7th - 11th August 2006

Monday 7th August 2006
0530 Start. The truck had been loaded over the weekend by the boss, following Fridays latish arrival back from the Isle of Wight. The enormous mound of materials that was dotted about the yard on Friday had somehow been rammed on and strapped down. We’d both had our doubts that it would fit, but some doubling up of bits and bobs had achieved the improbable. After a quick cuppa whilst checking everything was secure I headed for the gate at about 0550 the gate to the premises can only be opened by remote before 0700 and I couldn’t find mine. I had just used it to get the car in, so I ran back about 200yds to the car to grab it. Searched the car, not there. Ran back to the gate and grabbed the office keys, searched the office, yard, car again but still no remote. Back to the gate and start turfing kit out of the cab. Found the remote where it had slipped next to the seat. Gate open at 0605 and out through the lanes towards Waltham Cross and J25 M25. Made good progress to up M1 / M45 to Coventry arriving on site just after 0800. Squeezed into the site and had to carefully take the load off bit by bit to avoid damaging anything, first priority was to clear the beaver tail, so the ramps could be dropped and the drill rig tracked off the back. By the time I had finished unloading the crew had already drilled the first pile and were checking for water ingress. A well earned cuppa from the client on site (a rare thing) and I was back across Coventry headed for the M40. From the M40 across to Oxford, passed an OshKosh tank transporter going the other way, those things are massive. Shame I’ve never seen one loaded yet. Through Oxford and out to the Stanford in the Vale near Faringdon to collect some brand new stillages from Pump Parts. Had my break there looking at a enormous concrete pump, mounted on an 8 wheeler Scania. Forgot to take any pictures though. Back to Oxford round the ring road and get stuck in a jam just short of the Headington roundabout, a cycle was laying in the carriageway, and the police were diverting traffic around it through a right turn lane, stopping oncoming traffic and presumably preserving the scene suggesting a grisly accident. Always a sobering thought, I returned to the yard and unloaded the stillages. Finished at 1630

Tuesday 8th August 2006

0715 Start. An easy on the cards today, away down to Kennington on the edge of Ashford in Kent to collect a couple of stillages of deck stands and a few lengths of steel from a small site, where they are extending a house. A quick blast up the M20 and across the A229 to the Medway City Estate in Rochester to collect some pallets of deck stands from our yard there. A nice easy run back to the yard to tip off. Where is all the traffic today I wonder? Back at the yard, time for a vehicle change for a quick run to Dalston Lane in Hackney. The site is right on the kink between Graham Road and the bridge, this makes it a pig of a place to get to as the A10 has a 7.5t bridge from the north, Dalston Road has a 25t bridge just by the site, and you can’t get round the corner from Graham Road. Still no problem today as I’ve only got a few boxes to deliver to the CFA rig and can use whatever route I want, thanks to……………

...........................................................a Transit Connect.

Came back via Leyton, pleased to not get stopped by the police doing vehicle stops along Lea Bridge Road, especially when I get back to the yard and notice that one of the van tyres will need to be replaced before very long. When I left the yard and followed my route through to Waltham Cross, I took a right at a junction and nearly crashed into a car coming the other way as I cut across his lane, I had never driven this way in anything other than the truck and followed the same course across the junction. Ooops. Back at the yard the truck had been loaded with some steel rebar for tomorrow, so I left at 1630 unable to get any overtime today. Still it will keep the bean counters happy.

Wednesday 9th August 2006

0600 Start. Oh joy another IOW trip, hoping it will be better than last weeks I start the slog down the M25 /A3 to Portsmouth arriving just before 0900 for the 0930 sailing to Fishbourne. In to the terminal to collect tickets and a DG form for the return, and soon the incoming boat has docked and unloaded and is ready to start loading. As usual the white trash gets loaded first, and I end up somewhere in the middle.

White trash

Still it’s not far from the terminal at Fishbourne to the site at Binstead and I am on site about 1015 it’s a tight squeeze to reverse around the protruding scaffolding but just about do-able. The rig is packed ready for transport and we start the loading by craning on the augers and toolbox before dropping the ramps and loading the beast on. Once its on I notice on the makers plate that is actually 13.5t rather than the 12.8t that I had been told, should be OK today, but with the extra augers that I brought out for another smaller rig last week it was probably very close to the 32t max. Once on a chained we load the concrete pump, bund and diesel drum by digger rather than use the winch which ended up going wrong last week. All packed up by 1130 I decide to head straight for the ferry, possible to even catch the 1200 back to Portsmouth. Back at the ferry I get the DG form stamped and told that they cannot put me on the 1200 as they alreasy have DG waiting. This turns out to be Vito service van for a refridgeration company probably with one gas bottle on board. Never mind I’ll wait for my booked 1230 sailing instead. Whilst parked in the DG bay the St.Clare leaves on the 1200, I’m not too bothered as although the other boats are smaller it has come and gone before on them, the bigger boat just having better outside seating. Whilst looking out over the water, I can hear a metallic clinking from the other side of the vehicle. I race around expecting to find someone fiddling with the chains, to find the loaders checking the height with their gauge. They tell me its too high, so I drop the air but they aren’t having it. Look I say its been over before on the smaller boats it’s OK. They then tell me that although the 4 smaller boats look the same, they are all different height and the St. Catherine which has just docked is the smallest, also a no-no is the St.Helen. To add insult to injury the rig driver has just loaded his van on leaving me high and dry. Luckily next along is St.Cecilia on the 1300 which I can just scrape through. Last one on again, which places me right at the front of the vessel pointing backwards. Why do they load their DG on the front? Is it so they can keep an eye on it? Surely if there was a fire it’d be better off at the back. Straight off the ferry and an uneventful run back to the yard leaving everything loaded for the morning. Finished at 1700

