This week I have realised that I am old fashioned. I believe that a handshake is a good as a contract and that when you have supported something for 3 generations it means something.

I am onsite at a Agricultural and Horticultural Show in NSW (county fair), my family has worked at this show for 65 of it’s 101 year history. When we arrived here on Monday everything was fine, Tuesday morning was another story. The site for my food van was gone. That’s fine, it does happen occasionally. I didn’t cause waves and was willing to move until I was told my site was gone forever. When I mentioned how long we have supported the show I was told this is year 1. It doesn’t matter that I watched my Nan when she worked here, or that I helped my mum when it was her turn. It doesn’t matter how many years the show has been washed out and we didn’t earn enough to cover our site rent which we still paid. All the history I thought was here is gone in one spiteful sentence by someone who I don’t believe has even attended the show as a patron.

This person is new to the committee with radical new ideas, one of which is cutting off the access from the stables to the show ring/arena. I guess he doesn’t want to watch the show jumping. The demolition derby cars have no access either so it is going to be a boring derby.

This one man is only one man out of a committee of people, they rest of the committee are horrified by the way he is acting. The Office Ladies have been in tears when Dad has gone in to see them but no one is stopping Mr Nasty. It’s his way or get lost. But for me his way was a direct order to get lost, I’m was stuffed either way.

I have my site, I was part of a group that was told to continue on like nothing has happened and Mr Nasty doesn’t exist. He is probably a nice person at home when he isn’t trying to channel the Dark Side.

I hope this isn’t reading as a whinge or gripe, I’m just worn out by a hideous week full of nastiness. I thought that the world was different and people appreciated a shared history and supported each other. I know that not everyone is like this man but right now he seems to be everywhere and last week my cousin had to dealt with his spiritual twin sister. Fun!

I don’t think I like this new way of doing business and I can only hope that these people realise the damage they are doing to their communities by refusing to listen to anyone else.