You're having a laugh!

The other night there was three tents pitched next to each other, although they weren't a group, but they did act as though they were. It was these three tents which made me have to call Alex out of his bed at half past two in the morning.

When they all arrived back, I reminded them of the silence policy. They didn't all arrive back at once though.

The first two came back at around one o'clock, were fairly reasonable. Although I had to ask them to turn the music off as there were people trying to sleep nearby and it was causing a disturbance. Ten minutes later and their neighbours arrived back. I gave them the obligatory ten minutes to quieten down, which they didn't, so I had to go and have a word with them again.

As I approached the tent, from behind, they had the music on again (its times like these, I wish I were allowed to forcibly remove the batteries or throw the stereo into the river). Again I asked them to quieten down, to which one male replied,

"I came on holiday and I'm not allowed to have fun?"
"Not at half one in the morning you're not."

Then, as I was walking off, another male shouted,

"Yeah. Goodbye now!"

I've learned from experience to just walk away and ignore them. Luckily, a few cars arrived back, so I went down to the gate to greet them and remind them of the silence policy, etc.

Part of the returning party was the final tent in the non-group who were causing a disturbance.

After I had dealt with the vehicles that had pulled into the car park, I noticed that a taxi was still parked at the gate. I walked over to the driver's side window and enquired if everything was OK. Apparently it wasn't. The final group of the 'non-group' had got out of the taxi and had pulled the old trick of,

"I'm just going to go and get some money."

And not return. Unfortunately for the runaways, one of them had left their, rather expensive looking, mobile phone in the taxi. I stood and spoke with the driver and made the usual enquiries and general small-talk. After about ten minutes, no one came back to pay the fare, so the driver informed me that if he wanted his mobile phone back, he'd have to go to the Police Station and admit to taking the taxi without paying for it, just to get his phone back.

After the taxi left, I went back up to check on the group. It came as no surprise to find that they had the music on again. As soon as they saw me coming, they turned it off. I asked them to ensure that the music stayed off, as it was almost two in the morning, this brought the replies of; "Music? What music?" and "We weren't playing music." I felt that this was just cause for bringing a sleepy, angry Alex out to have a word in their collective ears. When I told them that the Park Manager would be called, they protested, "You're having a laugh!", "You're joking" etc.

They didn't see the funny side when Alex went to have a word with them though and when he ejected one of the tents at eight o'clock the following morning.

~ The following night, when they arrived back, one of them asked me if I "was up for a game of Frisbee later on." I politely reminded him that if he tried it, I would personally remove him and his gang of reprobates from the park. ~

At around three in the morning, two males returned from the town suitably refreshed. Refreshed enough to hardly be able to stand up, let alone walk. After speaking to them several times within the space of one-hundred yards about the noise levels, I followed them to their tent. They were drunk enough to go in, fall over and be out like a light. However, half an hour later when I was walking around the park, I heard one of the males in the tent utter:

"I think I'm going to be sick!"

To which came no reply. This was closely followed by the sound of projectile vomiting (bear in mind this was a rather small two-man tent). Nevertheless, his drunken cohort was fast asleep and blissfully unaware that he had just been vomited upon by his friend.

Nice to see karma making a reappearance this season . . .

Angry Neighbours

As I arrived on site, I knew that I was going to have an interesting night. Partly due to the fact that once I had boiled the kettle in the office, I heard an almighty bellow coming from one of the fields. Sadly, I wasn't on shift, so I couldn't (and wouldn't) do anything about it.

After finishing my coffee, I decided to venture out into the unknown territory of the site. By the time I had walked around and noted down who I thought was going to cause trouble, it was time to lock up for the night. Once everything was secure, I heard a familiar sounding bellow from one of the tent fields. I made my way over there and quickly discovered which tent was making the noise. They were told to quieten down with immediate effect, which they reluctantly did so . . . for about five minutes.

As I was leaving the field, I noticed someone walking in. The walk was familiar and when they spoke, I recognised the voice immediately. It was the Assistant Park Manager. Apparently, the tent opposite the one I had just spoken to, had called him out. The occupants of the tent were trying to get their young child to sleep, but because of the incessant noise coming from the opposite tent, their attempts were failing miserably. The complainant then went across to the group and asked them to quieten down, as he was attempting to get his child to sleep. His protestation was met with a response of, "Fuck off!" When he realised they weren't going to be quiet, he called the Assistant Park Manager out. After he had spoken to them, they headed towards the toilet block. Generally this means they are going to get ready for bed and call it a night. We left them to it.

About two hours later, a taxi pulled up at the entrance and out fell the group who were making a noise. They had evidently run out of alcohol and had gone to town in search of more. I asked them to be as silent as possible when going through the park and when they got into their tent. I knew from the outset that they wouldn't adhere to park protocol, so I followed them to their tent.

By the time they had got there, they were still making a lot of noise. I decided to give them their final warning. This is usually enough to make the majority of the punters shut up and go to bed. There are a small minority who go against the grain. Can you guess which category this group fell into?

As they weren't showing any signs of quietening down and going to bed, with no regard to the fact there was a family with small children opposite them and it was fast approaching two in the morning, I decided to call Alex.

I was to approach the tent with the talk button keyed on the radio, to enable Alex to hear the conversation which ensued. Unfortunately this idea didn't go according to plan, as one of the group was lying half-in and half-out of the tent telling the other members of the party to quieten down whenever he saw me approaching. Sadly though, he was only watching the road entrance to the field. There are other ways in.

I approached the tent from behind, with the radio button keyed, and asked them to quieten down as the Park Manager had been called and if they weren't silent within two minutes, they would be ejected from the site. This seemed to do the trick, as they were silent within one minute of me talking to them.