It won't fit on this one.

Can't be that deep can it? He's just made it across. Maybe I'll try that.

Perhaps not, maybe they were aerated blocks to give him some buoyancy.

Good old England again, getting fed up with all this continental work they keep giving me.

When my load, it rocks about in the ruts worse than the ferry.

Thursday 10th August 2006

0700 Start. Short hop this morning to St.Albans, a quick cuppa with the rig driver who has arrived and we set off in convoy as he doesn’t know where the site is. Somehow he disappears after the A1081/A414 roundabout and I spend about 5 minutes waiting in a layby just past the fire station. Back on track we find our site, an empty plot in a 1960’s housing estate. It has all the hallmarks of being ONE OF THEM jobs where as soon as you stop you are in the way, but in fact no-one came and moaned which was a bonus. Unfortunately there was only a small mini digger on site, so we were unable to lift the concrete pump off, and its too heavy to roll down the ramps of its own accord. In the end we secured it with a chain to the digger bucket, lowered the ramps and run a small skip loader against the pump to take the weight before gradually letting it down. A good bit of lateral thinking, this sort of challenge is one of the reasons I enjoy my job. It was a case of having to get it off safely and engineering the best way to do it. All unloaded I head out of St.Albans towards the M25. I come to some roadworks with temp. traffic lights just beyond the high street, thanks to the traffic queuing from the high street junction the traffic is queuing through the road works, and I sit through three green phases of the lights unable to move. The most irritating thing that the bus drivers were the worst culprits for entering the single lane section seeing that it was not clear the other side. I’d probably be sitting there now, but in the end I had to what they did, push forward on the green and once they had all cleared go through on their green sequence. Things like this piss me off as I had to do what they had been doing and got dirty looks for doing it. Onto the M25 and up the M40 into a traffic jam just past J3. The signs are telling us that there are delays between J3-J5. Well you don’t say, YES I KNOW THERE ARE DELAYS as I am bloody well stuck in them for about an hour and a half. A Sprinter van has gone over and looks a bit of a mess, there are collision investigators on scene and I wonder if this is another nasty accident. Into Oxford, it’s a simple collection of sand and cement left over from the job we finished last week. 8 pallets later I’m out and back on the motorways, get to the M25 around J17 ish and the signs are displaying Fog, despite it being around 1500 and bright and sunny. Tipped off, loaded some rebar and left for home at 1715

Friday 11th August 2006

0645 Start. Another easy day today, makes a change after the last couple of weeks. A blast up the motoways to Mondays Coventry job to drop off two bundles of steel and a sack full of bits, not worth getting the crane out as we can hoof the steel off the side. Seems extravagant running out with such a small amount, but it has got to be there so they can be ready for a concrete pour on Monday. If it got delayed the site would stop and start costing ££££. Back down the A45 I stopped at the old weighbridge layby at the start of the M45 for a bite and a cuppa. It seemed a bit pricey compared to some (although I rarely stop at them) but was good grub and the placed was rammed full of motors. Back at the bottom of the M1 I decided to take the M10 across and grab some fuel and the Shell garage at the end. Only its moved, they seem to have moved it closer to the M25 J21 than I remember. Still I found it eventually and was surprised that DERV was only 96.9p / L seemed quite cheap by todays standards. Back across the A1081 to the M25 I decided that as I wasn’t in a hurry I’d check out the route from Potters Bar to Cuffley to Waltham Cross, to see if there were any restrictions that would stop me using it. At the Waltham Cross the (B) road is dual carriageway and I have wondered for some time if it might be a useful way to avoid the M25 on a bad day. The road is OK, nothing I can’t get through, but a bit long winded so I probably won’t bother with it. It does make me wonder why that dual carriageway is there on the last stretch, it’d make a decent A road, let alone a B road. It also made me wonder why they never continued the M10 to the M25 and cut the corner like the M26 does in Kent. Back at the yard, there was nothing much to do apart from clean out the cab, sort the equipment in the toolboxes. No plans had been fixed for Monday, so I left the keys and had an early day leaving about 1600. No overtime again today, except for the painting that Mrs 8 Wheels had lined up for me at home.

This week has been about as quiet as it gets, all in all a reasonable week. Just seems a bit light as not much overtime.

Total distance 1683km

Wonderful why can't all roads look like this?