What is she on about now?

Stall bars, storage units and monster sheets.............

The task of loading the van is not my favourite but then nor is being clonked on the head by an intermittent range of steel stall bars. The highlight of the day has to have been unrolling 13m of 200 gsm tarpaulin down the corridor of the storage unit before hacking off strips with a Stanley knife.

I keep my stall equipment in a storage unit and without digressing too far, I first invaded the place some 8 years ago or maybe more, since when I have occupied a vast number of units of greatly varying sizes and even on different floors, moving to accommodate the needs of the time. I've settled now into the smallest unit I can manage to cram everything into although I do still have to lean on the door to shut it and the ceiling tiles do sometimes find themselves lifted into the roofspace. The staff there are like friends and look after me through all these moves and indeed during finding myself locked out and even, last year, famously locked in the building. Security codes don't always work. But I do digress if only to illustrate the tolerance of those lovely people, who must surely sigh as they observe on the internal security cameras, if not raise an eyebrow at the sight of 13m of white sheet unrolled along the floor past several blocks of units. I suppose I should explain.......

The rules and regs for festival traders are variable but at worst one finds oneself liable to produce not just public liability insurance but a risk assessment, a fire risk assessment, PAT test certificate for electrical appliances, a tested fire extinguisher and a first aid kit, proof of fire retardant sheets and even a method statement. Yes, I said "a WHAT??". So the long and the short of it is that the ginormous 9 x 13m monster sheet I bought only last summer and have used about 8 weekends turns out not to be fire retardant after all, so I've had to dig deep and buy 130 quid's worth of 9 x 9m certified fire retardant to replace it. The new one comes in a package smaller and more compact that the banana boxes I use for stock, until it's unpacked of course. It's predecessor rolls up to resemble a body and weighs about as much so in a way I'm quite glad to have cut it down to size or sides if you pardon the play on words. It's future is cut up for the side sheets and possibly even some floor. I'd been thinking how on earth to achieve the cutting down to size bit and the corridor at the storage unit seemed like the only possible choice.  Job done.

The other tricky bit is having a stall constructed of 1" steel bars which also weigh a ton and have a nasty habit of falling on my head when extricating them from the unit where they have stood or been propped for some 8-9 months. I've still got a bit of a headache and a bruise after being attacked by at least three.

All in all though, the van was repacked and all necessary equipment loaded, including the cut up monster sheet, in something like 5 hours, not bad but of course that is never the end of it. Bedding. food, clothes, stationery, last minute stock..........I need a bigger van.  I'd also like a caravan, I could bung all the food and bedding and clothes in there and I'm guessing it would be a lot nicer and warmer than the back of the van which is why I am now tucked up in bed making the most of the last night in a bed and indoors until next week..........now to see if all this preparation pays off at the actual festivals.