23rd July 2007

Monday 23rd July


0630 Start. A quick catch up in the yard with one of the other drivers and the fitter and I'm on the road at 0700. It's the A12 to Colchester this morning to call at Target Plant to collect a 3t dumper that we have cross hired. As I reverse in they are just pulling the dumper out of it's slot and it's a stop of only a few minutes to drop the ramps, load it on, chain it down and ramps up before I'm on my way back down the A12 towards Chelmsford. I'm actually heading for Gt. Leighs between Chelmsford and Braintree so I cut through Boreham which saves the ardous road around North East Chelmsford. It's a bit tight in places but I used to use when I was driving the double bin 8 legger for Easco and I still use it from time to time. Unfortunately so do quite a few other people including a bloke in coach who was expecting me about as much as I was expecting him right on that bend. I brushed the hedge on my left whilst he sort of lunged towards his verge. We managed to pass but I think it could have been a brown trouser moment for him as I was well clear before he started to move off again. The site at Gt. Leighs is a sawmill where they cut willow into cricket bat blanks and export them worldwide, there were no construction workers present so it was left secure in the usual place and I trundle off to make myself a cuppa in the first layby on the way back to the yard.

It's really bad news on a Monday when the tea is made and the milk is off and I have to return to the yard sooner than I needed just to get the tea intake back on track. As is sometimes the way the next job is not for a while and I wait whilst the fitter finishes working on our 7.5t Hitachi machine before loading it on and heading off for Sudbury, Suffolk just before 1100.

It's back to Colchester on the A12 as I'm not a fan of the tedious Braintree, Halstead, Sudbury route and I arrive at the job on the one way in Sudbury bang on 1200. The machine is tracked off onto the road but the hirers aren't happy as this machine has steel tracks and is going to be used in a layby. I suggest that they put a few sheets of old ply down to protect the tarmac and this they do although I have my suspicions that it won't be the last of this topic. I head back to Colchester and stop for a half hour snooze around lunch time in a quiet layby. Just as I am about to turn into the yard at Danbury the office calls, I know what the call will be about and I wander in to see if I'm right. Sure enough they want the Sudbury machine swapped for a rubber tracked machine, I have to wait a while before they can get one released tempararily from another site that can be swapped. Eventually the get the OK to take one from the same hirer at a site in South Woodham Ferrers and I am able to collect it at 1530-1600. SWF is a large new town and the plot of land where they are building is right in the middle of the existing housing.

Close to the site there are cars everywhere and whilst I manage to squeeze between a Freelander and an Escort van I cannot get past a Beetle with side swiping the van. The LR owner comes out and has a bit of a rant, but I sympathise with her and she agrees to move rather than risk her mirror. I'm on site at 1515 and the machine is still working and it's 1545 before I can get it on board. This half hour is spent shunting back and forth as I cannot get the swing to get in the site and I'm stuck outside making things awkward for everyone. Eventually I'm out and straight back to the yard, the machine is tipped off and loaded straight on to our other 6 wheeler for delivery tomorrow.
Finshed 1630. 263Km