Seeing as many people asked me to post again after doing my first weeks diary I thought I would do one for my second week.
Well it started out brill. A nice easy driver down to Maidstone, Kent with a low loader carrying the Globetrotter I was in last week. I’m in a brand new Daf XF demo truck for this week. I get down there without any issues and get the truck off loaded at our depot down there. I park up in their trailer park for the night. A couple of dvd’s later and sleep. Up at 6 to find THE SNOW!!!
I had to drop down to Sittingbourne to load 25t of concrete lintles for me to deliver to 11 sites as I’m heading back up north. I’m loaded and on my way but grind to a halt as I hit the A2/M25 junction. As some of you will know, It has been bedlam all week there due to the snow. I spent a total of 13.5hrs and only covered 67km. I managed to get parked up on some trading estate somewhere and got my head down, fresh start in the morning.
Up at 6 and off we go again. I managed to get 5 of my drops done and parked up about a mile away from my next one as they had closed for the day. Meatballs and smash for tea, a couple more dvd’s (I realy got to get a decent tv aeriel) and bed for me. 8 hours solid kip and away we go again. I get the last 6 done and I’m in the yard for half 7 last night. After all the snow I encountered around Kent, I came across very little on Weds and Thurs.
So, I’m in the yard for 9 this morning. I’m bobtailling over to Doncaster to collect a loaded curtain sider from Asda and head down to their Bedford RDC. I hooked up to the trailer no problem, connected the airlines and the electrics and then started to do my checks. No lights at all. I checked the connections and all seemed good. I checked the fuse board but found nothing. Luckly for me, another one of our guys was there at the same time so I gave him a shout and he came across to have a look. It took him all of about 5 seconds to find the fault. On the truck there is an A frame, all the airlines and electrics plug in at the top of this frame, half way down there are dummy plugs for stowing when bobtailling. What I had done was take the plugs from the top and plug them into the trailer. It all looked fine but the power was going to the empty top plugs. Doh! Rookie mistake and lesson learnt.
Steady drive down to Bedford where I have to reverse onto a bay for the first time ever. After a couple of shuffles I’m on and they start unloading the curtain sider. An hour later and I’m heading north. So all in all its been another good week. I learnt a lot about driving in the crappy snow and that I have to make sure I plug the correct lines in.
The Daf XF was not as nice to drive as the Globetrotter but its far nicer to ‘live’ in.
Laters
Gloria.
