Bongos, No -Shows and Have-A-Go's

Well, it wasn't quite the mad dash I, and everyone else, had expected it to be. Nonetheless, it was still a busy night for a Thursday.

The ex-night warden was on last night with me, Archie was supposed to be on also, but he decided to go and get drunk instead of coming into work. Let's just say that when I phoned him, and Alex spoke to him, Alex wasn't best pleased.

The silence policy has been changed for this weekend, it's a case now of:

• Strike One: You will be asked to quieten down with immediate effect, silence policy will be explained.
  
• Strike Two: You will be instructed to leave the park first thing in the morning.

I spoke to one group in the reserved field and asked them to take the wood out of their chimenia, one of the males in the group (evidently more drunk than his friends) refused, but luckily his sober friend did as instructed.

I walked around the site and found a minibus of approximately ten Asian males. This was the group that I had been warned about before I started. Apparently, they were playing their bongos a little bit too loudly for their neighbours liking. There's nothing like a bit of culture on the site, is there? Anyhow, I digress. When I approached them, they were grabbing all the necessary items from their hired minibus for the evening, with the headlights on full beam pointed across the field. I asked them to switch the lights off and reminded them of the silence policy. They seemed pretty genuine and not the typical kind of bongo-toting loony you'd expect on a camping holiday.

As I was walking back, I noticed a vehicle with it's interior light on, as there had been no action near the car, I guessed it was a mistake. Luckily, the vehicle's owner's friends were still up (they also had wood on their fire, which they were told to remove) and they got the keys and switched the offending light off. They were very thankful, as it would have meant a flat battery in the morning if I hadn't told them.

Different field, another wooden fire. I could hear the wood cracking as it burnt from the top of the field, so I made my way down and told them to put the fire out. They apologised and did as instructed. When I returned half an hour later, they were in bed. Directly opposite this tent was a smaller one, with two loud occupants inside. I gave them one warning and that was all they were going to get. Again, they apologised and went to sleep.

I went back round to check on the group and their chimenia. Lo and behold, it was still burning the wood and they were still talking. Again, they were told to take the wood off the fire and quieten down otherwise the manager would be called. They didn't.

Just then, Billy (the ex-night warden) called Alex on the radio. Apparently, he'd left a door open which should have been locked. When Alex said he'd be down in five minutes, I called in on the radio that I may need his assistance for a group in one of the fields.

After about fifteen minutes, Alex turned up. He didn't look happy, he clarified this by saying, "You ruined my chicken." The first thing he had to do was lock the all important door, then he was free to deal with the chiminea gang.

As we approached the chiminea gang, Alex went ahead and spoke to them. The more inebriated one of the group wasn't happy that someone was telling them to put the fire out, shut up and go to bed. He remonstrated this by standing up and having a go at Alex. A punch was almost thrown, but he was held back by his friend. Alex's hand had a firm grip around his 'trusty steed'. When his friend asked for some help in restraining him, three people got up and walked briskly to the toilets. Eventually, the first restrainer was assisted by another male, they then bundled him into the tent and told him to shut up, in less polite terms.

I doubt they will be there tonight.

At around 0300hrs, I decided to pay another visit to the bongo-wielding troop in the furthest field. I had been there a few times before to tell them to quieten down. They were still talking. I gave them the ultimatum, "I want complete quietness now or you can pack up and leave." They took the hint and the lights went off and there wasn't a sound out of them. Apparently some of them were leaving early to go walking. I never seen anyone, or heard any movement from them after I spoke to them at three in the morning.

This morning, when I signed off, my report stretched to three pages. I'm hoping for a number of things tonight when I go in:

1. That Archie has sobered up enough to come in to work.
   
2. The groups/tents which were reported have been removed from the site (to free up space for friendly, tee-total, family people.)
3. That Billy doesn't bore me with his stories. . . "When I was the night warden. . ." or "When the last manager was here. . ."

I'll be lucky if I get two out of three, but you can but hope.

The Calm before the Storm Part II

Despite what the local area thinks about this week being a major headache for anyone in a 50 mile radius, it's turned out to be not that bad. On Sunday, Alex said that despite what he said previously about it going to be a busy week, it looked like it was going to be a busy few days. Starting today.

I'll prove how quiet it's been this week, I still managed to get my two days off. If it had been busier, I had previously been asked to work an extra shift. Turns out, I wasn't needed as the site was fairly dead.

As Archie has his day off on a Thursday, I've been put on with someone else. Someone who talks more nonsense than Archie (believe me, that's quite a feat.). Someone who was once caught on duty sitting outside Reception, on a deckchair with a mug of coffee in his hands by the previous manager. Yes, I've been put on with the ex-night warden. He's not called the ex-night warden for nothing, you know.

