The Peak of the Season

Well, it's finally here, the peak of the tourist season in this area. Judging by the large bare patches of grass and gravel around the site, you wouldn't believe it. I've worked in the tourism sector for a number of years and I've never seen it so bad. I still firmly believe that it's "the calm before the storm" because in a few weeks, the whole area will be crowded with people and there won't be a single inch of grass/gravel which isn't occupied by a tent or a caravan. Mark my words, it'll be a blog-fest here when that day comes.

So, enough talking about the future and let us talk about the past. Last night was a bit of a bizarre one, to be perfectly honest. When I started my shift (I was on my own as Archie, the other night warden who does the Friday night shift with me had called in sick.) I walked into reception and had a chat with Alex. It's not something I get to do face-to-face every night, but it has to be said, I do enjoy the chats (gives me something to blog about) that we have and it gives me a heads up for what's happening on the site and who I need to keep an eye on, etc.

Alex said that he'd be in the office until eleven and he'd close the gate and lock up one block if I could concentrate on the other and lock that down when the time comes. I said that was fine.

So I walked round the entire site, surveying the grounds to see where everyone was pitched and who I thought we may have issues with later on. I locked down one block and was heading to the gate to switch the night-lights on, when I saw Alex walking down to close the gate. I spoke to him and asked him to have a word with one tent who I had spoken to twice in under five minutes, there was obviously a language barrier here. I didn't speak German and they didn't speak English. We closed the gate and Alex asked me to go and lock up the second block. There was nobody about, so I went round all the doors and locked them, when suddenly my radio kicked in

"Come in ___, do you copy, over"
"Yeah, go ahead"
"Right, I've had a word with that crowd and there was someone who spoke reasonable English there and I've explained the no noise policy to them, I doubt you'll have any more problems with them. . . hang on a minute. . . "

The "hang on a minute" was delivered in such a way that voiced confusion, so I headed towards reception to find out what was going on.

As I came out of the far entrance to the field I was in, I noticed several cars outside reception, all turning around and heading back towards the gate. It turns out that someone decided to open the gate and let themselves in, thus letting the four other vehicles behind them in in the process. Alex had spotted them all coming in, managed to stop the second, and subsequent, vehicles, but the first vehicle had refused to stop and drove on. Luckily, Alex knows his vehicles, so I was told to find a specific vehicle during the night and to inform him of it's location the next morning.

"Y'see Alex, that's why I asked for a lock for the gate."
"Yeah, you'll have one tomorrow night mate, rest assured."

As we both walked down to the gate to get it closed again, one of the folks turned back by Alex took the biscuit.

"Are we allowed to walk in then? Is that OK?"
"Are you being facetious?"
"No, I was only. . ."
"Well if you want to play it like that you can pack your tent up and leave the park now, if you want."
"No, no, no. I was just. . . There are no signs up. You're only the night warden."
"Excuse me, I am NOT the night warden. What about this one on the gate, which says no vehicular access after eleven o'clock?"
"But I didn't know the time."
"Well what about the one here which states the gates are closed at eleven?"
"That's too small, I never noticed that one."
"Well maybe (addresses the crowd) you should all learn how to read."

One male in the group tried to apologise for his friend's attitude. Alex was having none of it. I was then dispatched to find out where they were pitched up. Sadly, though I didn't get to remove them from the park during the night. They were only booked in until today, but I know for a fact that they would not be allowed to re-book.

It was a fairly hectic few hours between then and about two-ish, when one of the residents turned up with a convoy in tow. The guy had already been reported before, by Archie, a few nights ago. So I was ready to stick the proverbial pin in the balloon he was carrying. As the car-park outside the gate is still on our land, it's classed as private property. So when a Transit motor home with a red and white colour-scheme (think 'Starsky & Hutch' Ford Transit style) with a passenger who is passed the point of being classed as drunk wants to camp there for the night and enter the site in the morning, I wasn't having any of it. I sent the occupants further back down the road, outwith my jurisdiction. I didn't get to see who was driving though.

After that, all I had to deal with was some idiot who decided to start his car engine twice during the night to keep the heater on. I wasn't best pleased when I went over the second time (which was exactly one hour later) to tell him to turn it off. At least the second time he was more suitably dressed. The first time I spoke to him he was drunk and bouncing around the car-park area in his Y-fronts.

Last week, I had an argument with the cardboard recycling drivers. They tried opening the gate before six, I managed to stop them. They had it partially open, so I decided to close it back up again and walk off. The driver jumped out of his cab and informed me that he wasn't coming back again. Fine by me. I'd actually forgotten about it, until he turned up this morning, five minutes later than the previous week and had unlocked the gate before I got there. When I was speaking to Alex during the handover, he literally begged me not to fall out with them again. Because they didn't recycle the cardboard last week, they had to burn it. Last night it got emptied, luckily for them. But I've been asked (almost on his knees, so he was) not to upset Mr. Recycling Man.

