Day 17, almost over

It always feels very strange, how quickly an event that's been the focus of everyone's efforts for so long is so soon done with. It's even more so this year, of course, as the show was a half day shorter. This is my penultimate post here; tomorrow's will be the last.

Good stuff about this year:

• The site was an easy one to work, being flat and of a regular shape.
• The weather was great, though it made things hard for the wrgies slogging in the sun
• For the third year running, no child was lost for long enough to require a sweep of the site to find it.
• Lots of people came; we're waiting to hear the final figures

and for us personally:

• We won the Calor Rose Bowl for the best galley on a private boat in the show.

Amazing; we've never won anything like that before – thank you Braidbar! The prize included a compact gas barbecue, which we're currently scratching our heads over, not having a lot of space on a liveaboard for such items.

Less good:

• That car park, of course. Saturday's gate was probably reduced by the need to turn cars away from the free parking, though on Sunday another car park was identified, and things were easier.
• There was a degree of confusion over timings for things like the Opening Ceremony and the finish yesterday. I've no idea what went wrong there; usually the team gets that exactly right.

Some final pictures:

Guy the Arena manager getting out of a classic dray

The Park and Ride shuttle from Burton Town Centre

A weary wrgie

The car park in use

Remains of the heap

So, nearly over. I plan to help the fencing team today, then there's the end of the event party tonight.

Day 16 and lots of visitors

There was a lot of sun too, enough to become uncomfortable by mid afternoon. It made it very tough for wrg, slogging in the sun, especially in the car park. The main car park was full by 11, and all of them by lunchtime. Cars had to be advised to park in the Town Hall car park and use the shuttle bus.

Despite this, I understand that there was a good gate, and there were certainly a lot of folk around everytime we went on site.

The last offical issue of the Shoveler was printed and published; just the unofficial spoof issue to go. This is the one that allows the newsletter team to have some fun at the expense of their co-workers and (possibly former) friends. It's only given to the three week workers and the wrgies, needless to say.

Just a few photos today:

Climbing Everest

 Staffs Fire and Rescue did a sponsored Everest climb up a ladder and down a pole for their own charity and local charities. 20 guys went up and down to climb a total of 8848 metres, the height of Everest.

Smallest entry

 This amazing scale model of an FMC josher has been going up and down the cut. It has an MP3 player inside producing the sound of a Bolinder, and is controlled by its constructor being towed behind it in a canoe. The power source is an electric engine of the type used in mobility scooters.

Speechifying

This is the pic that broke my resolve yesterday when Blogger was playing up; it shows the opening speeches on Friday lunchtime.

We're nearly there; see you tomorrow.

Day 14 and the pace hots up.

The traders poured onto site all day yesterday, and we stayed well out of the way of the throng. Much of the morning was spent tidying up the Friday edition, and when we did go on site,we spent a bit of time talking to Festivals Chairman Ian West, who has oversight of what we do.

It's a situation which could become quite fraught – what journalist ever appreciated proprietorial input? – but Ian's tact and diplomacy makes it much less irritating than it might be.

The Lavender Boat began its service, collecting rubbish and, err, stuff from the moored boats:

Here it comes

It takes the form of a push towed pan and tug on loan from BW.

The Bantam tug

Hurricane Bob Metcalfe is in there somewhere, cursing the wheel steering, so much less direct than the tiller on his boat Glenfield.

Happy in her work

 Elaine Scott has been doing this job for 20 years. There's no accounting for taste (sorry).

Elsewhere on site, lunches were made and the Advance Ticket office personned:

Ladies who make lunch

 A team of blue shirt ladies come into the wrg compound every day to make the sandwich lunches for the wrgies and any blue shirt who chooses to buy it.

Waiting for trade

Edwina told us it was very quiet, but she was selling the occasional advance ticket.

We went and had a last look at the car park. Wrg have achieved a quite amazing amount, but I'm afraid it won't look very impressive to fresh eyes, and I suspect the car park team will have to take some heavy abuse from drivers worried about their undersides:

Remains of the first heap

Second heap untouched

Still slogging on

Pedestrian exit

Driver's eye view of the entrance.

 With the show due to open at lunchtime today, a last big effort is to be made. A heavy roller will spend the morning consolidating the spread hard core, and it may be possible to clean up the entrance area.

A reminder again that this is a personal blog, not an official IWA one, which allows me to express my own opinions. Frankly, this situation could be seen emerging for six months, and Festivals Team has, or should have, some hard questions to answer about how matters were allowed to get to this pitch.

Over the years, wrg has pulled the Festival out of some pretty deep holes, but this one was just too much even for them. Instead of relying on local Council reassurances, Festivals should have either:

• Identified a proper parking site for themselves
• or, if this location had to be used, diverted a wrg camp to it to prepare it
• or, if all else failed, hired in a contractor to prepare it.

Rant over, back to the good stuff:

Help!

Sharks were seen lurking at the stern of the LNBP boat.

