NO ..9

Well I've gone and done it again.... it's been a long time since the last post, Sorry about that but have had a lot on my plate on a personal matter and its not over yet, but lets get back to the blogg. I remember leaving you all in Berlin. Ok did the ice out then headed south for Milan in Italy, so it was down through Germany but "she" had a problem so off we went into the garage, the problem turned out to be a lot of shit in the fuel filters, but when you just get a code on the dash you don't know what it will be till they plug there computer in. Well back on the road again within two hours and heading south towards Munchen; the driving time was running out so found a truck stop for the night, dinner, beer and bed. The next day my plan was to head for Munchen then into Austria Innbruck then the Brenner into Italy and down to Trento and then stop at a place called Perschiera Nr Verona for the night, but the boss called and said "get to Milan tonight as the other trls were arriving tonight" so had got to Milan for the night and it was Friday so that gave me till Monday, sat there waiting to do the ice in. Luckily they did not have a gig on that weekend so they let me park inside.


I said I would do a post about ice "in'' and ''out'' so here goes. The photos are of Berlin ice.


This me parked in the arena where the floor is going, so have to move the first trl out of the way. There is enough room to turn around inside when the arena is empty but the next one had to be backed in.
After turning around. This is looking back out. (the way in) To my left as i stand taking the photo is

the way in and out, it looks a bit tight and it was bloody tight. Where the guy is stood, there is a left turn to the outside door and its only 4.2meters in height.

This is before the local staff got in so waiting for them to open up.

Ok, Their here at last. Time for them to unload, and did i say, most of it all by hand.

Ok, We jump a bit here but this is the tank trl. The yellow lines I have made are the tanks, and on top are the floor bits.

OK then lets get started but where have JOSH, BAM BAM and TC got to. Having a coffee, I bet.

OK off we go. Coffee drunk and work time at last. They have to unload the middle of the tlr tools and bits and bobs first, (bit obvious that bit), then they can start to unload the long pipes.

Pipes out now it's time for the floor to come out as you can see they slide out a frame which is fixed inside the top of the trl. (Clever really)

Looking into the trl as you can see its a hands on job, and the floor bits are long and very heavy. All of them have to come out of this trl, (the one we call the floor tlr as thats all it has in it.) As at this arena we can put down a full floor.

Ok here comes the hard part, as the floor boards are heavy.

The floor going down.

Ok the floor down and all pumping, waiting for the coolant to start pumping around from the pump tlr outside. Take note of the pipe in the bottom left of the photo.

And now look at the pipe, you can tell the coolant is doing its job as the pipe has gone white and there is water on the floor, so its freezing it up and this will go on for sometime until they have the right depth of ice. They use fire hoses to put the water down.

So thats all there is to it. Well there's a lot of hard work to get it there, it takes them about 7hrs to get it to the point of the water going in and its a 3 man job.

Ok; Shows done and dusted. In the next photo its taking the floor out. What they do is really deep freeze it on the Sunday night (After the last show) as we are doing load out so in the morning they can come in and basically drop heavy bars on it so it cracks like a mirror breaking up, and then its shovelled up into awaiting trucks (some arena's do it different) but basically its the same, the ice has to come off.

This next photo is of ice out, but in Milan as it show's it better. The ice on the floor is partly cleared away.

Here they do it with wheel barrows and a fork lift truck with a big bin on it. Thats the ice they are standing on and me on the floor after the ice has been removed. Thats all there is to it really, a piece of cake!!! and did I say in all this time I do nothing but move the truck about and drink coffee or make it for JOSH, BAMBAM AND TC.

This is what it all looks like when the show is waiting for the curtain to go up. All shows have a different front to them.

The next two photos are of the pumping trl.

Ok thats the ice "in" and "out" and then on to the next arena and it starts all over again, but if the next arena have there own ice floor like some of them do, they do it totally different.

Ok I have to get my finger out and do a full blogg to catch up to date. The season is almost over or it might be by the time the good looking one does her bit so all you lot can read it .

So till then keep it sunny side up. BE HAPPY in life and dont let the shit get to you.

NO 8

Hi all, little old me again. Ok left off with dropping one of the ice floor trl's in at Antwerpen and then headed south for Basel in Switzerland. The trip down was ok except for the weather in the ardenns; They never clear the roads in that area and we were driving on ice and snow, with just the cab, it's not to good a drive, so got to a place called Habay not far from the Luxembourg boarder and called it a night. The next day the main road was good but trying to get off the parking lot was a bit slippy. Got to Basel later that day.


This is us parked up at the arena in Basel.

Ok loaded out and then headed north with Marcel and Bernard. Got to Luxembourg and called it a night or a morning as it was early Monday morning. There was still alot of snow about.

The next photo's are the wrong way round. This first one is about 2hours up the road from Luxembourg, its north of Namur and the snow is getting better.

Photo no 4

Photo no 3


Photo no 2



Photo no 1.

This is what it was like when we started heading north. and so on with 2 3 and 4.


Cannot remember where i took this but snowing again; Maybe it was on the way south the first time but hey ho I have slept since then.


Ok me and Marcel dropped our trl's in Antwerpen and then headed back to Nr Basel on the Germany side of the border. There were 2 of the ice floor trl's there for us, so we picked them up and headed back up to Hassel in Belgium as that was where the show was going after Antwerpen.

