we have acquired a bit of a reputation over the past few seasons for getting meetings on when in other circumstances they would have been called off. This is partly down to the vast soak away drain that we dug out on turn 1 two years ago and partly due to the banking at Blunsdon that allows us to get rid of surface water quickly as it runs down to the white line and thence to the drain.

It is the dawning of the first day of the season for the Swindon Robins and a chance for the new septet to test themselves against the team that all of the pundits believe will be the eventual winners of the Elite League, the Poole Pirates. The Poole team does have a solidity about it that suggest they will be successful but there is a quiet confidence in the Blunsdon camp that the new look and extremely youthful Robins could give them a real run for their money.

But it is wet, really wet and the weather forecasts tell us that there is an awful lot more of the damp stuff on the way.

We made an early decision to inflate the bags without suctioning off the rain water that swashed around in them first. This mean a torrent of water was released over the track but it ran off quickly to the white line and thence down to the main drain. We needed the air fence up for a number of reasons - if we were to have a chance to running we would need the track to dry from right up by the fence to down on the white line. With the fences kept down for too long the shale under them would remain boggy and unusable. We were also aware that the greyhound track was sodden and that it would continue to leach water onto the track throughout the day and that the deflated air panels might be holding some of this water back.

At this time, 9am, we were convinced that given two hours of reasonable sunshine and the keen Blunsdon zephyr that buffets us daily, we could have a track ready for a good race meeting.

But the sunshine was weak, the wind had dropped and the forecast was just dreadful.

An inspection of the track showed that hardly any sand had been deposited on the track. A small flume of sand was noticeable on the back straight but the corners were remarkably clear - at least all that work over the winter was paying dividends.

Punch, Arron, Mark and I set out the air pumps and inflated all four corners and watched hundreds of gallons of rainwater pour across the banked turns.

On the greyhound side of the safety fence the situation was dire - pools of water lay against our boarding.

9.30am and Ron comes down to chat with us. The consensus is that we should call of the meeting there and then and save riders and fans the trouble of traveling. The clouds are massing in the west, where the rain will come from, and any more water on the shale will turn the whole place into a giant mud bath.

We retreat for an early morning cup of tea and and are met by Morten Risager. Morten has stayed at Malcolm Holloway's pub, the Jovial Monk, just round the corner from the track and has popped over for a chat.

Funnily enough, he's not so keen on my idea that he spend the rest of the day usefully helping us out around the track, nor does he believe that my idea that each member of the Robins should spend one day each season (at least) working on the track so that they can fully understand the job of track preparation. Fluent, articulate and ever so polite, he chats with us for 15 or so minutes before bidding us farewell and embarking on his journey back to Peterborough, where I believe his British base is.

With no meeting to prepare but still a couple of hours to go before the flood, we make our selves busy by beginning preparations for next week's encounter with Ipswich. All the new banners are pegged out on the centre green for washing together with the rubber kickboards.

We also start to attack the "berm" that has manifested itself right under the air fence. Our new method of managing the track has brought about a problem. Essentially we have done away with conventional raking during the meeting, preparing to use the small blade to smooth and spread shale. Raking back material has always been unpopular with modern riders since it is unlikely that any number of rakers will be able to spread the material evenly over the track. This leads to bumps and areas of excess and unexpected grip.

This year Ron wants the Swindon track staff to pull back material from the boards on the straights during each grading session and to leave the work on the corners to the tractors. Unlike in previous years, the tractors will not lift and drop their blades at various parts of the track but will keep the blades down, gradually pulling material closer to the white line with each lap completed. With no track staff to worry about on the corners, the idea is that the blade will be able to get right up against the air fence and pull back masses of material each time it goes out.

It's all very well in theory, but as we all found out during the elongated Bob Kilby meeting, it doesn't necessarily work in practice. Certainly, after grading after heats 4 and 8 the staff managed to pull back all the material from the kickboards on the straights but the build up of untouched material on the corners was immense.

And when we came to try to shift it all during the interval we found it heavily compacted and near impossible to move. Why?

A close investigation of the new tractor gave us the cause. The tractor is a wheel's width wider than the blade so each time that John Nobbs came round to collect the build up his tyres were up against the fence but the blade was a foot away. Worse still, the more he tried to grade the build up, the more the tractor tyres compressed it down. We think we have a workable solution but time will tell. In the mean time we now have a definite ridge of hard shale up under the fence.

It still isn't raining (worryingly) so we set to with shovels and pick axes and break up and spread the ridge all the way round turns 1 nand 2.

By noon the promised rain still hasn't arrived. Suddenly we begin to consider the awful prospect of a dry, sunny afternoon and a raceable race track.

Mark and I set out to pressure wash down the kickboards and that does the trick. Half way up the back straight the storm clouds suddenly mass and the rain starts to beat down. The pressure washer is still giving us problems so we try to fix it ... in the pouring rain.

All that is left is to collect in the banners, let down the air fence, bring in and store the pumps and then lock up the place and go home.

At least the early cancellation has prevented all bar Thomas Jonasson from traveling - he appears briefly mid morning and then departs quickly.

The rain carries on well into the evening - our decision has been vindicated. Time to dry out!