Outside In

Friday and Saturday were scheduled to be fine and frosty, but Friday didn’t quite turn out that way.
As the morning’s tidal wave of humanity began to engulf the Fieldays site, so did a gentle, steady drizzle that had people hauling on raincoats, nestling under umbrellas, staying an extra few minutes inside sheltering exhibition tents or strolling slowly along the aisles of the great hall.
But the weather certainly wasn’t having any appreciable effect on the interest or enjoyment of the public, and most stall-holders found themselves kept busy answering queries, explaining how new devices and products worked, or filling in computer-diaries and forms for follow-up activity in the weeks ahead.
School-children were more in evidence yesterday too, scores of them wandering around in little clusters, often noticeable by bobbling clouds of silver, red, blue or yellow helium-filled balloons, tied by ribbon to back-packs and obediently following the youngsters around. There also appeared to be a greater number of women about yesterday, many of them toting large labelled bags indicating a wide range of purchases.
Said one: “I always come on the Friday. I don’t care what the weather’s like. It’s just a good day out, and I always find a few things I need.”
Out among the heavy equipment people, farmers, land users and agricultural contractors were happy to stand and chat about the merits or otherwise of the bigger, better, improved, redesigned and sparklingly new machinery, oblivious to the minor distraction of drizzle. They worked in it regularly, and it was simply something they coped with on a regular basis. It was gone by mid-morning anyway.
Most of the more conventional motor-vehicle dealers were also smiling widely. Several of them, who had set themselves sales targets for the four days, had topped them easily by early yesterday morning, and were sure they would be almost doubling the targets by the end of play today.
The “Big Red” police car, unveiled at 10am on Wednesday, has attracted a huge amount of attention, with many curious members of the public asking whether red has become the new police colour. Noted a spokesman: “We’ve had people come from as far away as Taranaki just to see the new red car, after we put it out on Twitter and the social media. It’s certainly created plenty of interest.”
This morning, the final day of the show, will no doubt see an outpouring of “townies” on to the bustling site. But there will still be plenty of  rural people too – they, of course, are what the massive exhibition has always been built on.