Started this morning at 8.30 am, with my instructor stuart an old hand with over 40 years uk and euro experience and long term instructor who retires next april so he tells me.
Anyway stu shows me round my steed for the next 3.5 days straight in the deep end Volvo FH13 440 , 3 over 3 gearbox with splitter, this thing is like the starship enterprise , features include hill hold, cruise control, retarder and exhaust brake , all of which were shown to me and most not required on training or test, i was taken for a demo drive for 20 mins so i could observe the set - up and road positioning for turns etc. When it was my turn i kept fluffing the gears as the assessment was with their other older FM 12 , 4 over 4 so the gearbox was slightly different, my steering angles were a little out being used to the rigid and found it hard to differentiate between small, medium and large roundabouts , I was guided through several possible test routes including narrow back country lanes to a narrow busy town centre with a sharp/tight LH filter lane barely wide enough for a 4x4, i steered toward the RH railings as tight as i dare then gently locked the unit over to the left and just kissed the kerb slightly with no jarring of the vehicle, i was told it was a good first effort though.
After lunch, Reversing, again stu showed me twice, what was required, we swapped over," full right lock straight away, wait till you see the landing leg on the LHS then opposite lock, run along parallel 2ft from yellow line then steer front tyre parallel and as close to the yellow line as possible to angle the trailer past the center pole then gentle opposite lock to straighten back up " sounds easy but every attempt had a slightly different out come, got it in the box 2-3 times then another 2-3 times requiring a nice long shunt, thats a work in progress as they say, another quick run out, then return to yard for uncouple re-couple exercise more steps involved than i imagined but with stu coaching me, as always made it look easy need to practice this more so i do not miss steps out, trailer plate on and off for example.
Overall i need to get the gearshifting second nature and not looking at the stick diagram to work out which gear i’m in , was it 3rd or 4th ? scenario, whilst letting the steering wheel turn an inch accidently ,not looking while the trailer drifts a couple of feet into the next lane. 
… Also more practise to get the turning position correct. I am absolutely drained to be honest, so much to take onboard in 3.5 days.
Below, probably the smartest training vehicle i have ever seen and used.
, so fearing the worst… i then heard the magic words…etc
CONGRATULATIONS on passing your LGV “C+E” test 