This next photo is of us stopped at the Luxembourg/ Belgium border. I was having a lot of problems with warning lights coming on the dash, telling me this is not working that is not working and then the arlam was going off as I was driving with all the lights flashing and that, but it kept going, Anyway stopped and reset it and on my way again, or so I thought!!!!!! No it wasn't; It went off again, 3 times i had to reset it. In the end I said "what the fuck" and just drove with them flashing away, but within maybe 10ks it settled down and all was ok again. So off we jolly trot to Hassel.

This next one was after Marcel got going. Well, 6 wheeler with mid lift are no F...ing good in snow, but we got going in the end.

And we had more snow to deal with.

Heading into the Ardens.

Still in the Ardens. See the truck tyre marks, that was from an Italian truck and he was not hanging about. We were doing about 65/ 70ks as that was ice we were driving on and well, he was gone by the time I picked up the camera.

Look at the ice it's about 1 inch thick.

Ok dropped the trl's at Hassel and had a night out. The next day headed back to the yard in Rotterdam as my girl, (The Cab) was going into the workshop to try and sort out the problems I was getting with her. Had a couple of days off. Then into Antwerpen to move the show over to Hassel. I did one trl and back again as I was doing the ice out that night. Then I took the ice floors to Brussel's as that was the next city for the next show. Did the ice out as we call it. It means I move the tlr's when they are ready to load the ice floor away, (Pics to follow of ice out)then it was bed time. Had a long sleep as there was no rush to Brussel's as it is only about 120ks there and back and had all day to do it. Well did one then after getting back to Antwerpen I was having a break and I got a phone call to do the next one then head back to M.A.N in Rotterdam as they did not sort all the old girls problems out.

The next day bright and breezy into M.A.N by 07.30hrs. Rene was the guy to try and sort her out. I know him as we had worked together before the boss's sold the container side of the company sometime back.


Sorted some of the problems out then went looking for the air leak. So over went the cab and as I live in their, there was a lot of stuff to get out first. Shit....... I got some crap in my cab but hey ho where else can i keep it but with me..


This is Rene trying to find the leak with some listening thing on his head.

Their is some of my shit on the diesel tank. I think Rene is somewhere under the truck or taking another coffee.

That's the man there after finding the leak. It's in the gearbox, so the gearbox will have to come it out and send it to ZF for repair. As it only looses all it's air when it's parked up for more then 7hrs, we agreed to do the job when it goes in for its M.O.T later this year. That sounds good for me as I will take that week off.

Ok after coming out of M.A.N, I had her washed down and then headed over to Hassel for the night as the load out was for the next day. The snow in this photo came down in about 40mns.

Thats Leon's truck over there. He must have the clap or something parking so far away. (Only joking) he was asleep.

Did the move to Brussel's, and the load in. Then headed back to Hassel for the last ice floor trl which was going to Berlin.... where I am now.

Here are some photos of the old border crossing from West to East Germany.

Coming into the west side.

A closer look at it now, it's just a service station.

Here is the watchtower on the west side. In the background behind the trees are a lot of old military buildings.

You can just see some of them in this one.

There they are.

And some more i think these ones are on the East side.

This is like no mans land. All the trucks would of parked here waiting to do customs and all that stuff. Now its one big parking lot and service stations.

This is the watchtower on the East side. Don't know why but it looks better than the one on the West side for some reason.

Just driving in the snow but not like Belgium here in Germany there is no ice on the road as they grit it.The train bridge is over a frozen river. Sorry was not fast enough to get a better photo.

Looks like a German firm has stolen our name, will pass this on to the boss. Thats dirty snow stuck to the back doors. But then I thought.... hey boss you got another company???

Ok in the arena at Berlin. Thats looking towards the way out, and behind that wall on the left is a train line but higher up as this arena is built sunken into the ground. There isn't much to look at up top.

Ok this is me parked up. To my right is the trl, to my left, is the door into the arena. That's where the guards are, and also the shower room. I got power to the truck and as you can tell a bloody good internet connection as i've now got up to date with the blog. Well...it's Sunday night and in the morning I have to put the 2 trl's inside ready for the ice floor to be unloaded. I will manage to drive one in as there's room to turn around and the second one will have to be backed in then, because of the lack of room. The tlr with the pumping station stays outside, where i am parked at the moment. Will have to put the tank tlr next to the pumping station tlr; one of the ice floor trl's have a big tank in it which is the length of the trl and they stack some of the flooring on top. (Piccy's to follow in next post to explain this procedure)

After I have done the ice floor in, it's off up to a port, north of Berlin called Rostock and wait for the show trl's to come off the boat. Have been told I will do two trl's then have to go back to Brussel's and pick up another ice floor tlr and take that to Odense in Denmark as that's where this show is going after Berlin. But all i am doing is dropping it over at Odense and heading back to Berlin to help with the move on Monday. I have been told more what i am doing in the next couple of weeks but that WILL change so will have to wait and see what happens.

So till the next time; and i hope it won't be too long this time before the next blog as it has took me all afternoon to do both this one and No7. Now its time to talk to the good looking one, so keep it sunny side up and have a good one ........