Balkans winter

They have been having some tough winter weather in the Balkans this week, it was -15 Celcius last night and predicted at -22 Celcius tonight

Logistics

I am out on the road again with a production. This particular group have 16 articulated rigs to carry the stage and associated production items. They have a set routine and the operation runs like clockwork. This particular production performs Wednesday through Sunday with two shows per day. They start the load out as soon as the final performance starts on the Sunday, as the production starts all the catering equipment is broken down and loaded, as each of the acts finishes their performance the kit is loaded into the trucks. Once the performance finished the load out proper begins and it takes 18 people from the troupe and a lot of local labour three and a half hours to complete. As soon as it is all packed away the trucks leave in convoy for the next destination. They are using a dutch company who have two drivers per rig so they can more or less drive none stop to reach the next city. The kit usually arrives sometime on the Monday with the load in and stage assembly taking place on the Tuesday for performances to start on Wednesday.

The move this time however has encountered a small hitch. They are moving the show from Malmo to Sofia and it has been snowing heavily in the Balkans and there are a lot of road closures. As a result of this the trucks are having to drive from Malmo to Italy and then take a ferry to Greece before driving North to Bulgaria. The left on Sunday evening at about 11PM and are expected to arrive in Sofia sometime on Wednesday. The load in will take place on Thursday morning with the first show on Thursday afternoon. fortunatly this week they dont have a Wednesday performance

Lost in translation

I cant see "Guts in the old Polish style" catching on myself ......

Back on the road again

Back on the road again for the first overnight of the year and it starts on a Sunday. I dislike having to fly on Sundays as it foreshortens the weekend. Sometimes however no matter how early you start on a Monday you just can’t get to where you need to be by the time you need to be there on Monday. This Sunday it was out at 0900 to a sports match with one of my children. I returned at 15:40 the taxi arrived at 16:00 for a 16:30 bus to Luton Airport, the bus schedule did not allow for a later bus without cutting the time to the flight very short. I arrived at the Airport at 18:00 had something to eat and killed time until the 20:25 departure. I noticed a lot of corporate jet movements which I know from my work are mainly people coming to London for work on Monday. For me the benefit of having your own aircraft is being able to travel when you want so why do these people travel on a Sunday? Why don’t they just get up early on Monday?

My arrival in Gdansk was at 23:30 local and I arrived at the hotel about midnight, I left for the airport again at 08:00 so in fact saw nothing of this, I believe, beautiful city hence the picture of my hotel room.