In the west midlands , time must be a precious commodity, because every time I visit here, I have it stolen from me.

I spent an hour walking around this pressing plant, looking for the only person capable of loading one pallet for the USA onto me.

When I eventually gave up and went back to the lorry I was amazed to see I had been loaded.

The MD was sick of the "I'm on me break mate " brigade and had loaded it himself.


I didn't mess with their power supply, honest.


It was a similar story a mile away in Walsall, but this time it was shift changes to blame.


It's no wonder that companys are closing, because this car parts supplier can't tip any lorrys because it's a shift change.

I'm out side at 1 pm and they can't let me in until 2 pm. If it takes them an hour just to change shifts, how long does it take to make a component.



I was eventually unloaded in Walsall and had to find my way over to a brewery.


It had won awards but they were not for friendliness, efficiency or cleanliness.





I eventually had 6 tonnes of bottled beer loaded on to me, headed for Finland.


This is where the beer went, a Freight forwarder where they were forwarding this bubble car.


Past steptoes shop and off home.


I did my, routine factory walkabout again in Kent on Wednesday but eventually tailifted it off and left it for them.


After all that I couldn't leave because, beleive it or not some drivers can be  are dicks as well.


I had to stay "darn sarf" last night so I stopped on the M20 looking for food but I was refused a mortgage. This salad was £3.99 !! It was lettuce and dressing the tasty looking baggette underneath is a whopping £4.29.


This truck tyre gave up. I think it had actually given up a long tine ago but he had driven in on it.



He was carrying this classic.

Crusher rescue

Crushers are just like buses, you don't see one for an age and then two come along at once.

Filling up I noticed a clever spot of graffiti.

The first crusher was down in Kent and was suffering from a broken set of jaws. Poor thing was sitting in the corner if the quarry, struck impotent by a stray boulder.
It lit up when it's new teeth arrived though.






















This picture is to prove a point if my previous posts regarding wolesely , I also spelt it right this time.





After a few more deliverys around London, my last delivery was another crusher on the o2 arena site. There was a team of engineers waiting for me so it was all hands to the pumps.




























I took them a new door and brought the shattered one back with me.






I don't know why, but the east end of London seems to be a black hole for my sat nav. This is where it reccomended I go. Straight into the Thames.










I followed my instint and decided to turn round and use the dryer route, past the dome.

A Drivers first port of Call

A few pictures of the last few days.



After My excitement in London, Thursday, was a day struggling to get around the West Midlands in record time.

I was in Coventry and a familier sight for us drivers, Tiny windows to stand at and wait like good little boys.

My first drop was next door to the home of the AGA. my mums most treasured possession.











I was on Bay 9 at Wolsey and then this crane decided to park opposite me and unload a lorry load of Forklifts.






They had me drive onto the weighbridge and issued me a ticket, pity they didn't pay me for the Tonne I had just dropped off as well, that would of been a result.

Back in the city on the bridge

7 am and the drones are crossing the bridge for another day robbing the country.




The first delivery is on tower bridge and it's a real drag.




Tailift down, back on the bay, pallets off.




Pallets in the lift, bring down empty pallet, and repeat. Over and over until they are all off.




Then it's time to leave and join the happy city traffic again.




This was the third rubbish truck I saw going to the exact same place. Each time it picked up and emptied one bin. What a waste of waste.




I took this bridge back home.
I bet that fella who bought London bridge wish he could of said that.




I was out of London and over to Colchester for a simple delivery on the army base.


It's really easy to drive my truck around, great for London traffic.

These are the gears.



Long day today, 13 hours and a 7 am start so it's another short post.

Whitechapel

An early morning delivery to Whitechapel , home of Jack the Ripper was creepier than I would of imagined.
With the myth and the gruesome details of the unsolved murders , mixed with the tiny streets, dark allyways and old fashioned buildings, I was happy to see daylight arrive at about 8 am.

I'm currently parked on Gun Street.
Real East End.










My next drop was a dodgy warehouse at Tottenham lock where I had to meet a builder to take off 3 tonne of steel I had brought down for Siera Leone.


This was the main entrance of the warehouse.











Inside it was like a massive junkshop , stuff everywhere, He told me I was the luckiest driver in the world to of caught him in, He should of been out all day until 10 pm he kept saying.

Contrasting headlines this morning first the Daily Mail




And my paper of choice The Mirror, I think they both say a lot.





I missed out on posting some pictures of the coolest toll bridge I found in Wales the other day.
I was following sat nav and suddenly I came acros this.

