One Tiring Thursday

Normally, on Thursdays, the site isn't all that busy. Last night was an exception to that particular rule. I was expecting the routine return of several taxis from the town with their drunken passengers. I wasn't the only one who was surprised when a total of three taxis came back the entire night.

As I was walking around the site, checking to see where all the tents were situated and to establish who would be likely to cause problems during the forthcoming seven hours. One young male, who was with his girlfriend, decided to set a newspaper on fire when I was walking toward them. I just happened to have a bottle of water on me, as you do, so I took great pleasure in pouring it all over the barbecue. I then asked the male not to light any further fires or he, and his girlfriend, would be leaving the park.

When I went to lock up one of the blocks, I walked into the gents toilets to lock the showers, when I was approached by a small child.

"Do you work here?"
"Yes."
"Oh crap."

It was only later that I realised why he had said this to me. Him and his friend had dissected the broken hairdryer coil (the coil wasn't previously damaged, it just needed a new nozzle.). I know where your tent is, as I spoke to your father the previous evening.

I spoke to a number of tents about the noise levels, but two groups in particular. An English group (they had an accent, but I'm not entirely sure where they were from) and a group of Germans. The English contingent were incessant on making as much noise as possible until they saw it fit to go to bed. At two in the morning. The German, at least I think they were German, group wanted to get into an argument with me, so I walked away. On the last occasion when I spoke to the English crowd, two of the Germans walked away from the tent. This was after the laughing episode which had awoken the adjacent tent to them. When I walked up to the English tent, I gave them the final warning, the "shut up or leave" approach. Approximately ten seconds after I had said this to them, one of the females uttered the following,

"I can't believe he said that to us when he saw those guys walking away."

OK, so now I have to go and ask the Germans to go to bed and be silent. I walked over and gave them the same treatment, I was quite happy for them to finish their cigarette and go to bed. I waited around to ensure that they did as instructed. Which they did, about five minutes later.

At the same time as this was happening, I was walking through one of the fields when I heard someone trying to attract my attention. I ignored it at first, because I genuinely thought the male was trying to get the attention of his dog. Because that's exactly what it sounded like to me. After a while, I realised that he was wanting my attention. I walked over and his wife came out to speak to me. Apparently there was a female at reception whose child was having an asthma attack and couldn't get the gates open to leave for the hospital. I thanked the woman for this information and made my way swiftly to reception. There was no one there. Well, I tell a lie, just as I approached the reception, two cyclists approached me and asked if they could pitch their tent for the night. I dealt with them efficiently and walked back into the tent field to ascertain where the female was. As I was walking round, I heard someone running towards me across the grass, I shone my torch onto the grass to find out what was happening.

"Are you the warden?"
"Yes."
"Can you come to my mummy's tent, my little sister isn't well."

I followed the child to the tent to be met by a woman who was cradling her baby, which at the time was asleep and seemed oblivious to what was happening. The female then told me the details and she wasn't sure if she should take the child to hospital or not. She informed me that she would rather telephone the out of hours service. I couldn't understand this at all, the child seemed fine, but I insisted that there may be an underlying problem and it's best to get it checked out by the relevant medical bodies. The whole time I was stood there, the female decided to breastfeed the baby on several occasions, before saying:

"I can't keep feeding her all night." - Mother
"No, you'll get sore." - her older daughter, approximate age: 8 or 9

An intelligent child, some might say.

The process of swaying her to going to hospital took fifteen to twenty minutes. It obviously wasn't life-threatening. I said I would open the gates for her while she got some things together and got in her car. As I opened the gates, I heard the female noisily start her car and drive, rather loudly, toward the exit. She asked if she could get back in to which she was told, "No."

Later in the morning, I found what would possibly be the reason for her reluctance to go to the hospital. Judging by the large amount of empty wine bottles and general rubbish outside her tent, she was probably in no fit state to drive.

When I spoke to Alex this morning during the handover, he told me that there was a large number of groups booked in and to "be on my toes" at all times. I think I am psyched up enough for tonight.

Let's hope that tomorrow's blog posting will be an interesting one!

Some Advice

OK, I'd like to give some advice based on a scenario I found myself in last night and to anyone who may try to do this and get away with it in future on my site.

It states quite clearly in the welcome pack you are given, by the lovely receptionists (Nope, they didn't pay me to say that about them. I value all the staff there, with no exceptions. . .), when you arrive that open fires and fires/barbeque's of any description (other than charcoal) are strictly not allowed.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't do any of the following when I ask you to put it out:

• Pretend you haven't seen me standing next to your barbeque. I'm wearing a hi-visibility jacket, how difficult is it not to see me?
• When I ask you to extinguish the fire, the correct answer is not, "We're just going to let it burn out."
• When I politely remind you that you've been spoken to on several occasions about putting wood on the fire, don't tell me you haven't. I was there, I know what was said.
• Don't question why I am standing there after you have said you'd put the fire out and then not move. I'm waiting for you to walk across to the tap to fill up a bottle of water to put it out.
  

One group did everything above last night when I spoke to them. Let's hope they didn't lie to Alex when he went round to speak to them this morning.

On a side note, I haven't seen the receptionist that Archie reckons has a fancy for me lately. I hope she hasn't left the company, before I got to know her. I also noticed, when I was in the office this morning, that there was a new receptionist being trained. I don't want to say too much about her at present, but we'll see how things pan out.

That's all for today, back in tonight to see what joys await me.

The Calm before the Storm

Friday was unusually quiet this week. Only three taxis came back from the town and all the punters were quiet. I suppose this was helped, somewhat, by the recent rain we've been having. Other than that it was very quiet for a Friday night, has the tourist season really been and gone and we've not noticed it? Things will pick up in about a fortnights time when the area plays host to a large scale event. I'm hoping for one or two little blog snippets when the time comes.

Saturday night was rather quiet also. Archie did manage to put in one report, about a small group of males who came back late on in the evening (I suppose that should be, early on in the morning.) and they were fairly arrogant to me when I passed them at the gate.

Another group of three males came back prior to that and one of them decided to urinate against the fence next to the public footpath. I did my best trying to gain his attention, by shouting at him. It wasn't until I was stood less than six foot away from him shining my torch at him, that I managed to attract his attention. I reminded him that there was a toilet block a few hundred yards away from him, and as he was heading in that direction anyway, he could use that. Nevertheless, he decided to finish what he was doing and walk off. I radioed Archie and gave him a description of the group and asked him to find out which tent they were heading to. Later in the morning, as I was checking the grounds, I checked their ticket and it had the 19th August written on it, so I didn't bother submitting a report about them.

It's Sunday evening, as I write this entry, and judging by the current weather conditions, it looks like it'll be a busy night. The sky is almost entirely blue, with only a wisp of a cloud every now and then. I doubt that there won't be a few late night drinkers and fires on the site tonight.

We shall see.