Hiya again guys/gals!
Thanks very much for all your nice comments! 
And all those people out there who havenât got their opportunity yet, keep at it and Iâm sure one day it will arrive for you. I am fortunate in where I live (just outside of Birmingham), which gives me more opportunities than a lot of you I think, but donât let that put you off. I found that when doing some researching, before being offered this position, there are far more transport companies out there than you realise! 
YAMBOL57:
⌠corrr i would be covering it up with a blanket and tucking it in at night reading it a story then giving it a good night Kiss
LOL! Nice one Roy. Hehe.
berk:
Did you feel so nerveus at your first driving without a hgv trainer?
It was mixed emotions really mate. I was obviously apprehensive and nervous, but at the same time I was also really looking forward to getting stuck into it! 
Good Luck with your job hunting matey. The key to it is not to give up. Keep going around and hassling all those TMâs in your area. Make yourself a pain in the â â â by constantly asking if any vacancy has turned up yet, and one day something will!
roadrunner:
Well done on getting a foot in the door mate, stick some more pics up when you get chance.
I will indeed try and get some more photos up mate!
Ok, well my first week as a fully fledged C+E driver was a very good, enjoyable an interesting one! Wait till you hear what happens later in the week! 
First of all I must say that I didnât get home till quite late on Friday night and didnât even attempt to go on my computer, then on Saturday after having some breakfast I headed over to my Momâs place to sort out her Sky tv for her. She used to have Sky tv in the lounge and was also able to watch (and control) Sky in her bedroom as well, but after my nephew had been in there fiddling with the back of the tv so he could use his Playstation, she could no longer get the Sky tv in her bedroom. So being the great Son I am 
I said I would go over and sort it out for her. After fixing my Momâs Sky tv for her and spending some time there with her, I again didnât get home till quite late, so once again I never went on my computer. But rest assured, Iâm here now and have a nice little story to bore you to deaâŚerr I mean to entertain you for a short while! Here goesâŚ
As you all know (if you read the beginning of this thread), on Monday I drove my very first C+E truck as a paid employee! It was a totally different truck to what I had used in my training, but wasnât very difficult to master. I only used this truck during the morning, and it was pulling a flat bed trailer. I also had a very experienced colleague with me who was very happy to let me do all the driving, as he hates that part of the job (mainly being the mechanic of the company as well as the spare driver). We only stayed local that morning then in the afternoon, he jumped into that truck I had been driving and I was given the keys to mine. I then followed him up to one of our regular customers in Risley, near Manchester. We actually got back to the yard in time for me to be able to go home (which I wasnât really prepared for, as I was told I would always be out Monday to Friday).
Tuesday morning was the real test, as that was my first day out on my very lonesome for the first time. Itâs not so much the driving the larger vehicle as everything else that goes with it that made me slightly apprehensive (but at the same time quite excited to be out on my own! ) My very first delivery was to a local company a few miles up the road in Redditch and I knew exactly where they were located so that was a great help for my first delivery.
This first delivery was a bit of a laugh though to be honest. I was told to deliver at 8am and I actually parked up right outside their entrance at about 7:45am. There was no sign of anyone, all doors were locked and the car park was totally empty! The entrance to their car park & yard had a slope to it and everywhere was still covered in about an inch of totally frozen solid mushy ice and snow, so I decided to stay outside the gate at the side of the road where I wasnât in the way of the traffic or anybody else. I waited until about 8:15am and there was still no sign of anyone, so I phoned up my boss who said to wait until 8:30am then phone him back again if nobody turns up by then. So, when 8:30am came and went and there was still no sign of anyone I called my boss again who said to wait a bit longer as he was going to try and get in touch with someone from the company. Then at just gone 9am I noticed somebody opening a side shutter door so I went up and asked them if they worked for this company and could take delivery of the forklift I had on board for them. He was indeed ready to accept the forklift, so I unloaded it onto the side of the road next to their entrance and let this chap try and get it up this slippery slope! He tried a few times to no avail. I even got an old blanket from the trailer and laid that on the slope in front of the forklift but despite it getting further than before, it still wouldnât make it to the top of the slope. 
The chap gave up, and decided to leave it parked outside the gate and went off to get a shovel and some rock salt to clear the slope. I got my paperwork signed first, then left him to it.
The rest of the my day went a lot smoother. I then made a delivery in Nuneaton before returning to the yard to get loaded again for another delivery to our regular customer in Risley again. After completing that, I made a collection a few miles up the road in Leigh before returning to the yard yet again for re-loading again all ready for tomorrowâs first delivery in Bristol. I then set off down the M5 until almost out of driving time, so I pulled into Michael Wood services for my first night out in my new truck.
