Surveillance. It aint sexy! Certainly not in a one donkey town.

We have recently moved in to the field of surveillance and will soon be expanding our undercover (UC) work. All of this is very exciting until one becomes familiar with the need to sit motionless for hours and the cost of buying the best kit.

To be honest the surveillance side of things is not really my favourite thing to do, I’m the wrong personality type I am however blessed with a colleague that seems to love it! Give me UC work anytime.

Whilst I may not actively enjoy sitting in a vehicle watching absolutely nothing happen half a kilometer away, it is however something that clients have a need for. So we packed up cams, comms, a longlife maritime battery, an inverter, a stack of mints and provisions.

It’s not easy you know. Sitting there writing up the surveillance notes having a coffee and then “movement movement movement” and we’re off! Then its cut throughs, parallel roads and we catch up with the target dealing with pedestrians who have no fear of jaywalking, traffic lights that conspire against us, street dogs, beggars approaching us and all manner of other inconveniences.

An afternoon of total concentration, following by car and foot trying to get photos and video without seeming to conspicuous all the time hoping that you cams are getting the pictures framed properly.

Back at the primary surveillance position everything is written up while others watch the target address and you’re off again! This goes on ad nauseam until at the end of the day you drag your tired weary bones and addled mind out of the vehicle to seek some form of refreshment in a one donkey town at the back end of the back of beyond.

Even then it’s no walk in the park. Everyone knows everyone and each has probably owned or at least borrowed that damned donkey from one another through the years. You’re a stranger in a tiny place so everyone has an interest in you. You can’t talk openly and even though off duty a part of you stays lit up for possible problem.

After days of this you notice an ache in a previously untroublesome area of your back, you crave your sofa and some mindless TV program, and just want top get home. Sadly it’s almost a day’s drive home but you get there in the end and feel that you really don’t want to sit in a car seat for at least a month.

So to any rural surveillance people out there that read this I salute you!

Having said my bit and whining and grizzling through the pest part of a page we will be out there again sometime soon.