Big Toy: WWII Re-enactment group improving the view no end by obliterating Tilbury Power Station

In order to make the weekend more entertaining for the paying public, we had been coerced into doing to slots in the arena each day. Even worse, in order to give the MVT's Man of the Microphone George a well-earned break, we were going to have to provide our own commentator. Dave Simpkins filled this role last year, which included the occasion when everyone failed to turn up after Dave had started due to a locked gate. This year Dave claimed medical retirement, so Mike Allmey found himself dropped Right In It instead. With never more than a dozen vehicles to play with, it was never going to be easy to fill the half-hour slot each time. Help was on hand during Saturday in the form of the Royal Anglian Regiment's recruiting party, who provided a five-minute in-fill on the benefits of joining the RAR. There's even a pension if you do. Having filled the arena with a good selection of Land Rovers, we decided to exit under the cover of a brightly coloured smoke screen, courtesy of Colin Parr and his stock of marine distress flares.

Version 1: Setting light to a 110	Version 2: Bomb-in-a-Bucket

Either way our exit seemed to please the public, although whether this was to do with the pyro effects or just because we were leaving the arena so something more interesting might happen isn't clear. What is clear is that after the stress of talking suspect cobblers for fifteen minutes, Mike had to go and have a little lie down...

Meanwhile, back at the EMLRA pitch, it was becoming clear that whatever was in the water was starting to have an effect on Caroline Jackson and John Butcher

Exactly what John was doing with a knitted Minkey wearing a DPM jumper in his 101 has not yet been adequately explained. What also has not been adequately explained is why three-week-old Amelia Grace already has such a "reassuringly expensive" diet. Or why Minkey appears to be more zonked after 4oz of milk than Amelia. On the Sunday Dave Fish was offered the chance to "fire" his Mobat (recoilless anti-tank gun) along with an Abbot SPG in the arena, which is not an opportunity to be missed by any self-respecting Mobat owner. So he and George Jackson hitched it to his Land Rover and went into the arena for a jolly good bang.

And jolly impressive it was too... until the Abbot did its stuff. The back-blast from Dave's Mobat was sufficient to blow away a full 25-litre water container placed to deflect the blast away from the crowd. On the other hand, the recoil from the Abbot's round was enough to push in excess of ten tonnes of armour backwards by an inch or two on dry cobblestones.

Whatever was in the water was also clearly still having an effect as late as Sunday evening when Mike was spotted attempting the leave the event with a type of aircraft repair trailer not seen before on the EMLRA stand.	Death Watch Beetle I can deal with; but we decided to leave the Black Watch to their own devices. Or perhaps he is demonstrating how to stop a 110 rolling backwards into the moat?

Finally, Jeremy King (who kindly photographed all the things going on in the arena for me) was there all weekend with his 101 Ambulance "Matron". Could it be coincidence that certain stickers started to appear on other Land Rovers on the EMLRA stand over the course of the weekend?