The Grey Man

Grey men in the days of racing were the teams that didnt do enough maintenance, thier vehicles started to have problems, they then could complete stages fast enough and they spiralled into an almost zombie state of exhaustion and that and the dust gave them a characteristic grey hue. The grey men were inevitably and imminently going to have an undesirable end to their tour.

Grey men in the corporate rat world are the ones who come to work, go home at the end of the day and attract zero attention (good or bad) for their efforts.

Stay with me, the point will eventually be made.

Yesterday ended as it began, in the dark and almost 24 hours after it started, I need to get better at detecting when my battery is flat as I can’t remember the few Kms and I woke up still attached to the steering wheel on the slip road to a truck stop. Grey man – bad

Border crossings are a subtle game of assertion and feigned fidelity to the person in charge as they have the power to make your day very unpleasant. Grey man – good.

I missed a stop sign at the Polish side of the border, was made to reverse 100 metres and wait for a couple of 20 seconds while guard started at me and then told to drive to where I had stopped in the first place. It took 3 hours from that point for Polish customs to process an empty truck from that point… hey ho.

I’d taken a full load to a staging depot to be relayed forward to a school in Kyiv including a massive haul of kit from the Finnish gods who amongst other miracles drove a profoundly autistic child and his family flat out to Finland to minimize his stress – boys (and girl) you are legends!!

I met a great crew of volunteers trying to balance work, family, war, a new found logistics sideline and hunting and disproving Russian propaganda online – we swapped molotov recipes over some fried eggs, as beer is unavailable in thier region I need to remember to drop them a case next time, they properly deserve a pint.

So I didn’t get a chance to take many pics, the 12 volt supply broke so charging my phone/navigation is a bit of a challenge.

Heading now for Warsaw to get kit for small beans courtesy of two cigar smoking, scotch swilling superman in the States