Greetings fellow (and felowesses! 
) TNUKers!
What follows is a little (I say “little” but it actually rambles on. And on. And on…) diary with piccies of my little junket up to Scotland in a 12 tonner. Hope you enjoy! 
Starting yesterday (Thursday the 6th August) morning at 0800, having loaded up the evening before:
Right, sat-nav’s ready; Homer Simpson is my vocal guide for the journey…
My driver’s mate is ready too. He’s called Malcolm…
Not quite ready to get on my merry way yet though; there’s the small matter of topping up the fuel tank…
And, of course, it’s not just the lorry that gets hungry. I decide a snack attack is in order for the journey, alongside everything I brought with me. Those roast chicken crisps weren’t as good as I remember them from years yonder. 
Right then, enough of this arsing about with crisps and pop, let’s get going! Well, my old mate the red light likes to say hello first, of course, on Tinsley Roundabout, on my way to the M1 Northbound, ready to go on the lower deck of the viaduct…
Next roundabout now, just before the motorway. Oh look, red light again. Honestly, I’m sure I have a sensor within me somewhere that triggers the things to red…
A few hours later it goes to green and off I go. No piccies whilst in motion (I really have to get a hands-free camera rig set-up. I’m getting an X-Drive kit soon though. )
Anyway, the next pic is after I come off the A1, getting onto the A66 at Scotch Corner. Look what we have here then: lights on red. Again. 
Again, no more pics until I stop. I do stop though at 1209 at Annandale Water Services on the A74(M). I’d only driven around 3 hours 50 minutes but fancied a break, so here I stopped…
My wagon lorry truck is parked and I set off to the services building…
Nice view to my right…
Fourteen hours after setting off from the lorry park, I get near to the main building. Good God, did they have to situate the two so far apart?!
Still on my trog, I spy this. Oddest looking cash machine I’ve ever seen. Looks like a bin to me. Or maybe it’s hidden in the greenery behind. Who’s to say?
LOL, I don’t think so! Miles to walk from parking to building and that lorry park was very desolate. I’d sooner park overnight in a lion enclosure…
I mill around for a while, visit the toilets, gearing myself up for the trek back to the lorry; I pay several thousand pounds for a coffee at Costa and get some reading material and I set off back to the wagon. Seriously, the services building’s in Lockerbie and the lorry park’s in Inverness. Seems that way, anyway!
I decide to stop on the grassy hillside and admire the view. Here’s my exorbitantly priced coffee and my magazines…
Off I go again and I get to my destination in Glasgow at around 1435 after negotiating the M8, which I’m not a huge fan of. 
Here’s me ready to be tipped. Apologies for the dreadful pic quality…
I go to the toilet and return to see I’ve been de-carpeted…
Off for a coffee now (free this time; no coffee the same price as a palace here!) and upon my return, the forky’s worked his magic and my vehicle is thus…
^^^ There seems to be a Heavenly spotlight on a piece of broken pallet though.
Right then; I tootle off to fill up before heading to Sanquhar…
I get there, open a curtain and the forky loads me. Not hugely unbalanced so I leave it as it is and set off back…
The following shots are from this road on my way out of Sanquhar…
I’ve never been on it before; the B740. I went in this way too and goodness me, what a road! I love it! Nice and winding and a lot to watch out for, especially sheep who just wander around as they please. Here I’ve stopped to let some amble by on my way in…
More scenery shots now…
At one point when I was on my way out of Sanquhar on that road I was merrily bimbling along, enjoying the run and scenery when all of a bloody sudden and without any warning at all, a sodding fighter jet hurtled from behind a hill and flew off behind me. It wasn’t the sight of it that caught me by surprise, although that didn’t help, but it was the noise. When I’m near airports or where I know there’s an airfield about it doesn’t bother me, but it was quiet and idyllic with just a CD playing and then the whole world is filled with the loudest noise. I nearly jumped through the cab rood and almost had the wagon on its side. That’s a “well boss…” call I didn’t want to have to make!
I got to Sanquhar about 1700 or so. Left about 1715 or so and started to head for a break somewhere before my next lot of 4.5 hours driving is up. I made it as far as Annandale Water Services again maybe an hour or so later. Took a while to decide what to eat but in the end I decided on the steak burger with bacon. MSA food, as I’m sure we’re all aware is usually about as tasty as the five month old Jaffa Cake found behind the passenger seat of the lorry. Especially anything shovelled up by Roadchef. BUT, this was actually quite tasty. It was paid for by work as well. It took an absolute age to arrive though!
Right then, now the difficult part. Despite frequent overnighters, we only have day cabs. It’s a sodding annoyance. So, after waiting forever for my food to arrive and, being the slow eater I am, taking nine hours or so (slight exaggeration, I know!) to eat it, time is kicking on and I need to get a hotel room. I forget now what time I got back in the wagon but it would have been about 1920 or so, after the longest walk back to the lorry. It’s an approximation although I did write all my timings down in my diary I keep in the lorry. I still have driving time left so I decide to press on. Hopefully I’ll make it down to Southwaite Services. I phone the hotel there. No dice. They have no rooms. Well, they do but they’re fully booked. Balls in a field. I spend the next half an hour or so ringing round various hotels speaking to the most unhelpful staff imaginable before finally getting a room booked at the Premier Inn just off J44 of the M6. We’re in business; I have to get out of here though because any longer and I’ll have to pay for parking. Knobs to that.
