I have been very Busy this year , it can take up to 6 weeks to get booked in at the moment .
Not many billiard fitters around and too many tables around that requires work makes this an all year problem .
It seems there is a shortage of fully qualified Billiard Fitters or Fitters with experience as firms have closed down the experience has died out with them .
or the fitters have had enough and gone into something else .
It does seem at the moment that GCL billiards is getting more than it’s fair share of the work out there , and that is why we are very busy all the time .
I do not know what it is but I seem to get more and more people with cue sports tables phoning up for booking GCL billiards in for work .
whether it is a pool or snooker table or a dismantle and transport .
And my current availability is now 2nd week of October .
Take this month for instance , Starting off on 1st of august at a snooker Club in Northampton for two days , then a local Nottingham 8ft table , and pool tables .
a 10ft snooker table dismantle and take down stairs and store , a day off to see accountant and sort out my books and also update my PC .
Pool table to install , pool table to re-cover , Full size re-cover , then over to Northampton again to stretch full size bed cloth and a pool table re-cover ,
Over to Gainsborough to recover a full size table and level , Beeston re-cover one full size service the other , Loughborough re-cover two pool tables ,
Eastwood re-cover pool tbale , 3 of my own rental tables require recovering one in Ripley one in Mansfield and one in Lincoln , then working in workshop on cushions and pockets ,
more own rental recovers , oh I get the Luxury of a Bank Holiday weekend thrown in if I am lucky , then dismantle an american pool table and wrap and Crate up to ship over to USA , more rental pool tables to re-cover , a pool table install , then London M25 to dismantle a full size load onto a clients van to ship out to South of France .
and that’s August finished with .
France , I have two job’s coming up in France , and unfortunate they cannot be done together due to work commitments and distance between the job’s
It take three days to carry out just one re-cover or one set up of table .
The fly out day leaving from Birmingham airport ( not my local doorstep East Midlands one as they do not fly to Toulouse ) , work on table 1st and 2nd day , 2nd Day finish off work on table , 3rd Day fly back and taxi back from Birmingham airport…. funny thing is the return flights to Toulouse cost just £102 but the taxis transfer return is £120 ?
My friends think I am off on some jolly when I work abroad , in honesty it take work away from me as wasted traveling time stuck in airports and taxi transfers .
and when you get there the clock is ticking to get the job done in time to catch the pre booked flight back .
Not to mention the problems of Tools and airplanes .
I am off to Toulouse to work on a table that has been flooded with water damage on September 19th 20th and 21st , this is an insurance quote that has been approved .
I have sent out a spare tool kit that the owner has bought and the cloth and other accessories will also go out , as arranged with the owner who lives in Devon but spends a bit of time in France too .
this means I can fly out and the job will take three of my working days up in September.
I have a another France trip planned around End of October beginning of September for a 2nd person , and again this will take up three of my working days , this time the table I dismantled in August just off the M25 in the UK will be set back up in southern France .
It may be possible that this 2nd person could for a small fee to the owner of the first table in Toulouse hire the tool kit I sent out for the first France job and return it to them .
Although I do take on these French and other European countries work , I now ask them to buy their own basic tool kit for billiard table fitting , as any future work in years to come they already have the fitting kit , all they need is a the fitter .
this makes traveling out by plane so much easier and stress free not having to pay for extra baggage weight or even send them out as freight as some tools are very heavy as can be seen in the below photo .
Happy days as a company , but it can be very stressful at times .
why do I keep dreaming of my next two week break in 2018 in Peurto Del Carmen Lanzerotte ,
I thought self employment you could take the odd week off here and there , but it seems I am more busy now than at anytime in my working life .
But rest assured I do like my work and I love being self employed pressure or no pressure , i know my job inside out and plan to work for a long time yet .
so GCL billiards will be around for few years yet before I retire .
