Sandbags

I have no regrets in life. That’s a lie, I bloody hate these sandbags.

At a generous estimate they’re 30% reconstituted with Gaffa tape, that’s on the rise, I’ve owned colanders with fewer holes.

We bought these before our first mobile event, one of the many last minute items we scrambled to source before selling to the public. I was working at my old job, my last free weekend not the most productive with a 19 pub stag do yomp across the Lake District and each evening consumed ticking off the tasks to get us up and running.

I knew the proper way to fill the sandbags, to line each section with a thick plastic bag, pour sand into each, keeping it contained and secure. But in haste, and with the weather forecast threatening to blow our marquee away, we dumped the sand straight into the bags and hoped for the best.

Error.

If you ever see two feet protruding from the back of a yellow Land Rover, muffled curses emanating from the bowels of the van, chances are that’ll be me. Typically I’m lying face down, pinned under a hot oven, trying to wrestle a limp, slug of a sandbag free as it ejects sand from at least 4 orifices. Half a tonne of oven bolted to the chassis doesn’t make the clean up operation any easier.

From that point onwards we vowed we’d always do things the right way, first time. If a job’s worth doing and all that.