Today being "set up" day proper the show was generally a bit quieter as people got on with the final preparations before opening tomorrow.
George and I have been very busy meeting people and doing a lot of talking - a lot of talking!!
In Hall A5 George was re-united with old collecting adversary Dave Renison. If you remember my "broken finger" blog of a few weeks ago. George has his very own - also involving Hilton Mine.
Early in 1998 during a Spring half term holiday George and I met up with Dave for a digging trip to the dumps at Hilton.
The weather was misty and bleak and the wind was blowing the spray from the waterfall into our faces. As we found nothing low down with climbed up higher onto the fell.
Finally some better looking rocks began to appear, the rate of digging went up. Unfortunately for poor George a large rock cleared Dave's hole and caught George square on the finger - ouch.
Being cold and wet, George's fingers went numb and stiff, and we decided to come back to the bottom and warm up to see if any real harm had been done.
Fortunately nothing but some bruising was found, but Dave was so apologetic that he insisted we took George to the Little Chef on the way home for hot chocolate and maple syrup pancakes.
Here these guys were some 18 years later, both remembering the occasion as if it were yesterday - great times!
I have enclosed a few other shots of the show/minerals below.