Last night was fairly good, I only had to speak to a couple of punters about the excessive noise. I also spotted a couple of tents (obviously together) who had a proper barbecue and three or four bags of logs, kindling and wood chips. A quick check of the barbecue revealed that they hadn't burnt any of it yet, so I mentioned it to Alex during the handover this morning.

I'm not going to say that it's going to be a quiet night tonight, because I know that this will be false. From around 7.15am this morning, punters started arriving to book in, by the time I left at 8, there was a queue of around half a dozen cars and motor homes waiting in the lane outside Reception.

When I was speaking to Alex, one of the Receptionist's came through and showed Alex a booking-in slip and said, "There are seven guys, adults, wanting to book in." Alex took one look at her and with a face that screamed "NO! Not on my park!" he said, "OK." Then he asked her how she was doing for sets of site rules. She went away to check and just as I was leaving the back door, she came back through and said she had run out.

I get the distinct feeling that Alex won't be getting a decent nights sleep tonight.

Free Pizza and Handcuffed Males

A fairly bizarre night, last night by all accounts. It started off pretty reasonably, before descending rapidly into madness.

The external car park, which holds approximately fifteen vehicles, was almost full last night. Most of them turned up not long after the gates had closed for the night and nobody tried to open them and drive onto the site. A 'civilised crowd' as Alex would say. At around midnight, the local pizza delivery van pulled into the car park and sat at the bottom with his engine running. I thought he was passing the time, so I decided to go and enquire what he was up to. Everything turned out to be legitimate though. He was waiting for the recipients of several pizzas which had been ordered and they were on their way to collect them.

I thought nothing more of the pizza delivery guy, until I returned to the gate twenty minutes later. He was still waiting. As I walked down towards the gate, he noticed me and walked over. He asked if anyone had come to me looking for the pizzas. They hadn't. He radioed through to his control room and asked what to do. Thankfully, the guy on the other end of the radio recently did some work on the site and decided to let us have one of the pizzas and the others would go to the pub for the bar staff. So, I'd like to thank the following people for their extreme generosity, even though they were probably unaware of it at the time:

• The Pizza delivery company (driver and radio operator)
• The group of hungry punters who ordered the pizza
• and Nescafe, who provided unto me a coffee which washed down that pizza. I'd much rather be thanking Arthur Guinness, but unfortunately, I can't drink on duty.

As the pubs and clubs in the nearby town had a late license, some of our punters didn't come back until well after 3am. Under normal circumstances, I am scheduled to be on my break by this time. But, as this is a one off occasion (I hope), I decided to take a late lunch and deal with the drunken revellers who had stayed until kicking out time.

The first group to arrive back were asked immediately to quieten down the moment they stepped out of the taxi. As they walked off, the volume of their voices gradually became louder and louder. We followed them, at a close distance, into the first tent field. Where they spotted a motorbike which took their fancy. Well, it attracted the attention of two out of three of them. The third male was more intent on urinating very close to another punters tent. When I pointed out the location of the toilets, they all looked confused. I pointed them out again, by saying;

"There are toilets just there, you know. There is no valid reason to urinate next to someone's tent."

I thought they had got the picture. I couldn't have been further from the truth. As they walked off, I warned them that if we had to speak to them again, Alex would be called. Myself and Archie walked along behind them and when they got to their tents, they were being louder than ever. Only this time it was coupled with the slamming of car doors and laughing. The males, when we spoke to them and told (not asked, it was beyond asking politely) them to go to their tents and sleep, they turned into arrogant, selfish and irritating fools. One of them told us that we couldn't put them in a Police cell. They are partially correct, personally we can't put them in a Police cell, but we know some people who can. The Police. Not Sting & Co. but the local constabulary. One of the males had one handcuffed wrist, at least this would have made the local constabulary's job a lot easier had they been called. They eventually gave up and went to bed quietly. Details were taken and I suspect they would have been given a rather rude and unwelcome awakening by Alex early this morning.

After that, it was quiet until around 5am when the shop alarm went off. In this situation, an alarm sounds next to Alex's bed and he is down pretty sharp. After calling him on the radio several times, he answered. Once the shop had been opened and the alarm silenced and reset, the perpetrator of the problem was sourced. The same kamikaze loaf of Kingsmill bread as last time (probably a different loaf, but the same location.)

Alex disappeared into the sunrise, back to his warm bed and the land of slumber which I had woken him from five minutes previously and all was back to normal on the site.

During the site check in the morning, I found a £5 note on the ground. At least us night wardens won't be short of coffee and milk for the week.