Former FMC steamer President and butty Kildare arrived:

Threading her way through

Skilfull steering

They brought the pair through with barely a touch to any of the moored boats. A bit later, the converted to steam BCNS ice breaker Laplander showed up:

Sean Neill's pride and joy

Her tall funnel makes for interesting boating:

Too tall to pass?

Which is why it hinges:

Neat, huh?

That's it for today – I've got to go and take photos of the VIP guests being loaded onto a brewery dray at the Town Hall.

Day 12: Craning day

Yesterday was craning day, when the show boats are lifted into the water, and in some cases out of it. Meanwhile, on the field, things got busier and busier. As a result, I've got lots of photos, out of the 171 Sheila and I took between us.

There was a fair amount of boat shuffling going on, and Bungle volunteered to move one of the workers' boats to its proper location. This involved a long reverse, and of course, since there was an audience, it didn't go all that well...

Big prop, shallow water, never a good combo

 Approaching boats had to be warned about the organised (?) chaos ahead:

After you

 which task was undertaken by those most useful of persons, the Americans:

Ready for action

The actual craning was from a corner of the car park next to the canal, and made for some interesting sights:

Up she comes

Round she goes

and down she goes

Mind the edge!

Touching the water

and afloat

After putting one in, one needed to come out, to form part of the land based boats:

Slinging

Positioning the slings is always trickier when the boat is floating:

Wrong!

If you don't get it right, the boat doesn't sit level and risks slipping out when in mid air. This is not a good idea.

Right

 After several trial lifts and some testy exchanges, they got it right at last, and away it went:

Swinging along.

Meanwhile, Bungle's reversing had gone much better once out of sight of the crowds, and he celebrated with an ice lolly:

Happy, happy Bungle

Just to finish with the craning, later in the day, one of the other exhibition boats was being moved under its own power, when the need to hold back led to a complete loss of drive. Investigation showed that all was well with the engine and drive train, but opening the weed hatch found the problem.

The prop had fallen off.

Not a good day for Aintree Boats, who seemingly don't know what a split pin is for.

Wrg came to the rescue, and Gary and Lucas turned out to do things the trad way:

What's Gary doing, children?

 (apart from scaring you senseless, that is)

He's towing a boat!

Though not all by himself:

On its way.

On the main field, matters carried on, with some selected traders arriving early, because their displays need tricky manoeuvring:

Multicell coming in

 In the Bar Tent, the team was setting up:

Assembling the bar

Ready for action.

Perhaps inspired by this, Site 2 was seen practising his imitation of the famous moment in Only Fools and Horses when Del Boy falls backwards through the bar:

David Jason he's not, but it's a good try.

and finally, I can't go without mentioning the car park:

All hands...

It looks like one of the piles will be cleared, but I have my doubts about the other one.

Today, we print the first issue of the newsletter, The Shobnall Shoveler.

Day 11, progress and brewing

I've just posted a short piece on Living in Sanity Again about problems with a particular boat builder. Those thinking of commissioning a new boat should have a look at it as a warning of the need to choose a reputable company.

Meanwhile, the work went on on the site and in the car park:

Bees as well as wasps

 In addition to the wasps nest, a bee hive was found. Both have been dealt with, though the bees didn't need much intervention as I understand it.

Almost done

The grassy area is pretty well sorted, although some tidying of the edges is still needed:

Cleaning up the edge.

Meanwhile, work continues on the mini Alps:

Increasing area of flat stuff

 but there's quite a bit to do:

Untouched heap

They're working at it non-stop, using all the skilled telehandler drivers available, including our resident professional, Site 3, aka Mike Sumner. The Merlo suffered a puncture at one stage, but was soon repaired and back in action.

In the evening, 20 of us went on a complimentary brewery tour at Marston's. Fascinating; I've seen round this brewery before, but each tour adds a bit of new info.

Original grist mill

 We started in the original, Grade II listed building, looking at things that were still in use 6 years ago. Brewing is a very traditional business.

Hearing about the old mash tun

The liquid produced by mashing the ground malt or grist is passed into a copper for hopping and boiling. It's called a copper because...

Peering into the copper

...it's made of copper. Here's what the modern one looks like:

Stainless steel copper

Though even these are over thirty years old. Marston's still uses the Burton Union system of brewing for Pedigree Bitter and for the Bass they brew under licence from InBev. Other beers are brewed in modern(ish) closed fermenters.

The "Cathedral of Brewing"

The Union ssytem is an ingenious way of separating the yeast from the brew at the end of fermentation.

Inside a closed fermenter.

The unions weren't working when we saw them, it was too early in the week, but we saw inside a closed fermenter. This is what Burton Bitter looks like when in mid ferment. That brew was going to be bottled, and we had a fascinating overview of the enormous bottling line.

This line is capable of bottling 40,000 bottles  – an hour

I could have stood and watched it for hours, except that free samples were waiting in the Visitor Centre!