Morning all,
Had an interesting couple of days out and about - I got a call on Wednesday late afternoon, asking if I was OK to do a run down to Yeovil to drop a load of timber, reload in Melksham, and take the trailer back to Harwich. Due to the timescales, I would need to run down as far as possible that night, to give me a chance of meeting the hours requirements, and be avaiable for Friday. No worries, grab some overnight gear and away we go…
All was fine, A12, M25, M3, A303, until one point on the 303. THere had been a bit of rain, and the roads were a bit slippy in places, so I was careful going through the little villages and windy bends. I got to one bit where I could see that the hill going up was quite steep, so sped up as much as I dared, but no good - with 27 tons of timber on board, the speed was dropping off all too quickly, and I was downshifting as fast as I could, but we came to a grinding halt about 2/3 of the way up. I tried every gear from 1 low upwards to start off, but it wasn’t having any of it - wheelspin no matter what. Left with the only option of reversing back down, starting in 2nd and just staying there until we finally got to the top 
So found a handy layby, and hit the bunk after 4h 20 mins of driving. 9 hours later, off we go again for the final 1/2 hour run into the drop. Going past Yeovil, saw a VOSA car parked on the side watching the traffic, but after watching him in the mirrors and seeing no sign of movement, thought ‘Phew’ and forgot about it. Until - there he was in my offside mirror overtaking me. Sure enough the ‘Follow me’ lights came on, and off we went into the local picnic area / services (Clarkgate? Can’t remember now…)
One guy took my charts, another started crawling all over the lorry and trailer. After a nervous 1/2 hour, the mechanic pronounced himself happy, apart from a brake actuator on the midlift which had a slight air leak, so one delayed prohibition. The guy checking the charts came back and asked where my charts for the days between the 21st and 26th were. I explained that I only drive a couple of days a week, and he was quite happy. At all times I made sure that I was friendly and polite, and we all departed with a handshake, and to be honest I couldn’t fault them in any way. At the same time, I wouldn’t want a repeat
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, with lots of waiting around for loading & unloading, and got the trailer back to Harwich last night just in time for the ferry. I did however see Harry Monk and the Southern Star on the M4 (I did flash my lights Harry, but it was very last minute).
So all in all, another learning experience. Am off out today with a stepframe trailer to move a load of aircon ducting around, we’ll see how that one goes!
Gary