I do apologise to the driver who approached me and asked for an English daily newspaper while I was in the midst of my hotel palarva. I only had a Scottish local one and you politely declined. I apologise though for looking like a paranoid loony. I didn’t see you approach and only saw you the last second; you tried my door for a chat, which, if I’d seen you get out of your lorry first, wouldn’t have been a problem. Now, I always, always lock my doors when I’m stationary or in slow moving traffic, so when you found it locked and I sheepishly put the window down, you must have thought I was on the paranoid side. Well, tha can’t be too careful these days!
I get going again, giving my new, paper-requesting mate a cheery wave as I see him in his wagon as I pass and off I set towards Carlisle. It’s a pleasant run down and keeps me well within my ten hours. I get there about 2030 or so. The overspill car park in this Premier Inn is huge and there are a few other rigids here. Here’s the roundabout sign bang next to the hotel…
Here’s few furry critters near where I parked:
I’m knackered by this point so my camera work is far from steady. I can only apologise.
I check-in, cursing my lack of a sleeper cab and get into my room. When I open the door I half expect Lenny Henry to pounce out at me wielding a yellow rubber duck. He doesn’t. Cue a very relieved trucker. That’d be the last thing I need. Room pics:
Just a single room, please. There’s only me there, unfortunately. sigh I was greeted by this though upon my arrival:
More sleeping spaces than I could possibly need!
Setting my lappy up… In the end it wouldn’t connect to the 'net so I used my netbook anyway though the connection was sooooo slow on my mobile broadband that doing anything was bordering on nightmarious. 
Thank God: I HATE being warm! …
Sun arise in the morning: the view from my room window this morning. That’s not my wagon you see there, by the way. Mine’s in a coach space out of view. I’m a bad mester.
I make a coffee this morning then use the other three sticks of coffee to fill my flask for the day. I’m very much a bad mester.
Out of the hotel now then, still cursing the lack of a sleeper cab. I do my daily checks and get ready to leave and head back to base. I get the sat nav set up…
And off I go again! I’m making good time and decide on an early dinner; it’s just gone 11ish and I decide to stop at Woolley Edge services on my way back down the M1. I go to the nearest bin to dispose of accumulated junk and a bottle of trucker’s juice and find someone’s had enough of a disintegrating road atlas…
Over to the services buolding now, which is just across the way and not twenty miles down the road like Annadale Water! On my way across I saw this. I’d have gone in for a closer look but the gentlemen by the bike were bigger than me and looked tough so I didn’t want to walk up to them and start snapping away.
Right, I’m hungry now and have a look at the menu. The only thing I fancy is the ‘American’ chicken and chips. How do they know it was American?! Anyway, I take out a huge loan for the food and drink. I need it!
The chips were a bit underdone but the chicken was quite nice and the coleslaw wasn’t bad either.
The bucket of coffee I bought though looked like it had a litre of Castrol in it; maybe that’s what the table advertising’s in aid of?!
AARRGGHH!!! …
Back into the wagon now, with my ‘American’ chicken and Castrol GTX… erm, I mean coffee devoured and my tacho tells me break time’s over…
Another uneventful run down the M1 until I hit the Tinsley roundabout again - and that sodding red light!
And before I know it, I’m back in the yard!
BUT, my day’s not over yet! I’m off out with some locals. I mean, some local drops, not that I’m taking nearby residents out or anything. Anyway, I have six: one at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, two in Rotherham and three in Doncaster. Off I go again.
There’s trouble at t’mill in Fir Vale in Sheffield…
Someone yawns there and there’s chaos, let alone that! Takes me ages to get through it all to get to the hospital. Get there I do though…
Here’s the entrance to the Work’s Department. I’ve walked up though as I haven’t got much for them and there’s vehicles blocking the bottom and I can’t get up anyway.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight… 
In Rovrum now and this bus on trade plates has just reverse into this lorry…
There I was waiting for him to finish manoeuvring and wallop; the artic’s clobbered! 
My next drop now in Donny and most of this…
Is going in this container to the left with the door open. Handball but it’s not much so I don’t mind.
Off to my next drop now at Hallcross Upper School in Doncaster. The stores are round the back, so here we go with the reverse; it’s a touch tight…
A look in my offside mirror presents me with…
But I get in and get the drop done and get gone. The last drop is to just drop this off in Armthorpe…
And that’s it: me done for the day and the end of the diary too! Bar this pic; I love the name of this roundabout!
If you’ve successfully reached the end of this lot, well done; you deserve a medal the size of a steering wheel!
