Author: Buck

First things first; go the tories. They announce a drought and it’s not stopped pissing it down ever since. As with their genius notion of kick-starting the economy by sacking everyone. I know it wasn’t the tories who announced the drought, but I’m blaming them. Tories announce a drought, build an ark. Wettest. Drought. EVER.

I’ve been chugging up and down the M6 in it every day. Total monsoon. The spray makes it hellish difficult to see. I commented the other day that after that day’s driving I was going to have to get the barnacles scraped off the keel on my truck.

You know how in my last  but one blog, of but a few days ago, I was waxing triumphant of my mastery in my chosen trade? To whit, I felt I’d cracked the driving gig?

Wednesday I was doing my the same run I’ve been on for the last couple of weeks. My last drop being in Northampton. It’s a nice big yard, but the bay you have to reverse on is the to the far left of the yard. This means, when they leave trailers parked in front of it, you have to reverse in blind side. It’s exactly the same principle, except you can’t lean out of your cab window and see where you are going. You have to do it all in your offside mirror. The problem with that, of course, it that it leaves you without any depth perception. You are reduced from binocular vision to a flat, reflected field. When your arse end is over forty foot away this is less than ideal.

So I was blind siding into this bay, the last one in the yard, trying not to run too far and park it over the pavement running next to my bay. I went tight around a parked unit and trailer (it would have been too easy if they hadn’t parked that there as well. Grrr.) I bottled it, thinking I’d gone too tight, so pulled forward again. As I did so I clipped the parked unit’s wing mirror with my trailer.

I remember, many months ago, the first time someone hailed me with “Drive!” Which is short for ‘driver’, obviously, and how one addresses a lorry driver.

I was at once pleased and terrified. I wanted to be that trucker, but felt I in no way earned the title. I had the licenses, and was doing the job, just about, but didn’t know what I was doing. There are so many things to pick up; little things like working the air suspension (so you can lower the cab to pull out from under a trailer and raising it when you reverse under one so you engage properly) and working the different onboard computers to check the oil level and such. Then there was the big things; knowing where your back end was when you were cornering in the dark and reversing.

It’s only the last few weeks I’ve actually started to feel I can handle whatever is thrown at me. I’ve been doing easy trunking jobs with a few challenging bits per shift. The same company had me back after that Friday off, but on a different run. The first day my all-singing, all-dancing, £357 trucknav went tits up. I had been on the same run for weeks so hadn’t used it. That day I dropped my smartphone down the bog. It was still drying out and not working when I went to work. They gave me a new run, so I put the address in my Tomtom trucknav, which promptly died. I couldn’t get the navigation software on my ‘phone to work for ages and was going up and down the same road for about an hour looking for a road that was off the next motorway turn off.

I was called a few weeks ago at 1600, and asked if I could cover a shift starting at 1700. I dropped everything and got there. I was desperate for work, one shift is better than none.

Since then I’ve been in every available night (they only work from Monday to Friday). I’ve already done three weeks, and they’ve asked me to go back in again Monday to Thursday next week as well. ( I told them I can’t work Friday as it’s my mam and dad’s retirement ‘do’ before they bugger off to darkest Wales and thence to Bulgaria.)

If they then ask me back the next week I think I may have landed this job.

I need to enter some races or something. I had four nights work last week and I’m supposed to have another five next week. This left me with this weekend to get everything done. I’ve done nothing.

The work thing is good, mind. Not the best money as it’s quite short shifts, starting at 1700 finish around 0200 hrs. Once you’ve taken off the 45 minute break that’s not a lot of hours. For a lorry driver. At Stobarts you were lucky to finish before 13 hours. However, it’s was the same run (to Aspitaria, in Cumbria) each time. Same company as before. Just run an empty trailer up there, drop it, pick up a full trailer and run back to Irlam (outskirts of Manchester.) Once I’d got over the trauma of the first night (blindly following the satnav off the motorway two junctions before the written notes, and consequently having to drive a 13 metre trailer-ed truck right across the Lake District on B roads!) I was OK. That first run was terrifying though. Pitch black B roads, twisty and hilly as buggery, so your headlights are not showing you where the road is going, no passing spaces, over a single track, right angled bridge… I was shaking by the time I got there.

Anyway, my point was; I should have seized the weekend off and made hay. Tons of cycling, sort the garden, more cycling, get to the gym and cancel my membership now it’s warm enough to train outside…