TUESDAY 13 MAY     ADELS GROVE

Back to work. I was on tents/amenities. There were only four tents to do.

As well as the sheets and towels from the tents, there was always a heap of tea towels to wash, used in the kitchen through the day. These were soaked in a bucket overnight and washed the next day. Whoever was on the tents collected the bucket of tea towels in the morning and brought them to the laundry. When dry, they were folded and taken back.

I did the boss’ washing too.

Checked the tents that were needed for the company tour group coming in this afternoon.

John was on grounds. He helped B mend more tents.

It was easiest to do these repairs at the actual tent site. B set up her sewing machine there, with a very long power cord run from a point at the laundry.

It was going to be hard to get some of the tents to last out the season. They were originally fairly cheap and flimsy ones, not really suited to the hard use they got at the old camp, and then here. The curved zips frequently broke, to the point where there was no solution but to sew in new ones – a fiddly job. The peg tabs often tore away from the tent bases – they got stapled back on. Some of the bed frames used in the tents had sharp corners that tore the tents if guests pushed them too close to the walls.

As well as the DBB tents, there were another half a dozen pitched in amongst the trees across the track from Reception. These were set up for overnight hire, just providing beds, table and chairs and fire pit – for guests who would cater for themselves. There was yet another long drop toilet over there, that had to be cleaned each day.

Tent upkeep was going to be a major job through the season.