day 1
tuesday morning , i got the bank holiday off for good behaviour 
, its a normal start , 2 hours after kicking off and im at the eurotunnel terminal , not sure why but the snack wagon there never seems to open now , oh well got my euro tax and money , i start going through and get pulled into the scanner again , seems every trip now the only difference this time is its the rolling scanner , that done and im soon on a train .
off at calais and north into belgium , the further north i go towards holland the worse the weather is getting , by the time i get to breda and onto the 27 for utrecht and ultimatley amsterdam its almost blizzard conditions
i get onto the ring at amsterdam round to the north then off and head into the centre , i eventually find the place
i load a vw golf that had a disagreement with a tram
once all loaded and back onto the ring its perfect timing for rush hour , i get to a services on the 27 south of utrecht for the night .
day 2
i set off dead early today , i gotta go to the federal maritime police car crime unit for the port of antwerp , their headquarters are in the centre of antwerp in an office block and they are only available between 0700 - 0800 and only that day , the centre of antwerp is a 3 and half ton weight limit so this could be fun . i get to within about 500 metres of the road and find somewhere to park , i even got time for a cuppa before i set off walking .
i parked just accross the road from this nice looking building
it takes about an hour for the police to prepare the papers , once done its back to the truck and i set off for a place called beveren where the car is in a recovery place
a handy colour coded map of the ind est , i want the green section .
i load a stolen recovered volvo xc90
all loaded and i start heading south for france coming through the border at lille a quick drive through lille and im on the a1 , down to the 26 and im off towards riems and onwards for the a5 and the 31 , i stay the night at aire chateauvillain.
day 3
i kick off at my usual time of 7 and head down to dijon and the 39 , once past bourg en bresse i split onto the 40 towards the blanc its starts to get white at nantua
i pull into a peage parking for a break , i cant quite make bonneville , ive not got that far to go for my next car , its at a ski resort called les carroz , looking at the tom tom its gonna be a bit hair raising
a quick stop in bonneville for fuel then i head off for it . off the autoroute onto a national then onto a d road for the climb , a few km up i come face to face with this sign
now i gotta find somewhere to turn around , they couldnt put that sign at the start of the climb 
i gotta reverse round a couple of bends before i can turn then a few more to get down to the bottom
at the bottom there is a recovery firm so i go in there and speak to them , they say no problem its 3 m because of overhanging cliffs , if you go on the wrong side of the road around blind hairpins its ok , my boss says not a chance so we pay for them to go up and get the car , ive gotta go with him .
now its about 7 km up to the car , we take off up this road like a racehorse going round these bens on both sides of the road , him saying me good driving no , me saying your right NO , he is grinning his head off while im getting a sweat on , i wanna wipe that grin off his face but to do that i gotta let go of the door handle and that aint gonna happen . at one point we force a car to swerve as we come winging round this bend and mansell sitting next to me has the nerve to start abusing them for being there . we reach the top and i get out my legs are rubbery , im in a terrible state . he backs up and winches the car on
i errr dont remember going back down , i err had my eyes shut . its paid for and onto my truck and i set off , back onto the 40 then onto the 41 for annecy and chambery , once round there its down and round grenoble and onto th n91
and the mountains again
i park on the side of the road in a village for the night
day 4
i set off on the 91 for a place called saint chaffres near to briancon and the italian border , 100 km is about to take me 3 hours or so
once i get there i load an audi tt quatro with a huge hole in the sump
back onto the 91 i go to briancon then get onto the 94 south for gap
then its onto the a51 for aix en provence and marseille.
i get to a place called bouc bel air south of aix en provence and find the garage
i load a maserati that someone trisd to nick
then onto the 8 then 7 i get to aire lancon for the night
day 5
i do just over half a card today going to nimes , montpellier , narbonne , toulouse , i get just north of toulouse for the weekend .
day 7
first job is to get up to bordeaux and onto the 10, that done i come off at jcn 35 on way to a village called saint savinien ,
i got caught going down this track , its a 3 ton limit but i was dodging a low bridge
i load a passat that had a bit of a head on
back onto the 10 at jcn 34 i crack on up to tours then onto the 28 ending up parking at le mans for the night
day 8
up and early im into caen in time for the morning boat and im back in the yard by 4pm ish for the end of another trip
Great pics. I think i was on Poole Santander boat with you earlier this year. Might be wrong thou. 
Good diary and great pics as usual.
could be mate i have been on that boat this year
Cracking stuf once again mateā¦
Best i get some batteries for my camera and do another oneā¦
Great read and pics!
I DO NOT envy you your ride up and down the mountain with āMansellā 
TC
Fantastic, and nerve-wracking stuff!
Great pics especially the mountains,nasty reverse you had there!
You certainly get about a bit on that job! 
AS all ways a fantastic read and excellent pictures as well.
great stuff, just wondering after the first 3 had been loaded they were all near the back end, is that for keeping the weight right? guess that must be a bit of a pain keep having to shuffle them forwards??
nice diary yet again - i was going to wind you up a week ago and mention the maserati - lucy had asked us about that and the passat but then found the others to make a decent job for you instead 
had you been drumming up some trade whilst out and about - plenty of photos of fresh wrecks there 
like my missus, never had an accident, seen bloody hundreds
looking forward to your next one buzzardboy , euromat the weight thing isnt too important , would take a fair bit to overload it , its more to do with the lenghth and height of the cars on and what else youve got to load , also for each car all i get is an adress and make of car etc i dont get told whats wrong with it so if i get a car that rolls and isnt a 4wd or auto i try and save it to lift and tow , that 1st passat was ideal , only an engine fire but as it turned out that other passat was ok for towing , there is nothing worse than getting to your last car and finding it wont tow and your only other one that does is over the cab or something . jj72 you were more than welcome to get that 1st passat , what a nightmare , and that maserati , i messed up with that one 
i put it behind the cab , nothing wrong with it apart from the drivers door lock , that audi tt in number 2 had a hole in the sump , i thought it was empty of oil , turns out it saved a little extra to dump all over the maserati , i had to wash the whole car when i got back 
Another excellent diary and pics as usual mad monk.
That āMansellā was almost certifiable.