THE GOOD BUCK

After the wag-n-drag fiasco I was quite relieved to get a nice easy job for my second outing. Trunking an artic down to Chelmsford, trailer swap and drive back. How hard can that be? They wanted me at the Wigan depot for 7.30am. Then they rang back and said make it 9, as they wouldn’t have the trailer loaded. I got there at 9, then sat there for an hour and a half while they loaded the trailer. Slowly. In which time I tried to familiarise myself with the truck, a MAN, which I’ve never been in before. I did what checks I could then sat around for a bit. I got bored and sat around for a bit longer. I set to trying to adjust things; the seat height, firmness, and fit. Then I thought about moving the steering wheel to a better position. There were no obvious levers or buttons so I started prodding stuff. I saw a lever so I gave that a pull. The steering wheel didn’t move but the lever was dangling down, obviously not right. I had a look to see what it was. It had a pictogram of the front of the truck with a movement arrow arcing downwards. Oh shit! I thought I’d pulled the cab release lever. I’ve seen pictures of the cab tilted right forwards (so the mechanics can work on the engine beneath) I thought that must be how they do it. Shitty shit. I was jumping up and down in the cab, trying to get it to re-secure, walking around the truck to see if I could see any way of doing it, nothing. I went on Twitter to see if any truckers were on, they were not. I was panicking a bit. Thinking that as soon as I hit the brakes the cab was going to flop forward and I’d crash and die and probably get sacked. After half an hour’s hyperventilating the shunter drove around so I grabbed him. Turns out it was the lever to release the front grill of the truck, much like a bonnet release on a car! The steering wheel adjuster was a button on the floor. So, a less than great start to my day.   When my trailer was ready the shunter helped me out, realizing I was a clueless newbie. Which didn’t do me any favours as you have an acronym to follow (BLACK, Brake, Legs, Airlines, Clip, Kingpin) with him doing some of it I wasn’t sure where I was up to. I set off, relieved to be out on the road. A nice easy run, about 6 miles of good A roads until the motorway, then motorway all the way until 16 miles from my destination. As soon as I hit the M6 it was stop/ start traffic all the way to Birmingham. Bloody Wigan were playing at Wembley, it was a Bank Holiday weekend and it was lashing it down. None of which is conducive to […]

I have recently joined two driving agencies. Now that I have wasted two years of my life they can insure me, or blag their customers that I’ve been driving for two years, or some such. Whatever the detail, now I’ve held my license for two years suddenly two agencies have taken me on their books. Until now I’ve not even warranted a “piss-off, newbie!” email. The first one I applied to was exactly what I was expecting. A chair, a desk and ‘phone in a room above a shop. Obviously someone setting up an agency and just getting names on their books in case they ever landed an employment contract. The woman was actually ringing firms and blagging them whilst I was filling in my details!   I saw an even more desperate sounding advert for an agency in Liverpool. Their criteria was ‘must have held license for six months’! I rang them, said I’d got no experience. The chap asked ‘do you feel confident to drive an artic?’ “yes” I lied.‘Come down and register then.’ I assumed it was the same deal but when I got there they had a proper office and were talking about proper jobs. They were berating some chap who they’d sent to a job but hadn’t turned up. One asked the other ‘did you check him out?’ The other replied, ‘yes, but we’re desperate for drivers.’ My ears pricked up at that. He rang me the next day to ask me for a reference. I told him I was shit-hot. Then told him he’d got the wrong number and he wanted my manger at work. Which made me think, however incompetently, they were moving things along. That was Monday putting my details in, Tuesday giving myself a sterling reference, then Wednesday he rang me and told me he had a job for me on my day off (Friday).   Today was  the day! I turned up all nervous, acting ‘I do this every day’. He took me out back, gave me the keys and said ‘if you can just swing it round I’ll get it loaded’.   One drawback, it wasn’t an artic such as I’m used to driving, it was a wag-n-drag! A rigid truck towing a big trailer. Here is a picture of one, about the same size by the look of it; http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigmans/3445657148/   I’ve never driven one of those! They are the worst of both worlds. Fine going forward, but an artic pivots around it’s back wheels so you can turn one in less than the length of a trailer, these are rigids with a trailer. That means mahoosive turning circle to turn it round, like on a van or truck so you can’t turn it in one go, then it is opposite steering like on an artic to reverse it. Lose/lose. When I got to my first drop I had such a nightmare of a time trying to turn it in a tight space that when they said I […]

