrated their Golden Wedding. It’s typical of the Festival volunteers that such an event should not go unmarked.

Alan and Rosemary cutting the cake

Two halves of a shallop which will form part of the display on the lake.

A reproduction of Elizabethan executive transport on the Thames, this one appeared in the film version of A Man for All Seasons which starred Paul Schofield.