Last minute erection

This is one tiny bit of what you missed if you didn't make it down to Gig in the Garden on Sunday.

Outside of the marquee it was blowing a hoolie that was swinging in from the SW, that was carrying very cold air from some place in the Arctic circle, but inside our weather beaten old marquee things were far from cold. Cool maybe, cause that's what we like to present at these affairs, hot bands playing cool music born in the Furness peninsula, with a micro climate that the weather man/girl always manages to not to predict.

Let me take you back.

I watch the forecasts for these outdoor events very closely, you have to, because we live in England, what's more we live on the north west coast of England. These days they've got pretty sophisticated gubbins to tell us what's going on, and I'm up on isobars so I keep a close eye. Three days to go to Gig in the garden and we've got a low pressure system that's hanging over Iceland and heading our way, sinking slowly towards a high that's due in on Saturday. Hour by hour it's bringing a cold front and strong winds, but it looks like we'll escape the worst of it until Sunday night around about seven. Just about squeeze the gig in before we get the worst of it, that's Thursday prediction. I check the BBC site, I check, accuweather, I check wunderground and the met office, I'm a weather guru, they all say the same. Morning sunny, turning cloudy, overcast, then as the wind picks up it turns to rain at 7pm. It's the same forecast right up to Saturday morning.

So I decide we can get away with the open air stage and so we set that up on the morning of Saturday. We decide that we'll move behind the trees to gain shelter from the wind and leave Ford Park to go and do some shopping. We meet Virginia in town who asks if we've put up the marquee as she's just seen a forecasts that predicts heavy rain all day. No, I said, I've seen the forecasts and it's going to be fine till 7pm.

At 5.30 we catch the Granada weather. This confirms what Virginia has said heavy rain from 2pm, seems that the cold front has accelerated and is due earlier than predicted. SHIT!!!!!!!

We should have put up the marquee, but too late now at 6 pm the night before the GiG. I go through the thought of cancelling, that's the simplest solution, just call the whole thing off. Putting up the marquee at this late hour is a non starter. It takes at least eight people, of some strength, to get the thing out and erect it, and there's only me and Jackie. I decide that if I could raise 8 people I could still rescue tomorrows gig.

Now it's a big ask on a Saturday night at 6.30 to get people to wrestle with a load of canvas, the size of the Cutty Sark sails, heavy steel poles and giant metal stakes, but I start going through my phone contacts. I get lots of voicemail boxes, which is no good I need people now to commit to being there at 7pm as it will take at least 2 hours or more to put up.

I start at A, and soon get to Alex from UCAN who is willing and has a friend who'll come along. OK I'll come back to you, I need eight, and we're now four. Colin, our chairman in his 70s and his wife can help, thats six, but everywhere else I draw a blank until I phone Rees, one of our trustees. He's got family up for the weekend who are out in town at a pub, but he'll see if they're willing. He calls back with positive news, they can help, so now we have eight, and we arrange to meet up at Ford park as close to seven as they can. I call the other volunteers and at 7.30 we're all on site and under my instructions they miraculously manage to get our marquee up just as the twighlight turns to dark at around 10pm.

The next day at 10am we have just four volunteers to finish putting up the stage, the sides to the marquee and the gazeebos for the food and drink stalls. For some reason our usual trusty crew of 10 volunteers fail to surface bu somehow we manage and by 1pm we're all set for the audience and bands to arrive. It's been a very fraught 24 hours, and the north wind is blowing hard, but the rain is holding off.

The audience trickles in, much slimmer than on better days, but in the marquee is cozy and the music kicks off with Blast Furness playing in the shelter of the marquee to welcome people to our afternoon of live music. The bands are brilliant, the audience are enthusiastic and the food and drink flows.

Lots of our audience tell me this is the best line up we've ever had, the atmosphere was electric and they all loved the intimacy of the marquee.

We struck the last chord at 6pm and at 6.30 it started raining, just as we were packing up.

It was a close call at  6.30 on Saturday night but thanks to our impromtu erectors we had the most brilliant of afternoon of home grown live music.

Thanks to you all for making it happen. Christ you know it aint easy, you know how hard it can be.