THE GOOD BUCK

I’m sat here replete with Chinese and pants undone. Sorry for that mental image. My guts are actually uncomfortable I’m getting that fat again.

Sounds like someone is firing off a shotgun. That’s outside, not my guts. Just thought I’d live blog it in case it turns out to be a bunch of murders.

Anyway, assuming some mofo doesn’t pop a cap in my ass in the badass ghetto that is Great Sankey, I’ll carry on moaning about my fatitude.

Work has sorted itself out in no time. I’ve done two weeks without being cancelled and the hours are plenty long enough. I was running up to Aspatria, top of the Lake District, doing an awkward trailer swap then running back to Crewe, trailer swap, back to Irlam. Now Aspatria have set aside a really easy drop point for my trailer. No reversing, nothing in the way, just drive in, stop and drop. Cool. Obviously the karmic balance is upset by that so to compensate Crewe are getting rid of the night shunter. This means there will be no empty trailers for me to swap with, so I have to wait an hour or so while they live tip me. Ace.

The consequence of that is I’m on a regular 50+ hour week.

Ho hum. It pays the bills.

You know the running battle I’ve been having with ‘phone and it’s dying on me? It has been instructive in many things. I’ve upgraded the O.S., ironed out a glitch with my Gmail, and worked out how to ‘sideload’ Adblocker again. The latter not being as impressive as it sounds. Apparently to sideload is just to enable downloading and installing from the original site, not from the approved google apps store.

Anyway, before I went in and wiped everything, again, I tried googling the problem. The first hit, top of the page, said “if you’ve used a non-standard charger swelling may have occurred in the battery”. I had a look, my battery is no longer flat, it’s now sort of elliptical.

Oh.

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.