19th -23rd November 2007

Monday.
0600 Start. I'd not planned on starting quite this early but I woke before the alarm, obviously excited???? about coming back to work. I'd planned being in about half six just in case I needed a jump start, it was a good job the battery was OK as the other 2 had already left when I arrived. It amazes me the volume of traffic on the A12 at 0615 and at half past I am sitting in a jam waiting to exit at the Brook Street M25 junction. Glad I got up early for this. Thankfully the M25 is OK and the tolls are running well with no queing to get through. I'm off down the A2 to the Skanska site at Gravesend work seems to be going great guns over here in Kent and the slip road from the M25 to the A2 is now open and I'm soon across the new viaduct and on to the A2. Work only started here about 18 months ago and it looks like the whole job will be done before much longer.

Further down the A2 is where the Skanska site is and here too the progress is impressive, I'm here to load a JCB 4CX and I trundle round and find the compound where the contractor has got all his gear stored. They arrive just after 0730 and start faffing, my planned 15 minute break on the tacho creeps round to an early 45 but that'll help me out later.




We get the 4CX on and secure and I'm out of the gate just after 0830 joining the A2 which is going nowhere fast. Then just like that it picks up and clears and things are looking brighter (although the weather is looking anything but) I consider sneaking around the Bluewater loop to drop down on the top of the toll booths for the tunnel but decide to risk it and am rewarded by an unhinderred passage all the way to and through the toll booths into the tunnel. That's quite rare at any time especially nearing 0900.

On the down side the weather is appalling and the traffic pretty horrendous all the way round to the M1 and through the roadworks. Finally things improve (sun struggles out briefly & traffic now OK) about 1030 as I'm around the Milton Keynes area. I plug on and take the M6 and make my 2nd ever use of the M6toll as far as J4 where I head up the A38 for Lichfield.

I've only got a rough idea of where I'm headed but it's a Nuttall site so I look for the green cabins and I'm soon roughly in the right place. A quick call to the site contact and he soon appears in his van and leads me to where he wants the machine.
This dozer was a tight fit going through, he ended up with a banksman riding on it to watch him through.

I managed to find a clear spot to stop and unload. It's clear because it's about 3" thick gooey mud that sticks to everything. A 15 minute stop here and I'm back onto the toll road (another £8 gone) and I make Corley services with about 20mins on the clock. At 1400 my half hour's up and I make my way back across the A14 to the top of the M11.



Passed this big fella on the way. I thought it was going to bigger than it was from the width of the thing.

The rest of the journey was OK for traffic but pretty miserable weatherwise. Back in the yard at 1700 having done nearly 8.5 hours driving, pretty unusual for me these days.

Distance 558Km

Tuesday.
0645 Start. This morning got off to a bad start when the truck wouldn't start. Flat battery again. Both other drivers had already gone and the fitter was on site somewhere. I managed to breathe some life into it about 0730 with a jump start onto one battery from the bosses Ford Ranger.

First job was at Lt.Leighs near Chelmsford loading a 5t digger and 3t dumper and moving them back to a landscapers yard about 5 miles away.

Next up was a site clearance at Halstead, it's a poxy place to go as you have to load in a communal parking area and the locals don't like it. Sure enough after only a few minutes someone comes out and starts having a moan about it. She doesn't get far with me and starts moving along the various people before steaming off to see the site agent. A few minutes later she quietly slinks back to her house, obviously getting short thrift from the agent. If she'd lived there for years you'd understand her point, but her house was one of the first phase and is about a year old.





There's a few packs of bricks, blocks, cills, some tipping skips and a mixer to be loaded. It all has to be loaded up the ramps by forklift as there is not enough space to load from the side. After an hour and a half I'm ready and take the materials to a site in Danbury to unload. Unloading is slow as it comes off the same by a shorter reach machine and less experienced driver.



1300 and I'm empty and headed back to Halstead to reload. It's simpler this time round, a couple of road plates, a fuel tank & stand, and the forklift (JCB 540-140) this too is taken to Danbury and is quickly offloaded. It had been planned to take the smaller machine and some bits to nearby Sandon but that's been postponed so I head back round the corner to the yard. Finished at 1645.

Distance 237Km

Wednesday.
0645 Start. It starts. By all accounts a fairly light day if the paperwork is to believed, first call at Silver End to load a 3t dumper.



It's a nice easy load and it's taken to a site in Sible Hedingham where access is through the Premdor factory. It's dropped off and replace by a 4.5t Kobelco and a 6t dumper.



Now it's back to Silver End to unload the dumper, squeezing it cheekily past a muckaway tipper being loaded. The Kobelco stays on board and is run down to Tiptree and dropped in their yard.

