Grab batteries and food where you can

I had a very long day filming today. I was in Stirling covering some meetings and presentations for Volunteer Development Scotland.

But two things happened which reminded of the need to plan ahead when on the road working:

I bought four 9v batteries (the ones which power my little JuicedLink pre-amp) from Asda in Dundee last night. I was on my way from Aberdeen to Fife, to stay with family and so I could get an early start to be in Stirling for 0830 this morning. They were on sale so I save quite a bit of cash! Good thinking.

Bad thinking: I didn’t grab a sandwich when my client suggested, but continued to set up ready for a presentation which was about to start any minute. As a result, I was starving by the end of the day, my belly rumbled throughout the presentation, and I had to stop off and pick up lunch at a road cafe on the way back to Aberdeen.

It was a judgment I had to make quickly, and I was left starving for the following three hours! That didn’t help me problem-solve when one of my wireless mics went on the blink in the crucial one-on-one interview at the end of the event. (I switched both off and went for the reliable handheld directional condenser. You can’t beat a cabled mic, really, you can’t.