Yesterday evening I was parked up for the night in a MSA not far out of Leeds. Gave Neil a bell as he lives quite close by and he said he'd come over for a beer and a chinwag with me in my truck.
He hasn't long been living in this new location as some of you will know, and as I had the relevant Yorkshire map book with me with all the streets and roads in it I gave him explicit instructions on how to get there, telling him which streets to walk down so he'd enter the service area via the non motorway access which the staff who work there use.
He said it was only about threequarters of a mile away so he'd be there in about 15 minutes or so.
After I put the phone down I looked at the map again and reckoned it was more like a 2 mile walk so didn't expect him for about 40 minutes and went in to get something to eat.
When I went in the main entrance I was somewhat surprised to see a police officer standing in the concourse in S.W.A.T type gear with a bullet proof vest and carrying a sub machine gun! :shock: :shock: :shock:
Uh oh! I thought; they must know something I dont
but this being close to Leeds maybe this has become a normal everyday sight in these parts in recent weeks :undecided: When I'd got back to my truck Neil arrived shortly after and we spent an hour or so catching up and having a beer. :cheers:
It turned out the muppet, bless him, had walked about two and a half miles across fields to get there and had clambered through the hedge which borders the service area and the truck park! So far so good, at least he'd arrived.
Later, about 2 or 3 minutes after he'd left to walk back home (and I'd shown him the way to go on the map) there was a lot of urgent sounding conversation and conferring going on just outside my truck, and I could hear someone saying "there was a bloke wandering around amongst the trucks looking very suspicious............." etc, etc., so I opened the curtain and wound the window down fully to see two security men looking very agitated, and one of them talking into a 2-way radio in urgent tones.
"Excuse me" I said "but I think you were talking about my mate who lives in the town over there and just popped over to have a beer and a chat with me in my truck?"
End of story, really. I retired to bed and they went off satisfied that all seemed to be in order and no doubt somewhat relieved that a major terrorist incident had not materialised.
I'm still wondering why armed police were there though :dunno: and I know Neil got home safely 'cos I spoke to him this morning! :P
:lol: :lol: :lol: 
:? :? :? 
ops:
:x :x 
:lol: