The Spanner in the Works.

To paraphrase Mr.Spielberg, '...just when you thought it was safe to think it was going really well...' something will invariably rear it's ugly head to make you think 'Oh...great!'

 

LOOK! Aren't they lovely? Three, count 'em, THREE brand-spanking-new benches - slap bang along the main acting runway at the castle.

In the greater scheme of things, I know it's only a smallish spanner and I also realise that we're only up there for a week or so every year but, having been up there for that week or so for past eleven years you'd think, perhaps, that good ol' SHDC might have thought 'Hang on...'

My worry is that, even if we ask for, and get, permission to remove the benches for the performances, we shall have to re-install them after every show. Again, I realise that this might seem to be an overly negative stance to adopt, but hey, you and I all know how wonderfully flexible councils can be when it comes to following the creed of the jobsworth!

Had there only been the original two benches, then that, obviously, would have posed no problem, we've been using them/disguising them for years...and I suppose we'll get used to the new ones - going to have to, I suspect - but it's just another niggling little thing that needs circumventing, that needs thinking about, that needs another letter to be written and another level of bureaucracy that has to be dealt with. If the reams of paper we get each year, just to obtain permission to use the space, are anything to go by, we'll be knee-deep in the stuff by the time we get to putting the set up! Hey-ho.
Huge thanks to Ernie for taking the time to go up there and snap the pictures; I'll let you know what we're required to do with regard to moving/not moving the offending articles.
Did they have benches on the blasted heath, I wonder..?