Wow what a day yesterday. I was told on Wednesday that I had a 7.5t drop down to Romsey on Thursday if I wanted to do it. Of course I jumped at the chance.
Got to the yard and was face to face with a 05 plate Renault Midlum 180 curtainsider. Oh crap. Never used curtains. Kind of knew what to do. It’s one thing knowing and another thing doing.
So anyway I was booked in for 15.30 and turned up for 15.00 to make a good impression. Also wasn’t sure if there was going to be lots of paperwork to do.
It turns out that the lorry was waiting to go out and I had no timer to lose. HAHAHAHA.
I get to the pick up point and am told the load is not ready until 16.30. Not too bad I thought as only an hour to wait. Parked it up and read a book. 16.30 comes around and I get told to open up the curtains. Hmmmm. I ask him if he would give me a hand with the first side and I will do the other side. 10 minutes later and we have it all done.
The loaders spend 1h 50 mins loading it up as they hadn’t quite worked out the dimensions right and had to jiggle the pallets and handball the rest.
So I am finally on my way at 18.19. Took me 2h 27 mins to get to the drop at Romsey. A shop refit where the gang had been waiting all day for the load. Of course I get it in the neck for it being late. I told them I can only do as I have been instructed. They were surprised it had taken 2 and a half hours from loading to get it there. After having a brief discussion about LGV speed limits and limiters, they saw my reasoning.
So anyway I am told that they need a hand offloading and that if I don’t help they won’t sign for delivery.
Great I thought. First day and a load of ■■■■ from the customer. I was parked on double yellows holding up a narrow street. So to speed things up I helped. It wasn’t till later that I realised I hadn’t put it on other work on the tacho. They also wanted me to move the lorry back in the middle of the unload so no counting this as my 45 
Anyway. I put the lorry back together and set off back to the depot. Stopped at 21.50 and took a full 45 mins.
I’d been given a barrier fob to open the barrier and told to shove it with the keys in an envelope and shove it through security office letterbox.
Got back to the yard at 01.28 this morning. Not a scratch on it.
It’s been a lovely day. Out on the open road. Scorching heat. (Weird not having an instructor or examiner next to you lol).
Just a bit worried about my Driving and WTD hours. It was on an analogue disc in CD drawer type machine so no printouts to check against. And deciphering the chart needs a degree by the looks of things.
I hope I have explained it well enough that someone in the know can tell me if I have completely ballsed it up.
I took the 45 mins where I thought would be the best time but because I did not set the tacho to other work when helping to load or unload it is showing as rest (bed symbol)
Also it was going into bed symbol every time I stopped so I assume I did not have to do anything other than just leave it when taking my 45.
I know these are all things I should have thought about at the time. The gaffer told me he wanted the lorry back in the yard tonight so felt bad about sleeping overnight and returning it in the morning after a daily rest. Probably wouldnt have been paid for the extra time either.
So not sure how I feel really. Glad that someone gave me a chance even with my license endorsement. Sat Nav made the run easy. Lovely weather. No traffic problems. A great first run. I am just sure I have overshot my hours. 
Dean
as it says rest but other work also states ready for other work or taking daily rest period ?
) had 3 drop on knew where they all were also had a sheet with several collections on although through out the day a few calls were made for a few more most was on by flt but some had to be hand balled on np for me as have done this many times before ( it did speed the job up as well was also to my benefit as did receive a large bag of minstrels at 1 collection 
