Training begins Or; How to become humble in one easy lesson!

Right then…Humble Pie Day No.2 or: humility starts to taste pretty good!

To go along with my newfound ‘truckers walk’, I try to find my Stetson, Checked shirt, Lizard skin boots and sleevless puffa vest (Already got the RayBans on my person)…Realise I’m in ‘Blighty’ not Tennessee so, opt for jeans, polo shirt, workboots and my Hi-Viz…Off we go.

Arrive good and early again and spend 45 mins rehearsing ‘nightmare’ scenarios in my mind whilst slurping extra-strong coffee!!

Roger and Michael arrive…‘preflight complete’ and off to the airfield we go with Michael being ‘first up’ this morning. Reversing and sudden stop procedures once again almost perfect from both of us!! Well…if you discount the one minor ‘brain ■■■■’ where I started to pull forward from the initial set of cones, instead of backing up that is!! DOH!! Mind you, at least it was preceded by a perfect left mirror, right mirror, blindspot check…pull away…oops!! Only went about 12", so rather than panic and get flustered, I immediately forgave myself (I’m good at that according to SWMBO) and concentrated on making the rest almost inch and letter perfect!!

So far so good. Off to Suicide Gulch (hereinafter referred to as Norwich). Michael has a good first drive, no kerbs, no sudden evasive manouevres from oblivious oncoming drivers, good gearbox control, speed control etc. Biggest ‘gig’ was ‘need to use the mirrors more’. Overall, Roger is chuffed and I realise that sitting in the passenger seat, I am beginning to see things ahead of time - cool! (In aviation, we would say 'getting ahead of the aircraft LOL).

My turn…Oh Lord, here we go again…but, hold on a minute, what’s this? I realise that I am much more comfortable; seeing things that I had missed the day before and actually managing to ‘plan ahead’ a little! No worries with the gearbox, not even the range switch! Finally i am seeing more than just the suicidal pedestrians. I am even beginning to actually realise where I am in town and noticing lots of incidental stuff…look at her - nice ti…oh, ermmm, well, never mind. :blush: Anyway, after the first hour I am well chuffed and think I might actually learn to hack this after all.

Michael has another go; couple of minor niggles and one major gear change fluff. Not too bad at all. I was pretty relaxed when I was startled from my passenger seat reverie by Roger suddenly screaming, "WHAT THE **** ARE YOU DOIN’ YOU W*****!! WHERE THE **** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING?? I think to myself, "That’s a bit harsh! Don’t really need to talk to Mike that way!'…Only to realise that he is ‘talking’ to a Mondeo driver that has squeezed down the right side of the lorry at a junction where there is only one lane! Still; does he need to shout that loud?? LOL

My turn again and again, no major worries! Only one major concern, when Roger’s idea of ‘straight ahead at the next roundabout driver’ turned out to be not quite the same as mine. :open_mouth: It was one of those with about 6 exits all slightly offset from ‘normal’. …“Understandable mistake”, says Rog, “I should have been clearer with my instuction”. Cool!..Besides I rather enjoyed tooling around the little industrial estate!! LOL To be honest, I did wonder at the time why he wanted to go in there, but figured that there might be a ‘tricky little turn’ or something. LOL Oh, and there was! In fact, more than one. :blush:

Anyway; after a real ‘truckers lunch’ at a roadside van… in a real layby, hangin’ out with real ‘truckers’ :laughing: ,…two more sessions each. Overall things semm to be getting a lot easier and sitting watching somebody else Fu… ermmm… i mean mess up - really helps things sink in!

Back at the yard…debrief…“Well done lads. Comin’ together nicely. Good one today!”… 8’s, 9’s and wahay!, even a couple of 10’s on the training sheet! Chuffed or what!!

Drive home pretending to be in a 44 Tonner…(Red Scania with all the bling if you must know)…playing, “what would I do if” type games. Realise that folks don’t take nearly as much notice of my ‘signal and step out’ manouevre in my Citroen as they do when I do it in the truck!! LOL Ba****ds!!

Get home, happy as Larry! After a couple of hours, I realise that my Fiancee, Ruth has that glazed expression on her face. :open_mouth: “Am I boring you?”, I ask. “Weeeell, maybe just a teensy bit”, she diplomatically replies.

So then I got on here and started typing…