It's for charity....

Every so often down here we have a valley do to raise a bit of money for charity.

This year the cunning plan was a vintage tractor run around the local lanes.

Going on that could have been good, after all it would have meant following something that even a Green Goddess can keep up with!

But no we got ourselves a place doing a static demo.

Things started to go wrong when I mentioned this on the Green goddess owners group.

The prospect of GG and unlimited water is enough to get most GG owners out of bed and soon there as the prospect of people ariving from as far as Durham and Devon.

This was the point where the warning bells should have started, a gathering of Bedford RL owners is generally a recipe for mayhem and sure enough....

Things were going wrong almost before they started. The weather put a severe constraint on how much prepping could be done so it as almost time to leave by the time we had realised that Gloria was not going to be running in time. weeks of wet weather had soaked the electrics so comprehensivly that only a big heater might offer some chance of drying it in time.

Just to be doubly sure: the starter button decided to die for good measure.

Of course this is jumping ahead, the first wave arrived late on friday night, after I had switched off my mobile phone GPS did it's magic, they got hopelessly lost and they spent their first night in scenic wales sleeping between a graveyard and a derelict arms dump.

Saturday morning and all bodies assembled off we jolly well set.

Not quite, before we could leave there a the small matter of the bent front bumper to deal with. A previous escapade had left Isabelle with a rather bent front bumper, so selecting a suitably solid post that situation got sorted by simply driving the truck into it!

On to the valley in our usual sedate manner.

Of course the purpose of the weekend was to give practical help to the less experienced green goddess owners. So when we arrived and Isabelle packed up due to the 50's era plugs breaking down they ere more fully able to understand why I always advocate fitting modern plugs. That's my story anyway and i am sticking to it...

Home for spares then back to change the plugs.

left to cool the GG fired up and we set up for play.

three big ground monitors (fixed branches) soon had us spewing water along the valley.

really impressive it was too.

OF course the point of a GG do is to try other thing out.

Soon we had replaced one of the ground monitors with a modern fire branch and it as taking 4 hefty people to control it.

From the safety of the back of the pump I could see they were struggling so being a nice fella I put even more output out of the pump.

They were struggling a bit more so sensing it could be bath time for the branch crew I shut down one of the ground monitors. The reading on the pressure gauge tarted to soar, the branch crew were being pushed around, it could only be seconds and........

BOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSH a pipe coupling parted on the pump diverting all the water from everywhere to all over me.

Oh how everyone was concerned for my welfare, or were they perhaps weak with laughter.

You need to check you tube to see.

This seemed good time us to stop for lunch and to stick me somewhere in the sun to dry...

Suitably dried out I headed off back to the field.

Of course unnoticed the wind had both changed direction and increased in strength.

Dropping the pump into drive again the monitors spewed water and it immediately blew backwards over the operator and crew or put another way - me.

At least I wasn't the only one to get soaked this time!

stop and think again.

Move everything around so water was not cacading over me and start again.

Soon we were having another go trying something else 3 ground monitors and conventional hose branches, 5 in total, the books say it can't be donwe.

The books were written about modern fire engines not proper pumps!

Just as we were setting up for another variation the theme, the starter switch on Isabelle decided to rebel and filled the cab with smoke and burning smells. Not a problem - could allways use the starting handle, oh hang on there wasn't one.


So home it was and back in no time. Of course, while I was away the troops had not been idle, they had sorted the switch problem.

Something of course they did not feel the need to share till I had spent 5 minutes sweating and swearing churning 4.9 L of engine by hand.

Yes I saw the joke in the end...

By now the day as getting on anyway and so off we all went for home and rest, or was that beer...