The other Sunday i was fortuate enough to be invited high up unto the Lancashire hills to a place where they make skip trucks.
They shorten the new truck cab chassis and fit all the ancilliary gear on them.
Whilst there we get to play with some big boys toys. We get to take this
Out and about over this lot
Lots of stuff there to have a go in. Including a big newly imported yankee fire engine!
What a great day that was.
The next day i’m back in work and i had left my workboots in the yard and it had rained so they where soaking wet through. I was going to ring up and say i can’t go in as my boots are wet but thought better of it. They already think i’m cracked as it is. So with no other option i put my pumps on and i’m off to work.
My first job is up into Lancashire again, Bury. I can see the street i need on the map but all the streets leading down to it look to small so it was a big relief to see one of our drivers passing and he told me where to go. Turn left at the mini roundabout and its at the bottom.
I’m getting a bit nervous here so i get out and walk down.
I’m going to be here a few hours so i head off down the traditional rainswept streets with my pumps on, blue work trousers, and plastic hood sticking out of my bomber jacket looking like, well, someone who shouldn’t be out on their own !! Off to find some food.
Every other car is a taxi and there seems to be a continental food store on every corner.
Then i spot Hills on Rochdale road. I don’t think ■■■■ Flute has reviewed this eatierie but its first class grub and at £1.80 for a bacon and egg bap (which ran all down the front of my jacket) and a cuppa its great value.
Once i’m done and ready to leave its around the tight bend again
I found out later that a council official had been fotogaphing one of our drivers going around here and fotographing the damage to the kerbsides 
Now would you try to reverse this to get along side me?
Well i am actually at angle, there was a car parked infron of the white van when i did it so i couldn’t get a turn and when i got back near the doorway the guy put his thumbs up and said thats fine where it is.
Doesn’t stop this guy having a go though.
Eventually he gets a woman to move her car and i hear him say “sorry about that its just that he’s [me!] at an angle so i can’t get in”. Maybe i was at an angle , don’t know why he was apologising to her though. As he comes back i’m waiting for the mirror to go and i ain’t beeping!! If he hits it then i’ll be needing an ambulance to cart me out of their and check me over !! 
Bah ! he made it.
The next week i get a go on general haulage. How some of these places make any money i just don’t know.
Looks the biz hey?! The holders for both front poles are knackered, the ratchets don’t work. One side bar does not secure as a lad who grabbed it to jump on the back to handball found out! And the other side needs a forklift truck to push the bar out!
Armed with this great piece of kit i then get to go to no end of wrong addresses,companies with no names on them and do allsorts of jobs that are late and should of been picked up days ago !
Loading tomato sauce for heinz
Bitumen drums for Colas
And some wire coils in Sandbach
then set off for Galvanised Weldmesh Ltd in Burnley.
Wonder where i unload here?
Yep in the car park
I had a great time in the three hours i was there. I was able to get the bosses wife to ring up my company and report me for swearing at her in font of her children (which i never) and got the foreman to ask me not to speak to him like that (which i did!), thus going some small way to keeping up our good reputation as lorry drivers!! Best was yet to come…
Friday was a 7am start to go to Hereford. I get in and wait to get loaded. The unit needs oil in as its below the minimum.
i get some oil of the gaffer and i can’t find out where it goes so i get him to come and look.
‘it should of went in for service last night but we didn’t have time’ , he confirms its a cab over job to get oil in and we can’t figure out how to get the cab up so ring the rental company. They say they don’t want customers doing it so bring it in and they’ll top it up. So i load up for Hereford.
Ok, give me the address in Manchester to go and get the oil topped up. Just go as you are you don’t have time !! Ok, can i have the diesel card as it only about half a tank of derv? No, you’l be fine. So off to Hereford then !! Nice run down there and a brekki at this nice cafe on the A49 past Shrewbury.
Having no oil or fuel still doesn’t stop me doing a collection in North Wales on the way back. I thought i’d spotted The Bear
And on the subject of bears, i get talking to this driver. Who started to do his impressions of ‘Lions and Tigers and bears’ for me!
Get the lorry loaded up for Lutterworth in the morning and i’m the last one back in the depot and i have to open it up with my keys
Someone is going to be pleased when they get in it with no oil or fuel (it was on the red) and want to set off with it. Still, what do you expect from agency drivers !!!
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YAWN 