I had to go back and use a real road with my tail between my legs.

Its hard matching up all the weeks photos from the camera when I get back at weekends but this is the car of the week , I have no idea what it is, it just looks cool.

Geek of the week is this guy following his Sat Nav  (I know I can talk) Look where he put it.

Ill post next week but work is a little slow and Im off on Monday so it might be a few days.

This was the first rd I came to off the A14 and I was panicking as soon as realised there was no going back.

I made it to the top with out stopping, just and then suddenly realised I had to get down the other side as well.




This drop was 8 plts, tailift only.

I had to reverse into the barn and pull all the pallets into line for the farmer because he had fallen on the ice and bust his shoulder.

After this tricky delivery things got a little bit easier.



Just past this windmill was my next delivery.



1 pallet here and a really interesting ruin.




The last job I had was a collection out of Kings Lynn, where the fork lift was stuck in the snow .




The collection was smaller than we thought and I still had half the lorry available but I was told to head back as I was.







Along the A47 and all the snow had dissapeared even though it wad forecast as heavy snow storms.

Most of the peaple I had met had been dissapointed with there snowfall and wanted what the rest of the country had. It just goes to show you can never win.



Back at my last delivery and back to the snow. It makes it exciting having to drive through these conditions and secretly I think we all want it to continue just a little bit longer.

This is what busy doing nothing looks like.

With only pallet going here I thought I'd be ok but it took over two hours to get finished.

Instead of getting rid of pallets I had to collect more, these six are going to USA.



They asked me to wait in the office while they found the forklift driver who's job it was to load these particular pallets. The other forklift drivers were not going to do it. He was on his break so I had to wait. Again.



Another drop and another wait, this time I had to wait for these Willi Betz trucks to be unloaded. I but it on rest and had a 45 minute break.


Nobody was in on my next drop.


The neighbour wasn't around either.

There are lots of reasons why driving a truck is a crap job but today has thrown up lots of them.

Sleeping in a tiny box on your own after sitting in it all day , getting directons on where to take and collect tat without a thought for your own comfort.

And then after spending £22 to park someones truck on someone elses Tarmac , to be served this !!!


And after staring at the roads for nearly ten hours, we are given this live screen of the road cameras to look at while we contemplate eating the filth they have dished up.




This is my home for tonight. But at least I have a toilet and a shower near, my office told me to pull onto a trading estate and run in in the morning after 13 hours without so much as a piss or any sight of a pot either.


Taking breaks on the hop means the lorry breaks but you , the driver never does.
We do sometimes wait around a lot and the office thinks this means you can drive because the lorry has fulfilled it's legal requirment to be stationary for the required amount of time.

The problem is you might of been stood still for a bit but in a waiting room, not resting.
A lot of times we will be in the back of the lorry sorting out the load or worse, taking it off yourself.

This happens a lot .

It goes down as rest but in reality you are being far from restfull

Chilly start

Woke up in the lorry at 3 am shivering but after looking outside I soon found out why.

Time to leave and with 2 hours to travel to get home I was eager to leave.





Some ignorant steady eddie driver decided to hold us all up while he waited for a pump at the garage.





I was booked into Asda with 4 pallets of fridges. 1 was here and 3 more in Birmingham.





Past the LDV factory, it's so sad to see it deserted. Such a waste, and a total disgrace that a company can be allowed to buy a British company and then drop it like a bad habit when it needs a bit of support through difficult times.

Worse than that, the owner is one of the richest men in the world but wants the goverment to support his investment while he let's 850 workers lose their jobs.





After passing the empty building I was asked to deliver to a building site in the Worcestershire village.

It was snowed in so I couldn't deliver the goods but I did see more stuck trucks.

This fuel truck was doing his best to deliver fuel but slipped into the ditch.






Next and last delivery today was at west Mercia police authority .

It was strange that Mr plods roads are clear






but Joe publics roads look like this.





When I got back we had trucks parked up like cabs.

Work has suddenly dropped off a cliff.
I'm in at 8 tommorrow but without a run yet I'll probably be kicking my heels around the yard for most of the day.

My first two drops couldn't of been more different.

First one was in the dark next to Canary Wharf at an aggregates site. Machinery.

This 2nd one, Three pallets of magazines weighing 1500 kilos, here.






The man knew I was trying to deliver them to him and he sped off,  but got stuck in the ice.







It turns out the magazine have been given the wrong address in Madrid and I'm at one of the distributers flats.
It's like delivering all the weeks Big issues to one of the sellers outside Kings Cross station.

