Author: Buck

Two weeks ago I was whining because it was all work and trying to get a little sleep and that was all. Then last week I went in on the Thursday, as they were sacking all the full timers, and should have been cancelled but accidentally screwed some lad out of his shift. Friday I was cancelled. Great. Feet up, long weekend. Then Monday. Getting nervous. Tuesday and Wednesday. A full week I should have been cancelled.

Oh dear, oh dear.

I was really getting worried. I mean, the very day they sacked the full timers it all started. I was wondering if they’d got the remaining full timers to cover my shift and I was a gonner. Then I got a text saying I was back in Thursday and Friday, doing a run to Glasgow. Not my usual, but easy enough. A two day week wouldn’t pay the bills though. I asked about it when I went in. Apparently I’m back to five days next week on a different run again. I’m to take an empty trailer up to Aspatria in the Lake District (turn off at Carlisle, spitting distance from the Scottish border) do a trailer swap then run back with a load to Crewe, get tipped (unloaded) or do a trailer swap there, then back to Irlam.

Holy crap, that was tough!

Think of a tough thing, then times it by several orders of sadism and you are in the ball park.

First off it was goddamn freezing. Apparently the wind chill had it at –3C. I thought it was colder. The wind was howling a gale on the hill tops, the telephone wires were bowed horizontally instead of vertically. Literally.

That’s it. My blog for this week. Worked, did big run.

Note to self; must try harder!

…destroyer of owls. 

I forgot to mention, a week or so ago I was tootling along, minding my own business, when one of those flat faced owls swooped across the road, noticed me trundling towards him (grammatical ‘him’, couldn’t guess the sex) and instead of carrying on out of my way braked in mid air and started dithering about. I whacked straight into the poor bastard. I was gutted. Not as much as said owl I’ll wager, but pissed right off none the less. Poor little sausage.

That’s a pigeon (don’t care, stupid birds) a suspected bat (bit miffed, I like bats – if it was one) and a lovely fluffy white owl.  According to Chris Packham that’s one of the reasons why they are planting all those trees alongside motorways; so the owl’s hunting glide will be above the level of the traffic.  Eyes like a hawk, ears like a bat, brains like a penis.

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.