Author: Buck

It’s been another eventful week at work to which I will refer in a minute, but as a consequence I didn’t get to bed until 0330 today and didn’t get up until 1305 hours. By the time I’d had a shower, eaten some toast, let it settle, faffed about, then driven to Bolton it was 1620. I was going to do three laps of the 8 mile sampler run we did a few weeks ago. Obviously I immediately got lost when I started running. Luckily the summit of the ascent is that huge great mast on top of Winter Hill, so you know for miles around in which direction you should be heading. And the carpark is next to a 265ft chimney, so I was pretty confident I could find my way back as well, which is a bonus. The first ascent was pretty bad. Over marshy fields, looping around roads, trying to avoid the rivers running down the tracks. Once I’d made it to the top I thought it would be easier to run down the way I should have come up, then back up again so I’d know the proper route. That didn’t work out right either, but I found a more direct way. Massively steep, but a straight line at least. When I went to do lap 2 it was already pretty dark. I grabbed my torch and soldiered on. Stupid idea. Running over rutted, rocky, muddy, washed away tracks in the pitch black. There were still patches of snow on either side of the path, so it must have been fair chilly still. Going up, slogging, wasn’t so bad. I was really getting worried coming down. I ended up running down the streams as the mud had been washed away there and it was firm underfoot. That was bracing. I was really getting concerned in case I had a mishap. I was soaked in sweat (and river water) if I’d have bust an ankle it could have got serious quite quickly in the cold and wind. Anyway, I did it. Only managed the two laps (16.38 miles) as there was no way I was going back up again in the dark. And it was getting on. And I was cold. And, let’s face it, I was quite knackered. This is what it looked like as a graph: Ow.   Work!  What a bloody joke! They want me to do that Gateshead run, back to Crewe, then back to Irlam. It takes 5 hours and a few minutes driving time to get there. That means, if you have a clear run back you can make up the extra few minutes due to no traffic hold ups and make it within the legal maximum of 10 driving hours. Twice a week. The other three shifts (maximum 9 hours driving) you don’t stand a hope. Now, just to add to my enjoyment, they’ve closed a massive section of the A1/ (M). This detours you through some one horse, single […]

On Monday I turned up at Crewe to the joyous news that I am now on the Gateshead run. This means I have to drive for 50 minutes from Irlam to Crewe, swap trailers then drive to Gateshead (next door to Newcastle upon Tyne.) Right up in the (possibly cannibalistic) North East. Which means I have to drive back (past Irlam,) then around the M60 (Manchester circular motorway) and over the highest motorway in England. In rush hour. Another brilliant bit of planning. They then want me to return to Crewe, trailer swap, then back to Irlam. Not. Even. Nearly. It takes 5 hours of driving time to go from Irlam to Gateshead (via Crewe). By law I have to take a break after 4½ hours driving time, so there’s another 45 minutes on my time. And I’m only allowed two 4½ hour stints a day. But this can be extended by an hour twice a week. So, with the quieter traffic on the very late return journey I can just scrape in the full trip, twice a week. The other three days it’s straight back to Irlam and they can whistle for it. So, that’s the hours. Piss poor. Then there’s the driving over the Pennines in the snow. Focusing.  Trying to overtake the want-to-live-forever crew by pulling into the middle lane, where there was still compacted snow and ice, was a hell of an experience. As soon as you touch the go pedal the cab starts snaking about, pivoting under the trailer pin. Bloody tense times. The other driver said that truck was “skittish.” The same night as I was doing that a van driver got killed along the same stretch. This means the hours are all wrong, the run starts at the wrong place (if one of the Crewe drivers brought the trailer to Irlam I would be travelling in the right direction and could manage to get back to Crewe/ Irlam every night.) The motorways cop for the bad weather, and when I got to Gateshead they said “back yourself into the warehouse, up to the bay and tip (unload) yourself.’” The good just keeps on coming. The end result is that I’m starting at 1500hrs, and not getting finished until 0400hrs, by the time I’ve nipped to th’Asda and had a brew I’m not getting to bed until 0530 or so on the long nights. Just work and bed.   Then, just to enamour me further of my new run, on Thursday I got to Crewe, dropped my trailer and hitched up to the loaded one. I did my walk around checks and the trailer was bollocksed. Hissing like a bastard from around the wheels. I reckon one of the big air chambers (that hold the compressed air for the suspension and brakes) had popped. I defected it. They then asked me to do some shunting so they could tip it and load another trailer. I moved a trailer off the bay, put the knackered […]

You remember those glorious, debt free moments we enjoyed?  *sighs wistfully* Totally over that now. It’s been an eventful week. Cast your minds back. Remember me waxing lyrical about the KA when I got it a year ago, how it had no ‘advisories’ on the MOT, a new exhaust system, etc, etc? I took it for it’s MOT, and got laughed out of the garage. Two shocks snapped (£200 minimum) and three big rust areas, (minimum of £300 repair) they’d have to drop the axle (I think they said) to get at it, they suspected they were going to find a lot more when they did.  “The curse of the KA” The guy said. Apparently they are know for being shitty little rustbuckets. Not by me, obviously. As I was taking in the bad news a girl walked in behind me and said hers had died of rust. She’d had a 20mph crash and it had folded. Written off. The two shocks thing (both on the same side) could have been a contributory factor to my graceful spin on that island. Anyway, that left me three days to get new wheels before the KA was illegal. At the same time I was being stressed out by my accountant.  I went at the beginning of the month and he said to contact him again if he’d not got back to me by the 22-23rd. 24th I called him. Nothing. I sent him an email on the Monday morning. He replied he’s have it to me the next day. Nothing. More emails. Finally sent him one saying “I have 45 hours until I get fined. No pressure.” He finally got his arse in gear and did my return. The good news on that being that when I tried to do it I had £1,200 left to pay, he’s got it to £600.20. Nice. Then I could switch my stressing back to getting a car.  After the KA debacle I asked around. I only got it because our next door neighbour had one for years and never had a day it didn’t start, oh and Clarkson said they handled really well, as I recall. I had no idea they were infamously shite. Some guy who works in Cowley is a bit of car wheeler dealer it transpires. He knows loads about cars and engines.   I wanted something reliable. Something with a good build quality and a bulletproof engine. In my limited experience I thought of Volkswagen.   I remember the works van my dad used to drive sometimes. It was awesome. It was so airtight that to slam the door properly you had to open the window a crack. Little things like that stick in the memory. So I was thinking VW with a diesel engine. Not a Golf. I was looking at the Polo. Then there was the choice of engine size. And did I want a SDI or TDI? After lots of googling it turns out SDI doesn’t have a turbo, […]