I saw a horror poster and a sign of the horrible things to come as I turned the corner.

My next drop was at the start of all our problems, you wouldnt know these people were broke looking at their propert's though.


Through the  tunnel and back to the plans, I had been told to bring all the magazines back but that meant that they were in the way af all my next delivery's.

Past the once, white elephant and now, inspired,vissionary, masterpeice of design and making my way to Hackney.





This was just one incident today as London turns into an ice rink.

There are allways weird and wonderful buildings in London but some have strange veiws and opinions.




Then I arrived at the Hackney delivery, It had a cool wall but what a place to get in and out of.





The place was at the end of this corridor.





This was the carpark, in and out without turning round meant having to reverse into the glass road blind.
The roads were like glass and all the drivers were driving around panic striken, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and staring straight ahead.









I thought the next drop was here but this was just the little sister to here.




I'm on the home straight now, just Enfield to go.

Enfield out the way I am back home now



And no day is complete without a few pictures of the idiots.

I let this red lorry come in from the slip rd and then surprise,surprise, he decides to stay out and inch past me every time i tried to get back in.








As this idiot went by I couldn't help wondering why the van in front was delivering snow up north, don't they have enough up there at the minute ?



I am always on the lookout for interesting pictures but just couldnt find any this week.




This was Toddington services car park this afternoon very, very quiet.




And this was the truck park.

Crap picture but the whole place was full.

All updated and time for a rest, I really do miss my spell checker on blogger though

I was back in London on Jan 2nd delivering to all the best places, here's a sample.


Is this "A" michellin restaurant or "The" michellin Restaurant ?








Missed the Harrods Sales because it was to early.



The new week brought a whole new situation.

Extreme weather.

I relish the harsh weather conditions because it seperates the wheat from the chaff.

In my experience, most car drivers stay away from the roads in bad weather, I think thats why most organisations broadcast  hysterical bulletins, warning of impending doom and gloom.

Its  to scare the majority of motorist off the roads.

 Most drivers out today, Wedesday, were exemplary. Lorry drivers and car drivers in perfect harmany.

It was as if we were all in it together, battling the elemants,united and fighting for a  common cause.

Us aggainst Mother Nature. We were taking her on and winning.

Now dont get me wrong, we weren't fighting snow storms   drifts or  blizzards, but I did see at least 15 centimetres of snow on the side of the  M4 this morning, and my hair was blown around quite a bit while I was filling up with fuel later on as well.

I went over the Severn bridge into Wales and some ice blew off the bridge and just missed me. They normally close the bridge when that happens so we were definitley in danger.

Seen the price of crossing into Wales? Good job its free to get back !


But seriously, all the reports and news flashes and extended weather reports must of acheived something because I went from Leicester to Milton park in Oxford and then over the bridge to Wales, back up the M5 to Stroud and then home again and  I didn't encounter more than 30 minutes of delays throughout the day.



Most drivers, drove like gentleman (See exception's to the rule above ) and were considerate and paitent and made the whole days journeys a pleasure.

Ill leave you with this thought "Are you cool enough?" I think she was lost, it was bloody freezing.

Just a quick post today from the front line in London .

I had a 7 am delivery In Swiss Cottage .10 pallets of high value that was urgently needed .

They all had to travel down this allyway on my pallet truck

Back down on Saturday with more consumer crap.

Still monday is looking very quiet

Happy New Year and thanks for sticking with me.

I really didn't want to get up and go to work today especially because I had a really good weekend with the kids but I was pleased that at least I been promised a few local runs, the furthest being Coventry .

I saw one of the van drivers earlier and even had a chuckle when he told me he had been given Motherwell .

I had just delivered my first delivery when they called me back to base and asked me to pick up my passport on the way.

I thought it might be an I'd issue with the office, end of the year paperwork stuff or something.

When I got in they loaded me up with a full lorry for Eindhoven.

Panic stations.

I posted a plea for advice on trucknetUK and as usual received a few golden nuggets of information.

There were also a few lumps of fools gold, but I lost the Internet before I could read them all so bluffed my way through most if the day .

This was the state of the M25 on the way to the Docks and was the main reason for a 5 1/2 hour delay of my ferry.

I was finally allowed to embark at 11.45 pm.





The ferry I am writing this on is the 7 pm. but its now midnight . When I get Internet back I'll post how it went but for now, Bon Voyage .


I was looking for all the other drivers and wondering who on earth paid these prices for food when I found this lot.


Free coffee, free soft drink and a piece of steak from Langans , next door, for next to nothing. Marvelous.