I'll do my best.

Big Brother

I realise this post may be slightly off topic a bit, but during the lunch breaks in the small hours of the morning, there isn't much to watch on the TV. It's either BBC News24 or Big Brother.

Over the past few weeks of watching this drivel, before switching over to BBC News24, I've noticed an uncanny resemblance between one of the housemates and a housemate of a different decade. I just wondered if anyone else had spotted it also.

The similarity between Ade Edmondson's character 'Vyvyan Basterd' from The Young Ones and Tracey Barnard from this year's Big Brother.

See for yourself:

Free Drugs

I'll admit it, I was wrong. I shot myself in the foot in the last blog posting, by saying that Sunday nights are generally very quiet. On the contrary, last night was fairly busy.

During the course of the night, myself and Archie were offered the following items:

• A bottle of Magners cider for when we finished. (Politely declined as the bottle was already opened.)
• Free "quality" drugs, I think it was cannabis. (Politely declined, as I don't do that sort of thing.)
• A look at a rather loud Glaswegian females vagina in the toilets. (As far as I know, Archie declined this offer, reasons fairly obvious)

The first group of people we spoke to were being very loud, and that was before the silence policy had even started.

As we locked up the two main blocks and closed the gate, we weren't expecting a busy night. Apart from having to return to one group in particular on several occasions, the night was pretty quiet.

Before I go on my mid-morning tea-break, I always walk around the entire site just to make sure that everyone is in their accommodation and fast asleep. If not, then they'll be getting a severe ear-bashing from myself. As I walked into one field I heard, what I thought to be, a female giggling uncontrollably. I sourced the tent in question and walked briskly over to it. It turns out it was two Polish males, one in the tent and the other was in the process of getting into the tent. I spoke to the latter,

"Excuse me Sir. It's half three in the morning, people are trying to sleep. You have five minutes to get in your tent and be silent. Otherwise you will be leaving the site NOW."

I walked away from the tent and gave them the five minutes I had promised them. Strangely enough, people listen to me when I am being authoritative. Then and only then.

A quick break later and it's time to brush the toilets and replenish the stocks of toilet roll which have been used since the day staff filled them up at 7.30pm the previous evening. In one particular toilet block, someone has taken to locking the doors of the cubicles from the inside and crawling underneath the partition walls. It's never one door at a time though, it's always half a dozen or so. It's happened for the previous two evenings, and it was starting to get annoying. Archie volunteered his services to crawl underneath the partition walls to unlock them.

After that, it was almost time to finish up, open everything back up again, go home and do it all again at night.

A Long Shift

Normally I don't mind working on a Saturday night, especially when the previous evening was so quiet that only one taxi came back the entire shift. OK, so we had a few taxi's back fairly early on, but the night just seemed to take forever to pass.

Even at eleven o'clock the entire site was peaceful. Except for the crowd of foreign bikers, who had to be told four times by Archie to 'shut up.' It was only when I interjected and gave them my ultimatum, that they decided to call it a night and go to bed.

Two tents could not differentiate between 'off' and 'turned down', which resulted in myself almost confiscating their TVs and radios. Fortunately, they got the picture and went to bed also.

Archie did come up to me at one stage to point out that we had a thief on the site. Sadly though, this was no big-time bank raider, but someone who pitched up close to the serviced pitch and decided to steal electricity. I checked their ticket and found no notes on it to suggest that they had paid the extra for the electric they were stealing. They were still up, which gave me even greater joy in pulling the plug on them. The tent quickly descended into darkness and all went quiet. One of the party came out to see what had happened, only to find me standing at the entrance to his tent with the electric cable in my hand.

"What's happening?"
"You're stealing electricity."
"But we paid for it. . ."
"No. You haven't, have you?"
"I'll pay it at Reception in the morning. Can you plug it back in please?"
"No."
"OK"
"If I come back and this cable has been plugged back into the service board, I'll unplug it again and render the cable warranty void."
"Sorry about that. . ."

I checked on them later and the cable was exactly where I had left it. A report was submitted to Reception in the morning.

About the two males who were causing a disturbance in the previous post, I spoke to Alex and he told me an interesting story about them.

The morning after the incident, Alex had decided to spend an extra hour in bed and when he came in, he checked the new bookings list for the day. Surprise, surprise, the two males had booked in for another night and had gone out for the day. He instructed the day shift to keep an eye out for anyone near the tent in question and if anyone was spotted near it, he was to be informed immediately.

By 9pm, no one had seen anyone near the tent and Alex's suspicious mind was working on overdrive. Then suddenly, a radio call came in from the Day Warden to say that two males matching the description were at the tent. Alex went round to have a quiet word with them and explained to them, in graphic detail, how much he did not want them on his site. They were asked to leave, either by their own mode of transport or in the back of the local Police van.

They took their own car.

It's a Sunday night, they're pretty quiet (touch wood) so I would like to apologise in advance if tomorrow's post doesn't seem all that exciting.