Next job is one of ours, collecting a 3t dumper and 8t Yanmar from Purleigh near Maldon. The site is a quagmire and the dumper is travelling sideways as much as forwards. At one point I have to drag it with the machine as it cannot climb a slope due to the amount of muck caked on the wheels. Unfortunately it has to be loaded in the road, but the dumper does at least go on OK. The 8t is another matter and slides down the ramps even after clearing the tracks out. I try the usual trick of wrapping a chain round a strong point on the body and pulling against it whilst tracking up but things are not very successful. I decide that I'd let the hirer try as it was on a road and he'd obviously be a more experienced operator.





It would appear not. He was next to useless and less happy about loading it than I, his suggestion was to try and clear the tracks completely but without a steam cleaner to do the tracks and ramps this would not work either.

Luckily the site is only a few miles away from the yard and there was a spare machine driver in the yard today so he was summoned to assist. Next thing I know there's an argument underway, the hirer is spoiling for a fight and has taken our drivers comment completely out of context. I tell them both to stop pissing about and try it get it loaded and away.

Our machine driver does manage to load the digger but it was quite hairy and at one point had quite a lot of track overhanging. At least he admitted it was dodgy and didn't make me look like an arse.

Back at the yard the 2 machines are dropped off for cleaning and fuelling and I head out into Chelmsford to collect our 3t Komatsu from The Miami Hotel.



On the way back in I call at Jovic Plant to load a 6t dumper and unload both at the yard. The 8t Yanmar is now ready and it is loaded with the 6t dumper and chained ready for the morning. Until the plan changes and it gets offloaded and transferred to the lowloader.

Finished at 1645. Distance 154Km





Thursday


0645 Start. I've still got the dumper on and now have to trail over to Target Plant at Colchester to collect a 5t Yanmar & breaker. I run the dumper off to load the buckets in and it slides nicely down the ramps. The pair are going to Gt.Leighs between Chelmsford and Braintree and it takes well over an hour to do the journey as the traffic is bad getting through Colchester to the A12.

Gt.Leighs to Gt.Dunmow next, it's a short hop and I arrive to load an 8t Volvo which is going to Bury St.Edmunds in Suffolk. It's a bit of a drag after Braintree, all single carriageway road through Halstead, Sudbury and on to BSE and I arrive on site around midday.

I've got another collection to make from a farm at Boxted on the Essex / Suffolk border just off the A134 between Sudbury and Colchester, it's a scissor lift this time, an unusual piece of plant for me to have to move. I try several ways to load it, slowly forwards, slowly backwards, taking a run up at the ramps but there is little control over the power sent to the wheels and it slithers about all over the place. I've still got no winch so I have to get one of the blokes on the farm to give it a shove with his telehandler.



After a 45 minute break parked in the sunshine I head back to Colchester and pick up the A12 for a better run right through to Harold Wood to drop the scissor lift back at their yard.



A short run back to the yard and I'm off home at 1615. Distance 339Km.

Friday
0645 Start. Having just come from home at Great Baddow my first job is to go to a site in the village and load one of our JCB 3cx's. There's several wheeled diggers on site and I can't find our one, this is because for some reason this one has never been signwritten and it's about the only one of our machines I'd never seen before. I have to wait before I can load it, as the site cannot start until 0730 and I need the machine driver with his keys so it can be moved. Eventually he appears having been waiting outside the site, his machine was brought here last week by another haulier that the contractor had provided and they wouldn't bring the lorry off the road. Obviously he was expecting the same vehicle to take him today.

Anyway he loads the machine and I head off about 0800 heading for a site in Ipswich on the edge of the docks. It's a good run down and I'm there, tipped and done just after 0900.

It's now back to Danbury to the site from earlier in the week to load the forklift and bits and bobs. All the gear is ready there's just no forklift driver, I'm a bit annoyed by it as it's not really my job to load all their junk on board but I give it a go. There's an empty fuel tank that goes on first followed by a large steel stand that I flip over and put on next, a tipping skip sits on top and them there's a mixer on next. There is also a shovel bucket to go, so I have to remove the fork carriage and swap it for the bucket, scoop the forks up and slot the machine on the back. I'm actually quite pleased with what I've acheived as it has to be loaded by driving on and off the lorry rather than from the side. Quite often the regular drivers will moan and groan about having to try and get a load like this together.






It's a 5 minute run down the road to Sandon, where the forklift driver appears and takes about twice the time it took me to load, to unload it.

Back at the yard my plans for getting a washdown are hindered as our lowloader is parked down in the washdown bay with one of the trailer wheels off. Eventually they get the repaired tyre back on and get it shifted and I'm able to squeeze in and try and get some of the dirt off.

I'm now told that there's another machine to collect off the Garrison at Colchester at 1530. Great. I cut the wash short and leave at 1415 hoping to collect it early, I'm there at 1500 but have to wait for about 20 minutes until the driver has finished. He loads it on and I make my back to Danbury. Finished about 1645.

Distance 252Km.