Disembarked at 2 am and made my way to the All 4 Trucks lorry park in Calais in a blizzard.









I made my way straight into the mobile security guards bad books by driving all the way round the wrong way in the ice, slipping and sliding and trying to find an empty bay past all the sleeping lorry drivers.

There must if been 300 trucks parked there


Even with the bins so near they still dump rubbish.


I'm on the return journey now, this ferry was only an hour late.

Ladders in the lifts were a bit scary.



A few things worth mentioning are how the roads in the three country's I've traveled through seem to run like clockwork.

Bear in mind that the UK has ground to a halt and they blamed the wrong sort of snow in France for the Eurostar breaking down

Two lane motorways from Calais to Eindhovan, in a snow storm, with the hard shoulders covered in snow still performed better than the four and sometimes five lanes we have available in Britain .

It's not like there are more lorries in the UK .

I have never seen so many trucks . Piles and piles of them. Truck stops every where and all full of lorry's.

Another thing I couldn't fail to notice during my flying visit was how nice the goods in staff at DHL were.





The gate house staff were helpful and even spoke in my language because I couldn't speak in theirs.

Then after a four hour drive from the ferry to get the stuff here, they had it off in 20 minutes, paperwork signed and gate pass handed in.

Not a silly hi viz in sight and no need for some tube to look inside a wagon they had just emptied to see if it's empty.

I like it here, I even like that vignette thingy, even if I did think the trucknet lads were getting me at it and making me ask for a salad dressing.
This is where I bought my Vignette.


I think all foreign trucks should pay it . Imagine all the revenue raised, and if they don't come over because of the cost, then that's more work for the drivers here, surely its a win win.


A few pictures of trucks and building on my way back from Eindhoven and then on to the return ferry for home.




I tyraveled home Via a rip off Maidstone services 30 miles away from the port.

£24 a night for parking and if you wanted food it was £28. no wonder it wasnt very busy.

I had been over to ashford first but that was £25 anyway. If they made it more reasonable they would have more custom and therefore more money in the long run.


This was the sight on the way home, more traffic madness



After my mammoth journey I was expecting to drive back into the yard to a heros welcome but all I got was a collection out of wincanton and a 5 am to Southgate London on Christmas eve.

The transport business is an unforgiving business.

I have been using the iPhone this week for pictures and although it is a lot more convenient and sometimes even covert , lets face it, the pictures are crap.

here are some of the pictures I took with the proper camera last week as well as a few captions and comments if I remember where I was when I took them.

The world didn't end and even though some places had snow most of the country lived to see another day.

I was at the Mars factory where they make all the coffee capsules for the vending machines.



They might need a plumber to sort out frozen pipes.


I was held up on the way to the next delivery by this unidentified beast wandering the roads.



This is the ultimate builders van.



I was sent over to Sheffield and found this nice looking Devon camper van outside the address.


I was in Wales last week and I thought Golf fans might be interested to see where Ryder cup is going to be next year.

This is Celtic Manor home of the 2010 Ryder Cup. Lets hope that Tiger will make it there.

Another famous place is Sherwood forest in Nottingham, home of the legendary Robin Hood.

He wasn't in so I left a card by the tree on the left.


On the way home the gritters were out, better late than never I suppose but I don't think they were needed in this part of the country


I'll continue to past from the iPhone and the PC when i get back and see how it goes.

The first few pictures are of other lorry's I saw on the road, the first one was in front of me when I got to my first delivery at 7 am. They didn't open until 8.30 am.

I was tipped before him and then this one came in as well, poor bloke had to wait until we were all emptied.


The next one was evidence that I was in carrot crunching country. Look carefully.

This post is about  the way us drivers  get given an address that in no way relates to were the actual property is.

I was given the name 999 supply Ltd but not what the company did or what I was collecting.


Here is a clue.


I drove around the Industrial estate for a few minutes and couldn't find this company anywhere .

Eventually I parked up at the first building ans was going to start asking and by process of elimination eventually find where I was looking for.

I thought id look up the company name on the laptop first and see if it was listed on Google.

It said it was trading as Asset co Ltd. I was right outside it, and it made fire engine's.

"Get it" ? "999 Supply Ltd !"maybe it would be a good idea to put the name on your Massive building maybe?"

"Oh you did ?" " Where ?" "Oh, round the back ! "

This is about actual size !

I was finished with Ipswich and Cambridge and Huntingdon for the day but I'm back in wales tomorrow so lets see if today's snow gets any better or worse depending on your take of it.