Has anyone seen my lorry?

One of the problems with exhibiting at that NEC is that when the show closes, everyone wants to get out at the same time. Setting up takes the best part of a day, knockdown, a few hours.

The hall is big enough for vehicles to drive inside to pick up stands but as everyone wants to do this, there is a heck of a traffic jam formed pretty much as soon as the doors close.

Despite parking in a "normal" car park (E1 I think), when I timed my walk to the stand, I reckoned it took something between 5 and 10 minutes. This meant a 20 minute round trip including unloading things in to the car. On that basis, I decided that I'd be quicker trolleying the layout to the car than trying to get the vehicle in the hall. I'd also avoid the frustrating time spent in traffic jams or touring the NEC road system that I'd experienced in previous years.

A quick check by Ben at the end of the day told me the weather was windy but not wet. Worth the risk I thought.

First trip took out the sideboards and legs with the trolley collected for the second trip. This saw me move the layout. After this there were the crates of stuff and finally the fascia panel and seat. One more trip than I bargained on but there were still a few people queueing in cars when I left so I might have saved myself some frustration.

The best part was that if you leave at 18:50, the car park guys don't bother charging you for the parking so that's 12 quid saved.

Setting up the layout on Monday to carry on working, I was pleased to see that everything was still attached. Except for the lorry. Sadly, only one wheel had survived the bumping along the roads and pavements. Presumably the rest of it ended it's days in an NEC car park.

Regular readers will know this model as I showed it on here. Now I'll have to build another one.