So here we are in the middle of my first week on Wednesday February 8th and no major problems to report yet! I made my first delivery to another regular customer of ours in Bristol then headed off to my next delivery in Buckfastleigh, Devon. After that, it was into Cornwall and a delivery a few miles outside Newquay (Indian Queens) before making my way back up to Exeter where I had to make a collection from a Makro store where I had previously delivered to in another life! I remember my last delivery there with this other company I worked for at the time, was back in December 2010 during that really really cold snap the UK suffered from then. The store was totally unprepared and certainly didinât think they were going to get any deliveries that day, as they hadnât cleared any snow from their side road leading round to their yard at the back. I remember sitting in my truck, parked outside their gates on the side of the road drinking cups of tea for a few hours while they cleared a sort of path through the snow, which was about 8 to 10 inches deep! After collecting the pallet truck from Makro, Exeter I headed back to Bristol to meet up with a colleague who was bringing down another forklift to be transferred onto my trailer for me to deliver at Devenport docks in the morning. I parked up outside our usual customers place in Bristol (just off junction 16) and had to wait around for about an hour and a half, so I locked up the truck and went off for a walk to a local Aldi store and got a few things in. After my colleague and I had done the transfer, I set off down the M5 until running out of hours I pulled in to Sedgemoor services for the night.
Now I am into Thursday morning and I head off down the M5 then on to the A38 towards Devenport docks after getting my minimum 9 hours rest. I was within a few miles of my destination when I had a VOSA vehicle pull in front of me with flashing lights, displaying a sign, âVehicle checkâŚfollow meâŚâ Then it turned off the A38 and led me a few miles away to a testing station (called Agosta Fort) where they checked the truck and trailer. Now although the truck passed without any probs, the trailer didnât, and they made out a prohibition notice on it! I had obviously notified my boss that I was in the process of getting pulled by VOSA, but then I had to call him back with the bad news. It didnât sound too major a problem because it was only a slack adjuster that needed replacing and something else to do with the breaks on one of the other axles needed tightening up, so I didnât think I was going to be there that long. (How wrong I was! 
)
A local mechanic turned up but just could not source this particular slack adjuster until the following day! So, I was back on to the phone to my boss, who told me there isnât a lot I could do but just wait around. So I did! At this point they decided to arrange for another local company to meet up with me and take the forklift I had onboard & deliver it to the docks for me. However, when this other driver arrived, he couldnât take the forklift off because the ramp/door on my trailer now decided it didnât want to repond to any button pressing, and was totally dead!! I checked the leads again and again, swapped them around and nothing worked, so we just had to call it a day and he left empty handed. 
I then waited around until it got to the point when VOSA was closing the testing station. So they allowed me to uncouple the trailer, leave it there in the testing station and allowed me to drive off site to park up for the night somewhere, as there wasnât anything wrong with the truck itself. So, I ended up driving a few miles up the A38 and stopped at the Lee Mills truck stop. During my stay there, a colleague of mine was in the area so it was decided to get him to meet up with me in order for us to try my lead from my truck and see if it would move the ramp/door on his trailer. It did indeed, so that meant there was yet another fault on the trailer! We came up with the theory (mainly because there wasnât any problems before going into the VOSA testing station) that with all their bashing about underneath the trailer, they had dislodged a wire or something.
Friday morning I got up and went back to the VOSA testing station for 8:30am as I was expecting to meet up with this mechanic again and also the mechanic from our yard who was going to bring down the parts needed himself. I ended up waiting until about 2pm before the mechanic turned up followed 10 mins later by one of the brothers who owns Waldrons Transport. He is also a very experienced mechanic apparently. So, between them they got the trailer sorted and I went back through the testing station and it passed with flying colours! The problem with the ramp/door not coming down was indeed due to a wire that had come away from a junction underneath the trailer. Did the VOSA mechanic accidently do it? Anyway, all sorted, I set off to our yard with the intention of grabbing something to eat from the Lee Mills truck stop on the way. Unfortunately, I found out they shut earlier on a Friday, so I had to carry on and ended up grabbing something from Exeter services instead. Luckily, I had my bone-saw with me!!
So, there you go folks! The day in the life of a newly qualified C+E driver!
I am off up to Nottingham in the morning for my first delivery at 07:30am and should be ending up at a quarry in the middle of nowhere on the Scottish borders later in the dayâŚif all goes to plan that is!
Cheers!
you have a great day and enjoy .