Well today proved to be a rather a different day altogether to yesterday!
I was the shunter for the day, basically running up and down from Scunthorpe to Killingholme and Immingham along with the regular shunter giving advice and providing a laugh . . … now bearing in mind that yesterdays colleague only passed his test last week, although he’d been shunting in the yard for years - it was a surprise when I asked todays colleague how long he’d been driving for and he told me he learned in the Army in 1964; so he has some experience.
As we started the day he told me to drive how I wanted as I have a licence but he would give advice when I asked for it. This worked pretty well tbh as I wasn’t getting flustered by someone nagging and making things worse. Instead he just gave a belly laugh instead when I did a mistake like let the box slip into the lower range and got 4th instead of 6th or try to push into 4th when the engine was spinning at right speed for 5th 
Anyhow, the truck was an Iveco, a T reg euro something or another - with an almost identical box to the renault but a bit more precise in that it slotted home into each gear - having said that it did share the trait of stepping over upper and lower reaches when i didn’t realise. As the day went on it got easier though 
Also judging spaces became much easier too, in that judging if it was safe to pass a parked car when there was oncoming traffic became easier.
Also, as yesterday we did hardly any ‘close quarter’ driving (junctions with lights, junctions into side roads, mini roundabout parked cars school kids etc etc) today was a lot of this and I feel that my confidence has gone up by a lot and I learned more today about driving a lorry than in 2 or 3 days of lessons. For example today I drove with a 40 foot trailer and a 45 footer, and so learned about the front overhang as well as the rear overhang. We were mainly pulling stuff like Heinz tomato ketchup, and so learned the difference in pulling an empty flatbed and a loaded to the gunnels container on the same roads.
On top of this, as yesterday we didn’t do any uncoupling/coupling manouvers, today I did it on an artic for the first time - well as we did 4 return runs quite a few times It is actually easier than on the wagon and drag, though I had to learn about pressing the remote control pad to lift the suspension so the pin dont go over the top of the 5th wheel and how to place lens’ and lightbulbs/numberplate on the trailer (lens theft is endemic apparantly so we take em off when we swap trailers). Today I did the first proper artic reversing, ie come into yard swing round then reverse into a space. It was actually easier than I imagined, although still difficult when the trailer blocks the view in the mirror making you do another 2 shunts lol… 
As I mentioned, we did the dock runs, which were a bit of a messaround compared to normal; cus normally you pick up a loaded container from the same dock as you drop off, but cos of some unknown reason the shippers had sent the containers into the other dock - so we were unloading in Killingholme then going round to Immingham to get the next box. Of course this meant back to the Q each time so added a couple of hours to the day.
It was pretty cool driving the artic into the painted box, jumping out, undoing the twist locks (a handle u turn 45° one on each corner) , watching the huge crane machines drive round (like a gullivers forklift but with grabbers not forks) climbing the steps and giving the driver the paperwork, climbing down then standing to one side keeping in view of the driver as he pulled the container off then hopping in to drive off to the loading yard. Now then, if u aint seen a container being put onto a lorry before, it is impressive - when the crane dumps it on top of the truck it looks like the suspension on the lorry is gonna burst 
When we got back to the yard in the evening, my colleague hopped out and i parked it with no help at all so was well chuffed. I saw the boss spying, and he said he had spoken to Vic as I was parking and said he was well pleased with my progress So tomorrow, its the same again for more close quarters experience and docks procedures (paperwork paperwork paperwork), Thursday going down the road to wherever with another driver, then either Friday or Monday out on my own! 
Oh yeah, when I was turning right into a dual carriageway from a single carriageway I was keeping my eye on 2 girls stood in the central reservation making sure I didn’t run them over - and one of them waved and blew a kiss lol 
No lessons can prepare you for that hahaha
One word of advice I have for newbies is to take some good sunglasses, the winter sun is very strong and I was very glad of mine today as it meant I could see on the M180 . . . . I also have bought some plastic CD wallets from Partners, and they are proving to be ideal for keeping the used tachos in 
