I went on Wednesday and spent an enjoyable afternoon at the show.
I met Rikki and spent half an hour with him, chatting and generally putting the Transport world to rights, and also met Krankee on the stand (very briefly 
)
Well - I was one of the drivers charged with the mission of collecting the MAN/ERF vehicles we had delivered there last week. I managed to get there early, so had time to have a wander around. Wandered on over to the commercial vehicle stand and asked for Rikki, only to be told he had left! 
Was about 4pm on Thursday.
It was chaos collecting them - didnāt get finished till 9pm cos we had to wait for all the stands to come down etc. We kipped on the car park cos we had run out of hours. Interesting assignment though.
Deesider:
and also met Krankee on the stand (very briefly
I apologise. 
I meant to have a quick word with someone and come straight back.
I got distracted (in conversation). 
Iām begginning to wish Iād never gone. Iād dropped off the missus so that she could look around Solihull for a new āoutfitā. One of the daughters then met up with and āhelpedā her search one out.
She found one. Iām now Ā£200+ lighter on my credit card.
i made it there on thursday, as always at these trucking events i bumped into several people i know or have become friends with over the years.
i made a point of searching out rikki as soon as i got there but had to go back later because he had gone walkabout after that i feel sure he was stalking me as everytime i turned a corner he was there, perhaps it was protection.
it doesnāt much matter really because itās always a pleasure to meet up with rikki anyway - just a shame we couldnāt enjoy a beer but thats a definate no-no when you have to drive later.
there is one thing about the cv show - itās free to get into - Ā£8 is the car park fee and every where you go people are offering you things for free, pens, notepads, mousemats, magazines etc.
probably the best free items i got was the digital tacho paper reels from stoneridge as well as the very nice drivers leather folder/case after sitting through the digital tacho training seminar.
i also opened the safe at the dkv stand where i thought i had won first prize of 1000 litres of diesel but that went yesterday and i won a cap, a pen set and a folder bag.
the number was sent to my boss who didnāt attend because he was driving my truck for me.