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Welcome to todays diary entry! Sundays are supposed to be the day you ease into the end of a show, maybe have a bit of banter with the last customers, and then slowly wind it all down. This one? Not even close. By lunchtime, it was obvious that packing up Blakemere was going to be a different beast altogether. What we’d built for the weekend felt like a mini Glastonbury—awnings everywhere, tents as far as you could see, pop-up shops, display stands, and endless boxes and banners.
Usually, by 5 or 6pm, we’re in the van heading home. Not this time. There was just no way we were going to get it all sorted before the light went. As the sun started to dip, it was honestly a bit overwhelming seeing the sheer amount still left to do. There’s something about seeing all those awnings and display kits—things that looked so pristine and inviting a couple of days ago—now needing to be folded, rolled, bagged, and somehow squeezed back into the van. Everywhere I looked, there was something else to do. I felt like I was just moving things from one pile to another!
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We kept grafting, but by the time darkness properly fell, we were still nowhere near done. The field turned from a busy showground to what looked like a jumble sale crossed with a building site. Tools scattered on the grass, half-packed boxes, the odd tent peg still refusing to budge, and awnings piled up waiting to be bagged. A couple of the reps were still trying to get their bits together in the torchlight, and you could see everyone’s energy levels dipping. The only thing left to do was admit defeat, get some food, and regroup.
We didn’t finish until after 9pm. At that point, the thought of driving home was enough to make my eyes water. We ordered in a couple of pizzas—nothing fancy, just pure fuel—and everyone pretty much inhaled them. No one said much. Just that quiet, exhausted silence you only get when everyone’s absolutely knackered but knows there’s still more work ahead. We all just collapsed straight into bed, barely enough energy to get under the covers.
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Later, I got a video sent through from the shop and… well, I honestly felt my heart sink a bit. The place looked like a bomb had hit it. Demo awnings stacked up everywhere, boxes of stock from the show clogging the aisles, and nowhere left to put anything because every inch of warehouse space was already rammed. It’s one of those moments where you know that tomorrow’s job is going to be a nightmare, but you just have to get on with it.
The main headache is the bagged demo awnings. We swapped so many display awnings out for the show, and now there are these gaping spaces on the display floor and about a mountain of demo models with nowhere to live. I’m already dreading the logistics of shuffling everything back into place. It’s going to be a slow slog, and the warehouse is bursting at the seams.
And of course, I can’t even tick Blakemere off the list yet. My own awning is still standing, my motorhome is still parked up, and Roger’s caravan is there too. It’s like the show’s still refusing to let us go! There’s a good chunk of work left to get everything off site and back to base before I can even worry about how we’re going to get the shop sorted.
The scale of it all really hits you in moments like this. What seemed manageable when we were setting up suddenly feels like a never-ending mountain to climb. But that’s the game, I suppose. You put all this effort into building something spectacular, and you pay the price on the other end. I keep reminding myself it’ll all get back to normal eventually—one van-load, one awning, and one box at a time.
Right now, though, it feels like we’ve only just begun the pack-down marathon. Tomorrow’s going to be another long one… but at least tonight, there’s pizza and sleep. That’ll have to do!
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