Never under-estimate how hard it is to be an event organiser.

You need to be able to see the big picture and the many, many, many tiny details which have to be got right. You need to be unflappable, patient, endlessly charming – quite often to people you don’t like – to be a leader and in the case of the event I work on, deal with the vagaries of the weather.

I would be a hopeless event organiser – high on the list of reasons why not, is my lack of attention to detail  – see previous blog and relucant housewife listing error.

But I do get involved with events run by a woman with all the skills listed above.

For my sins and thanks to that extra glass of wine poured by a good friend some years ago, I agreed to be the Health and Safety person ( I do think you always need capitals for H&S.)

There is something childishly pleasing to me in being a behind the scenes person at an event – and I know it is not Glastonbury, but it is still a sneaky pleasure.

I like wearing a staff wristband, having a radio being able to go into areas where the public are not allowed, knowing many of the exhibitors – and doing a bit of shopping on the side.

The staff team are people who are either related to one another or have been involved for years – and in many cases both of the above.

Ask any new face how come they happen to be working and they will point to their mum, dad, aunt, cousin, son, daughter, brother-in-law, friend, and tell you they were roped in and now they plan on staying.

Quite a few of them have been working on the shows since they started more than 20 years ago.

I am a bit of a johnny-cum-lately with only 7 years under my belt and though I have always felt welcome, have made good friends and the great woman event-supremo is flatteringly nice about my uses – this year I went up a notch in acceptance.

So, there is a patriarchy of security and car parkers.

The patriarch comes from his day job in Leicester and his extended clan gather around him – there were three generations of them this year.

H&S in this context is a bit of a fluid brief and can range from helping to reorganise wind-battered gazebos to crawling along with sticky tape to secure a trip hazard, to assisting the cookery demonstrator, keeping the roadway clear to wait for the arrival of an ambulance for someone with a suspected heart attack, managing queues, sorting out squabbles about pitch size and so on.

I have got to know the patriarch through many shared adventures in H&S – security is a rather fluid brief too – but I think it is fair to say that at the beginning he viewed me with some scepticism suspecting I would be the Daily Mail’s definition of H&S gone mad.

This year he managed to get a quite bad cut on his head – and was off in hospital before I got back from whatever errand I was on. He did his own H&S jokes when he got back – I never would have dared…

Anyway, over the years I have felt that I have earned a little more of his acceptance and that he now finds me a bit more use, rather than ornament or obstruction.

This year at one point, I was garbling something about what we should do about some problem and he put his arm round me and told me to stop gibbering, start that sentence again and then we would get it sorted.

Dear reader, I was so pleased.