This week was a bitty one and apart from Friday, spent most of it sat about on my arse doing very little.
Monday 18 April got off to a good start though. Over to C T Glass at Knottingley to be loaded with 52 pallets 
of glass bottles for Brothers Drinks at Shepton Mallet down in Somerset.
It was meant to be a 1400hrs booking but I developed a puncture on my trailer at J13 on the A42, just after having stopped at the burger bar opposite Tescoās for my breakfast. 
This was at 1145 by the way. At 1520, ATS finally turned up and fixed it for me.
āYouāll be able to make Shepton Mallet for 1730 wonāt you?ā, says chaos-control.
2hrs 10 mins from Ashby-de-la-Zouch all the way down the M5, through Bristol and down the A37 ? Yeah okay, whatever.
Another āunfortunateā like myself awaiting a replacement tyre. I wonder how much the police were charging for their, ahem, āservicesā 
Oops! : (A37 bottom side of Bristol)
I arrived Shepton Mallet for the first time at 1900 and after a quick look round for somewhere to park, discovered the townās main car park which is open for truck parking of a night time at a cost of Ā£6.20. A regular Bale driver from Exeter told me they park there all the time and no-one ever comes round to check tickets or anything so on that note I didnāt bother paying and instead had a natter to the driver like you do.
Soon after, a Murray Hogg driver appeared to join in in the fun and we decided to take to the town and sample the local ales.
Tuesday 19 March dawned bright and sunny and before setting off I went to use the toilets at the side of the car park. Iāve never seen anything like it in my life and would have taken some pics of them if Iād had the guts to do it with folks walking about watching me 
. These bogs are security controlled and are automatically locked and opened after a certain time. They have a traffic light system on the outside to tell you whether theyāre engaged or not, or even out of order I guess. I goes in to do my business and a well-spoken female starts talking to me welcoming me to the townās toilet facilities . With that, I was then introduced to some classical music and informed that my time inside would be monitored and when my time was up I would be asked to leave . All rather shocking and amusing at the same time. Fortunately I was able to finish my ābusinessā before being ejected thankfully 
.
I did the 200 yard trip from where I was parked round to Brothers Drinks and presented them with the notes. I was promptly told that because I was a day late that they didnāt have space to tip me and theyād be sending it back. I think they were trying to get a reaction out of me but their faces soon donned a blank look when I merely said āokay, no problem, t-raā.
They then decided that they might be able to tip me after all but Iād have to wait a while. Sure enough, 30 mins later I was sent round to their other warehouse opposite Tesco on the other side of the town and was tipped off there.
Chaos-control couldnāt get me a back load this time so I was told to run up to Stone Market on the outskirts of Coventry for a load for Failsworth in Manchester for 0830 Wednesday.
RAC Call Centre at Bristol on the M4/M5 junction - at least when you have to phone these folks up you wonāt be speaking to someone in Indiaā¦
Got my load on at Stone Market in no time at all and met up with one of our other Leeds driverās who said heās had enough of the place (Archboldās) and is handing his notice in this Friday (after 5 years service).
Straight up the M6 and a quick stop at Knutsford to use the toilets. Managed to get a sneaky pic of a Willi Betz Actros on Bulgarian plates for our resident Betz fan 
:
Pulled off the M60 at Bredbury and parked up just up the road from the McDonaldās which a lot of other truckers do. I got talking to a trucker from another company and after finding out about the job and since speaking to the gaffer of the company Iām in process of going to work for him soon. All will be revealed in time .
Wednesday 20 March saw me having another lie-in until 0800 and then I was on my way through Ashton-under-Lyme for Daisy ā ā ā ā Garden Centre. A bit tricky to find but I managed okay. I like these kind of drops .
From there I went up to our Birch depot to get a telling off from my gaffer for not filling in the WTD sheet properly 
. I pointed out to him in a diplomatic fashion that the sheet was a whole load of 
and a complete waste of my time and theirs.
For example, apart from the driver, who is going to know that the 3 hours of POA Iāve put down is actually POA and I havenāt been in the back of the trailer for the same amount of time sweating my off unloading a Mamaās & Papaās load. We agreed to disagree and I reluctantly agreed to āsee what I could doā regarding filling the paperwork in properly. I do now fill it in, especially with my new mental ārandom number generatorā I have found 
.
From there I went to Trafford Park for a load from (something) Foods over to Stobardās at Sherburn-in-Elmet but they couldnāt organise a -up in a brewery and after a long while chaos-control pulled me out. From there I was sent empty over to Mamaās & Papaās for a load for Asda Normanton for 1600. Considering it was 1430 now where I was at Trafford Park and needed to get it loaded on my trailer too, there was not much hope of getting to Asda for 1600.
Needless to say, it was 1550 when I left Huddersfield and after being messed about at Asda and pointed at Hi-Way Express instead, I arrived there at 1645 only to be told that all the FLT drivers go home at 1600. So why was it booked in for 1600 then . Dozy fools. 
White Cross pub & A62 left to right, with Mamaās & Papaās behind me, close to where I live :
After a short wait chaos-control told me to come back to the yard with it and it had been re-booked between 0900-1000 Thursday morning so leave it coupled up and you take it they said.
Thursday 21 March saw another nice late start (from home) and I arrived back over at Hi-Way Express at 0940 and went and booked in.
āNot booked in on my sheetā, says security.
Back to the wagon to tell chaos-control.
āYes it is, you need to quote so-and-soās nameā.
Back to security.
āRight okay, I need to confirm it with the supervisorā.
