Hello, me again… 
Last Friday I got a call from the agency asking if I was available for work on Saturday, as they were rather short; I vaguely had something planned, but it wasn’t confirmed yet, so I couldn’t say yes or no.
Another phone call and 3 texts later, and I’ve got the message that they’re really desparate for drivers for some reason (which is a surprise, since they had nothing on the previous weekend).
Anyway, the other thing was cancelled, so I rang them up and told them that I was available, and they gave me a Kwik Save run.
[zb] I thought - lots of tiny city-centre stores with difficult reversing and loads of cars, pedestrians to get in the way and [zb] things up.
Anyway, I turn up at the base at my allotted start time of 0600, and get told to have a seat as the load isn’t ready yet. Surprise surprise.
In fact, not only is the trailer not loaded, but the goods which have to go on my trailer are still being trunked down, and they’re at least a couple of hours away. 
I give them a bit of a hand in the “warehouse” (which is actually a chiller pod with 3 loading bays) to load one of the other trailers, but as there’s only two electric pallet trucks and about 6 other drivers waiting around, there’s actually nothing I can really do to help, so I go and lie down.
My load finally arrives at 11:30 , and the drops are in Haverfordwest and Pembroke Dock. It’s not going to be a short shift, then…
I’ve got a well-worn 51-plate Volvo with a 3-over-3 gearbox with splitter (although I didn’t find the splitter until half way down the M4 
) The trailer is an ex-Tesco reefer - it’s still blue with “TESCO” lettering down the side. This is going to be interesting…
So, off down the road I trundle, over the bridge.
Approaching the toll booths which are primed and ready to extract £14.90 from the tag…
Going over the bridge itself:
And on to the other end of the M48 to join the M4, where I found the answer as to why the agency were so desparate for drivers on Saturday:
It’s the FA cup final in Cardiff, isn’t it? Doh.
The queue stretched from the Eastern side of Cardiff all the way beyond the Magor junction…
The tunnels at Newport:
Once I got through the tunnels it eased off a bit, but it wasn’t really free-flowing until I got to Cardiff. It took me half an hour to travel about 10 km, according to the tacho
As I was going down the M4 I remembered that I hadn’t checked the numberplate on the trailer - someone else had done all the hitching up, and I’d done the usual checks, but I forgot to make sure there was a numberplate on, so when I stopped for lunch at Swansea MSA I had a look, and sure enough, they’d put it on.
The Haverfordwest store was on the northern edge of town, in a large retail park, so to my surprise it was an absolute doddle to get in - just go straight into the yard, turn round, and reverse vaguely into the right area.
Two cages off down the tail-lift, and I’m off again. I check the atlas, and I decide to go over the A477 toll bridge, as I’m a bit concerned about running out of hours. I pay the £1.50 toll (something else to stick on the timesheet 
) and trundle on down into Pembroke Dock.
Again, to my surprise, it’s a reasonably large store with an accessible loading bay - you just have to drive straight towards the bay, turn right into the car park, then blindside reverse onto the bay so that you end up facing back out towards the road. On the first reversing attempt I realised I was running far too wide, so I pulled right forwards and let the two waiting cars go, and had another go, and it went straight in.
The fact that the car park only had about 10 cars in it when it could probably fit 200 helped quite a bit. I think it was partly down to the Kwik Save being directly over the road from an Aldi, which was directly over the road from an Asda, but probably mostly “FA Cup Effect”. I was still a bit surprised, as I presumed that the match would probably be over by then (since it was 17:30 by the time I left).
Anyway, after dropping off the rest of the load (about half a trailer full of pallets) and reloading with a few cages full of cardboard, I parked up on the bay (after asking the store, of course), and popped over the road to do some shopping in Asda 
On the way back down to the A40 along the A477 I got stuck behind a mobile crane which didn’t seem to want to do more than 30 mph, but eventually we got to a section of uphill dual carriageway, and I flew past
A bit further down the road, I was starting to hold up a bit of a queue of traffic, so I decided that I’d go right round the next roundabout (since there weren’t many suitable laybys to stop in), but there was a rather nasty looking RTA - there were so many emergency vehicles there that I thought I might not fit around the roundabout, but as I approached, they waved me through, and it was OK. I decided not to go all the way around as they might think it a bit rude…
So, back on the M4, nice easy run home, and then this happened:
[zb]ing FA Cup Final went to extra time and penalties, didn’t it?
This time it took me an hour to cover 10 km…
Whilst I was in the queue, there was a Tesco wagon in the offside lane who was waving to say “hello”; I didn’t quite have the heart to tell him that I was actually working for Kwik Save…
The number of hired limos stopped on the hard shoulder for their occupants to jump out and have a pee was unbelieveable; serves them right for drinking too much lager… 
I finally got back to base just after 9pm; the two guys waiting for me (and the other driver that was still out) filled me up with diesel whilst I did the paperwork; I then parked it up with one shunt and one GOAL on the reverse, and clocked off at 21:30.
As we were finishing off, one of the guys said that I didn’t have a numberplate on the back. I went back and checked, and sure enough, it wasn’t there. [zb] knows what happened to it, as it was definitely there at Swansea.
450 km covered, 15 1/2 hour shift (all but 45 minutes paid 
).
My first split shift 
I can feel it in my water Barnsley will get promoted this season ! Hopefully I will be there to witness it…
no but leeds are there this weekend any tickets available? contact me if u can get some good read keep them coming