Last night was bloody focusing. All that bollocks about “the weight of the truck melts the snow”.  Which is why every episode of Ice Road Truckers is 30 seconds long. They start the truck then plunge straight through the melted ice and snow to a watery grave. Clearly I didn’t think that through. Around Stoke the third lane was snowbound, the middle lane had an inch of compacted snow/ice and the slow lane had two mostly clear tyre tracks. Then all it takes is one want-to-live-forever numpty to slow down to 30 mph and everyone is stuck behind them. Until you’ve had enough and pull out into the middle lane. Then it’s a matter of holding your nerve. Artics are just a ‘unit’ (the cab and 2 or 3 sets of wheels) and a separate trailer. The only thing making it one truck is a ‘pin’ (a 2” round post) on the trailer slotting into the ‘fifth wheel’ (a mechanism to secure the pin) on the unit. So everything rotates around the pin. This means on ice if you accelerate a little too hard the tyres spin and the unit pivots around the pin. That wakes you up. Worse, when you are going down hill you are scared to brake hard in case the trailer pushes the unit into a jack-knife. One of our trucks was stranded last night as it hit a hill and lost all traction. I was having real issues getting the bloody thing moving in the snow. I had to reverse a trailer into a parking spot in a snowbound yard. It must have took me 8 shunts back and forward to get enough speed up to reverse all the way in. That was only on a slight incline. The other truck was up in the wilds past Bolton. In Lymn services the snow came down that hard and fast that some wag built a snowman in front of someone’s truck whilst they were on their break. Fun, fun, fun. I survived and made it home in one piece at ungodly o’clock, then had to get up 5 hours 20 minutes later to go for a recce run of the Bolton Hill Marathon. I got up after struggling with the alarm on my ‘phone, turned on the PC to check the address and saw a ‘CANCELLED’ email. Ace. It took me an hour to get back to sleep. Grrrr.   In other news, I finally made it to the other Wing Chun class (in the same Kung Fu umbrella group) in Manchester last Sunday. You know how I was saying the class I go to on Thursdays only has about 8 people, all newbies, so it’s good for almost personal tuition? I was worried about starting a big new established class.  The Sunday class had 4 including me! 2 experienced and me and a young lad. Excellent. The not so great news is the head of the umbrella group likes loud colours. And apparently has a […]

To paraphrase the DM Reporter, WHITE BLANKET OF DEATH as ten snowflakes fall! We have been reduced to cannibalism and wearing the skins of the fallen. Society has fallen. But at least Twitter is still going.   It’s been a hectic week at work and I’ve got some non-specific malaise. I went for a run on Monday morning, all unsuspecting. I did a slow/ steep 6 minutes then put it to 6 m/m / 1%. Usually that has me gritting my teeth by two miles, and a heart rate of about 154 bpm. I was dying within half a mile. I tried to ignore it thinking I was being a lazy lardarse, but I just couldn’t breathe. My bpm was 170+ and rising. (160 is marginally in the red for me.) I managed 8/10ths of a mile then had to slow it right down. I still hadn’t realised there must be something wrong (I was feeling fine before I went in to the gym) so I forced out the rest of the half hour slower but on a steeper incline. Then I tried the bike. I lasted about 8 minutes before quitting. I was wheezing and dying.  I quit the gym in disgust. Then, as I was opening the door to the changing room, thought ‘bollocks!’ and went back. I set the treadmill at the fastest/ steepest pre-set programme and forced myself to do another half hour run. It was hellish. It wasn’t until I got home and still couldn’t breathe that I realised something was amiss. I’ve had a couple of days of feeling done-in. Oddly with a day between them feeling fine. Today it feels like I’m breathing through a thick damp cloth. And I just feel tired and useless. I was a bit worried about how I was going to do the Helsby half marathon tomorrow, but I’ve just found out it has been cancelled due to the snow. I was planning on dosing myself up and just doing a slow run. I can’t say I’m disappointed, though. I really am not up to it.   Work has been mad busy. Last week I only got two days this week it’s back to five days/ 55 hours. On Thursday I was sat waiting for a specific trailer from 1430 until 1830, then the truck they gave me was knackered so I had to swap, I didn’t leave the yard until 1915. Then I had to drive to Crewe. Some selfish crashy bastards had blocked the M6 because there was a flake of snow so I didn’t get there until 2030, ended up setting off for Cowley (nearly 3 hours drive) at 2100. They want me there for 1830. So not pleased. That was a 14 hour day by the time I got back. An hour commute. Six hours sleep. Which left me with a decadent three whole hours to fritter on making food and showering and such. In a way it’s good, now is definitely the time […]