Supervisor comes over : ānope I havenāt authorised that, take it backā.
Back to the wagon and they said to go back and say so-and-so said so-and-so etc etc, which was precisely the moment I flipped and told them that I wasnāt acting as a messenger and for them to sort it out between themselves. Two hours later it was (allegedly) all sorted out and now they would tip me so I pulled up to the gate and went back in and saw this supervisor bloke again.
āSo-and-so said that this has now been authorised with you and itās okay to tipā.
āNope, I know nothing about it, I havenāt spoken to anyoneā¦ā etc etcā¦
Oh you all then you bunch of .
Phoned chaos-control back up and informed them Iād had enough of it all and was going over to Whitwood for my breakfast and after Iād had that Iād be bringing the load back to the yard. It was Dave I spoke to and heās a good lad so there was no problem with that.
A few pics at Whitwood through my screen :
Back to the yard to drop it off and then Alan says to me heās got a āniceā 3 drops down south for me. The āniceā 3 drops turned out to all be Mamaās & Papaās stores, one in Watford, second in Staines, third in Basingstoke, all hand ball . Picked it up and got on my way after pics of two of our subbies motors :
Nice 03-reg XF530 SSC operated by an owner-driver on European work, but looks like heās had a slight altercation with something on his offside :
Straight down the M1 and across the A57 to join up with the A1. This is the A57 believe it or not 
:
Very nice!
Unusual to see a non-Volvo FL6 or Dennis fire truck these days.
Iād forgotten about the road-works and contraflow north of Newark 
:
Any ideas 
:
As usual I stopped at Baldock services to make use of the ultra-clean showers and also do some food shopping as stuff is so cheap there then continued into London and parked up at that side of Kodakās factory once again, in Harrow.
Friday 22 March saw yet another late start and I arrived at my first drop in Watford just after 0830. 291 hand ball items, many at 25kg+ each and I was absolutely knackered by the time Iād finished hauling them all to the back of the trailer . Donāt need this on a Friday! Away from there at 1100 and a short run round to J13 on the M1 for Staines where I was relieved of 91 items and then faced with a nightmare trying to get turned round. As bloody usual there was a car parked slap-bang in the middle of the area I wanted to blind-side screw the trailer in to so I summoned a passer-by to assist, just needing him to stay in view of both my driverās mirror and also the car to make sure the trailer swing didnāt catch it. Made my thanks to him for his valuable assistance and I was soon on my way again, this time on to the M3 for Basingstoke.
Had some trouble trying to find the way in to the place as I wasnāt aware it was an underground delivery but found it at last, round the far side of the building in relation to where you come off the M3. I was blessed with a nice clear area to spin round in and reverse where my last 67 items were hand balled off :
Quite pleased with myself that Iād managed to get all these off by 1400 on a Friday I phoned chaos-control for my back-load details from Basingstoke.
āOver to Ford at SOUTHAMPTON and youāre loading 30 FLCās for Woodhead Spring in Leeds for Mondayā.
āSOUTHAMPTONā ā ?. Youāre winding me up, right?ā
Anyway, they werenāt, and I was close to telling them where to stick their Southampton back-load when I found myself biting my tongueā¦
However, I did instantly make a call to this other place Iām looking at going to to see when I can start but alas, he hasnāt been able to hire a motor for me yet, moreās the pity.
Fortunately, Southampton Ford isnāt as far as it looks on the map, strangely, and I was there in less than an hour, straight into the booking-in area :
After a 5 minute wait I was sent round to load and the FLT guy is pretty good down here and had my 5 lifts on in no time at all.
Itās a bit tight getting around the place though :
Sat on the loading pad, with the M27 motorway directly over that fence to my right, with Southampton airport just the other side of the motorway :
I looked at my timer and saw that I had 7 hours driving left on a 10hr drive so I had plenty of time to get back home if I wanted to. I decided to take advantage of the night-out money and Ā£40 running in money for Saturday so wanted to get as close to the yard as possible but not too close to be taking the urine
Sally Traffic was reported major hold-upās on the A34 from Oxford to M40 but unfortunately I was already stuck in it by then so no good to me.
About half a mile from Botley (50mph limit bit) :
When I used to do reefers for Featherstoneās it was often late in the evening/night and to break up the journey Iād often go along the B430 through Middleton Stoney instead of that short stretch of M40. I thought Iād be clever and cut out the queue up the A34 to the M40 but going this way. All was going well until I got about half a mile away from the lights in Middleton Stoney village and we came to a grinding halt where EVERYONE wanted to bloody well turn right at the lights, thus holding up all those who wanted to go straight across. I nearly shoved a car out of my way when the driver just there for the non-existant traffic coming the other way because they didnāt have the confidence to go for a huge gap in the traffic. Hell I could have got my artic across and my 2 artic mates behind if so desired. Bloody car drivers .
Soon got up to Northampton and on to the M1 where it was clear as a whistle all the way to where I pulled off to park up for the night (remaining undisclosed 
). Saw a nice wide load on the M1 going the other way :
With having been delayed so long in the queue on the A34 I needed a break by Woodall services so I pulled in there and got a shot of this gorgeous Italian XF480 SSC 4-legger pulling an equally stunning silver reefer. Yes please!! :
Saturday 23 April saw me running 20 minutes up the road in to the yard and finished for the week.
For Monday I heard mention of a Dunnington near York to tip.
I am unable to access those pics because i have never updated my Windows 98.
(To train you for when you do need to put the seat down!):lol: