…one I’d rather forget!
Monday,late start,10.15am.Go to Bullingen in the Ardennes and load timber for France.When I arrive there’s two other’s from our firm loading for the same place.They load and leave,my load is’nt ready and I wait for the timber to be cut and banded.At 6.45pm I’m loaded and on my way with 25tons of sawn timber up to the roof.By now it’s -6c and fog as thick as can be,progress is slow.
Try to get into the Rasthof near Bitburg but the place is full,and I’m starving!
So,carry on and stop for a mediocre meal at the Lux border.Get as far as Langres and straight to bed.
Tuesday,after a 9hr break it’s on with the coffee and set sail,at least the fog has gone.I have to unload in 25-Frasne which is way down past Besancon.I arrive just as they are going to lunch.Typical.Unload and get a message to load in 88-Charmes,3 pieces for Filton,Bristol.So it’s back up through Besancon and Vesoul and past Epinal,stopping on the way for a bite to eat.
I’d been told they load in Charmes until 7pm,so when I arrive at 7.50 I expect to have a good nights sleep outside the gate.Wrong,‘Come in driver and we’ll load you now’.■■■■.The office had already informed me that when loaded ‘Make my way back to Genk’ so I assume I’ll be changing trailers.
After I’m loaded I run up as far as Luxembourg,have a nice hot shower,a glass of wine and into bed.
Wednesday,after another 9hr break it’s back on the road and onto the E25 through the Ardenne and past Liege arriving in Genk 11.15.
“What shall I do”? I ask the office. Oh,you can go home and leave tomorrow to deliver Friday morning! Brilliant,if they’d have told me that yesterday I could have been home an hour ago! So,finished at midday.
Thursday,leave home at 5.30am so as to miss the rush hour on the Brussels Ring.Arrive Calais 9.15,and as usual there is a hold up due to so many lanes going down to two for the UK immigration.Though I do notice that they are erecting another booth for immigration so that should ease things for the future.
However,there is a lot of activity just past the booth and it seems an Italian has been caught with a couple of stowaways in his trailer.Though god knows how they managed to get in there,the cartons are stacked to within a few centimetres of the roof.
Anyway,it’s on to the P&O Pride of Burgundy,which is a bit of a bummer (ask Coffeeholic) as it’s like an icebox.It seems that as this is a freight only ship they turn the heating down! Sit there reading the paper with my jacket zipped up!!
Leave Dover and onto the M20 then M25 to join the traffic around Heathrow which as usual is crawling along.Stop at Reading services and make some coffee.
My new GPS satnav directs me straight to Airbus at Filton where I find another one of our trucks waiting.He’s already unloaded in Solihull and just has one piece for Filton.We try to see if we can unload today,but it’s a crane-off job and the crane is’nt booked until 10.00 tomorrow.At last,a long nights rest (I hate those 9hr jobbies) and so we have a bite to eat,watch a bit of telly (with a glass or two of wine) and then to bed.(Though not together I hasten to add!)
Friday,rain and strong winds (and that’s just the weather) greet the day.At 10am the crane arrives and we go right round the other side of the factory to unload (they even have a Concorde parked on the tarmac!)
Problem.They need a spreader bar to unload the air conditioning machines and that is at their depot in Avonmouth.An hour later the missing piece of equipment arrives and unloading starts.As the other driver was here before me and he only has one machine to lift off,they start on him first.
In the meantime I get a message from our office to say that I should unload first as I have to go to Solihull and load empties for Strasbourg.
When I tell the other driver he laughs and say’s that when he was in Solihull the day before he’d asked the office if he should load empties as he had an almost empty trailer and they said ‘No,someone will load them on Friday’!
Well that was good planning!!!
After the other driver is unloaded he goes off to load in Telford.When I am finished and got the trailer all buttoned up again I head off for Solihull,by this time it’s now 12.00 midday.
Just as I hit the M42/M40 split everthing comes to a grinding halt,and a few miles up the road all becomes clear.A Volvo FM is on it’s side on the opposite carriageway up against the hard shoulder,with a loaded bulker in which looks like waste.How he managed that I don’t know!
I arrive at Land-Rover,Solihull at 2.10pm and the place is deserted.I find a guy inside and tell him I have to load empties for Strasbourg,to which he replies ‘Yes ok,Monday morning.You see we finish at 12.30 on a Friday and everyone has gone home’.
I send a message to the office and they say they’ll get on to it,but I know there’s nothing that can be done.
An hour later I get a message to say ‘Come home empty and go empty to Strasbourg and load Monday afternoon’.The language is much too blue to write here regarding what I was thinking!!!
So it’s a toss up whether I go M1 or M40.As I’d already heard Sally Traffic talking about problems on the M1/M25 area I decide to go M40. Everything goes well until I come off the M40 onto the M25 and hit the back of the queue.
It takes me nearly an hour before I clear the traffic past the M3 but then it’s a clear run to Maidstone where I stop for a 45min break and nip into Sainsbury’s for a bit of shopping.Back on the M20 the matrix signs are saying it’s a 4hr delay at Dover,so I decide to pull off at Folkestone and park up until the morning and hope that it’s all cleared up by then.
Saturday,leave Folkestone at 6.45 and just get down to Dover to join the queue at the roundabout by the Western Docks entrance.It then takes me until 8am to get into the dock where the problem seems to be that there is a massive queue for Sea France which is blocking access to P&O and Norfolk Line! That and the fact that there are hundreds of daytrippers going over to get their booze for Christmas!!!
I book onto the 10.00 sailing which leaves at 9.30.(?)
Drop the trailer,fill up with diesel and finish at 15.45
That was the week that was one I’d rather forget.
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