I have been spending my last day off wisely reading through the works of the master, Alan Moore. In particular ‘The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (a wonderful collage of  fin-de-siecle fictional characters) whence upon I perused this missive and reply;   Dear Sirs- Having lately lost my husband in a tragic firearms accident, I have the subsequent responsibility for rearing our two sons, Toby and Benjamin, without a father’s aid or council, in addition to my unpaid work as a volunteer nurse. You will appreciate, therefore, that I am anxious to provide them with reading material that is both educational and morally instructive. It was with this in mind that I reserved a copy of your publication’s first edition to pass on to them, amidst excited yelps of boyish gratitude. Imagine, then, my consternation when I later took a moment to study the aforementioned periodical, only to find it contained material of the most doubtful provenance. Sirs, have you no shame? Not only were my children and I forced to witness scenes of both monstrosity and violence, but we were also made to suffer the most luridly depicted scenes of lust and drug addiction. Why, upon the very cover you have portrayed women with their ankles, knees, and even the appendages of  their maternity exposed. As a direct result of  this unfortunate exposure to your so-called “comic” magazine, my carefree offspring have had forever their innocence and childhood torn from their grasp. Toby, hitherto a cheery lad of twelve years who had always done well at school, now says he cares for nothing in the world so much as “trollops, absinthe and contemporary dance”; while Benjamin, a tender eight years old, is now a slave to hemp. How can you claim your product to be beneficial and uplifting in the face of this, one mother’s tragedy? I remain, Sirs, most indignantly, Amelia Lumford (Mrs) 110 Holloway Road, Highbury, London N.   Madame, how dare you? By your own admission you are that most disreputable and unnatural class of the female sex in that you “act the man” and must resort to manual employment. It is almost certain therefore that you are either a Sapphist or a harlot. As for your children, do you want the two of them to grow up as d……. pansies? Why you should instead be glad that our fine publication has awakened in them an appreciation of a healthy, masculine approach to life. Your worries about Benjamin are quite unfounded, as it is a well known fact that many eight year olds pass harmlessly through stages of mild hemp addiction without ill effect. May we suggest that any damage to the minds or constitutions of your sons results instead from your own evident inadequacy as a mother. It is little wonder, Madam, that your husband shot himself.   Brilliant! If you are dim as I, a Sapphist is an old term for a lesbian. Buck.

Last post on this, promise. And I’ll make it brief. I have some images to show for my ordeal. Unfortunately they are not very good. They seem to show me being really slow, and in the case of exiting the swim, totally shell-shocked. Which is mainly because they are accurate.  Damn!   Anyway, here’s a snap of me on the bike, or as Wendy put it; “you look like a real one.”  Thanks for that! And here is a video of me exiting the swim, (I was frozen and dazed, give me a break!) on the bike just after I’d braked into a corner and was finding my gear to get going again (looks like I’m doing 5mph, grrrr!) and crossing the line. I’d deliberately let that tosser in front of me have a 30 second lead as I thought the photographers would be snapping us as we crossed the line. I didn’t have enough in the tank to get a clear lead so rather than spoil his photo by being right in front of him as we crossed the line I eased off a little bit. I didn’t realize it was being video-ed, or that he was going to stand there like a be-hatch. Double grrrrr. Anyway, here it is, such as it is:     Oh, and one other picture to stick on before we draw a discreet veil over this subject. Look what all that fun in the sun does to a chap; The caption for which is “OW! OW! OW!” Later, Buck.

…And that makes us mighty.”   Nine months ago, when I first discovered there was such a thing as an Ironman, I used that quote (from Mel, in Firefly) to express what I thought it would be like to have completed one. Nine months. Didn’t realize it was that quick. To recap the journey; I had just completed the Warrington half marathon, a 13.1 mile run. It damn near killed me getting up to speed for that. That was on the third of October. Then I started looking around for a bigger challenge. I somehow found out about the Iron distance triathlon. A 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile ride then a 26.2 mile run. Sounds kind of impossible. (It feels it as well.) I fancied that. Ultimate challenge and all that.   There were a few minor obstacles to be overcome. I couldn’t really swim and hadn’t been to the baths in about fifteen years. I hadn’t done any real push-biking since I’d got my car license. Running 13.1 miles was the very limit of my stamina.   I noted at the time that when I told people I was thinking of it all I got was mocked and derided. It was a big ask. Undeterred by the lack of encouragement or ability I set to. First swim I couldn’t do 40m. That was with my head up. Then I was told I needed to put my head down. I couldn’t do more than a few strokes then without swallowing water or running out of air. I had to start to learn to swim. I persevered. Within a mere three weeks I had managed to get up to 60m with my face down before running out of air.   The bike/ run was not too bad for me. At my first attempt I managed to do a 56 mile ride followed by a 13 mile run. Then it was just a matter of building up my distances. And getting a decent bike. And a wetsuit. And a bike with cleats. (Learning how to ride with cleats- falling off seven time in one ride!-) And shoes that fit in the cleats. So, just time and money, really. (And more sweat and pain than you can shake a stick at!)   As part of my training I entered the Marazion half Iron distance tri. That was a disaster. I had to be pulled out of the sea. I’ve read since that panicking in open water is a common newbie reaction. Nothing like the shock of freezing cold water, not being able to breathe and thinking you are going to drown for instilling panic. That didn’t do my confidence any favours. Nor when I went for an sea swim on my own to Liverpool and the tide was sweeping me out and I thought I was going to drown.   I could complain about the run and ride, but really that is just about pain and determination. If you set […]