Monday
0645 Start. The yard is dark and largely empty when I arrive this morning, Bob has long gone and Norm just passed me down the hill as I was on my way in. I've got a nagging doubt in mind that things are not going to go smoothly. Unlock the office and grab my paperworm, just one move booked. Unlock the cab throw my grub bag in, slot the tacho in and turn the key, click. Somehow I just knew that the battery was going to be dead this morning, it can't be the winch that's caused the problem as it's been out since last week. There's some drain issue somewhere as that's been 3 Mondays running now. Luckily Norm hasn't gone too far and he's happy enough to nip back and jump start me back into life.
It's just gone 0700 when I leave the yard and I'm off to Collier Row to load an 8t New Holland machine for one of our groundworker customers. I arrive on site just before 0800 and whilst I'm sorting some paperwork and getting my overalls on the machine driver has spotted me and has tracked the machineout ready. I move him and his machine quite often and it's an easy move, he knows exactly how to load it and where to place it on the body which makes things much smoother. By the time I'm ready to leave with the driver following in his van I decide that the best route to the M11 is back out on the A12 and round the M25 rather than join the inbound traffic.
The site we're headed to is one in Bottisham between Cambridge and Newmarket, it's a bit rural to get there but without incident nonetheless and a slightly more direct route than the one I took the one and only time I'd ever been there before. The machine is soon hoofed off and by now I've been detailed to go to Hewden's at Dagenham, some other transport company has let them down and left them in the shit and I've got to try and dig them out of it.
I'm at Hewden's at 1115 and the first issue is about the winch, there's a job for a compressor and a bowser. A quick phone call later and it's OK there's a crane on site to unload. I shuffle through the stack of deliveries and collections and there's a collection on the same project as the delivery so I grab the paperwork and go to load the delivery. I've only just set foot into the yard and the woman from the office is hollering, she want's the other delivery done before the collections get started. Look these two are on the same project in Stratford this one is in Purfleet I reply, no the Purfleet is really urgent it can't wait she says. OK how about I do Purfleet, then the Stratford and then backload the collection. No the Stratford is more urgent. Fine but don't expect to get anything back from Stratford today then. Just do the deliveries and forget the collections. Great.
Next minute the manager saunters out with 2 collections in his hand, one in Dagenham and an urgent one in Ilford. I try and talk him round which is usually possible but I don't get much sense so I take the collections and make it clear that's it's possible one or neither will get missed. I also fail to mention that there's another urgent collection for the Ilford school one in the office and if I did the Dagenham 1st I'd not get it all on. They stopped listening so I stopped suggesting.
Anyway we back the 500gallon bowser on with a dumper followed by a 285cfm compressor, there's still a bit of space on the tail so I stick the 3t digger for Purfleet on to save me a trip back later to collect it. It's 1145 when I leave and I've got an hour on the clock before a stop, it's a good run to Stratford though and I'm there in half an hour. Trouble is the site is on the International Station site which is Mahoosive and it takes another half hour of driving round getting sent from pillar to post to locate where the stuff is required. It's a piling job, and they are setting up which means there's 2 artics of equipment in front of me to be unloaded first and they're in no hurry for this plant. An hour later and I'm finally offloaded but now only with a few minutes left on the clock I park defiantly in the bus drop off lane at the station and settle down for a break.
1415 and I'm off to Purfleet, down the A12 to the A13 and out to the M25 and to the site which is the Vopack oil terminal right next to the QEII bridge, ironically just where the CTRL dives under the Thames. One bit of good news is that as I passed Dagenham there was a huge fire over towards the bakery and the access to the estate was blocked off. That's where my collection was and there's no way I'm going to sit and wait for it to reopen. Likewise I'm not trying to get into a school at 1600ish so I head back to Danbury for a 1645 finish.
Distance 326Km
Tuesday
0645 Start. It's becoming a habit of late having to go to Romford 1st thing, today is no exception and it's a poxy little close of houses. In usual building site style they work backwards from the access meaning that the last few houses are really awkward to get to snaking around the roads that have got cars parked here and there. Of course as usual all the residents hate the fact there is building work going on and leave their vehicles in deliberately awkward places, it's be understandable if they'd lived there for 20-30 years but their houses are about a year old tops.
I'm loading one of our Yanmar 7 ton machines it's a self drive machine and it's now offhire, once it's on I head back out on the A12 and continue along to Colchester to drop it at a site in the Dutch Quarter.
There's already an identical one here that we'd crosshired in and I collect that and take it back to Target Plant at Colchester. I run it off the ramps and leave it outside the workshop just in front of another one. Their wagon driver tries to move it so he can get the other one out to load but it won't start. It's on the ground in their yard so I declare it their problem and make mt escape (I later discover that this has been bugging this machine for some time now)
My next job is to collect another of our Yanmar 75's from the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation at Papermill Lock in Lt. Baddow. It's been working on the canal and they've got a barge that they use to move it about on, it's on dry land however and I find a bit of space in a gateway to load it off the road. The lock is about half way between Boreham and Danbury and all that stands in the way is the 7.5t weak bridge over the canal. As they have got a vested interest in the bridge I decide (of course) it's better to the long way round via Boreham.
Back at the yard the Yanmar is off loaded and I head back to Colchester Garrison to collect a bucket. The Garrison job is vast and I'm looking for our turquiose Kobelco but I can't see it anywhere and cannot get the driver on his phone. In the end I leave it as I'm booked into Truck East at Witham at 1400.
After an hour and a half of fiddling, plugging it in and replacing the ABS sensors a test run proves that it is still prone to occasional tripping out and they decide that more parts will have to be ordered and fitted.
Back at the yard I reload the Yanmar 75 in readiness for the morning, that's the 4th time I've loaded one of these. I'm off home at 1645.
Distance 295Km
Wednesday
0645 Start. Off to Priors Green, Takely this morning first, it's a whole new village they are building right on the boundary of Stansted Airport. I'm meeting our fitter there as he's going to service the machine on site. He's there waiting ready although it's hardly surprising as he lives about 300 yards away. The machine is soon off and I trundle off to Birchanger services for some fuel, luckily they've got some which is more than can be said for the 3 Shell garages tried yesterday. Tanks topped I'm on the M11 for a short hop along to the A414 at Harlow, I'm barrelling along lane 1 quite nicely ready to turn onto the sliproad when I notice that the trafic queuing to exit the motorway has decided to queue along the hard shoulder, there's no way I can stop and tack on the back of the queue so I have to queue jump and try and find a gap at the bottom of the slip. In my opinion the people queuing along the hard shoulder had made it more dangerous to try and exit the motorway than if they'd queued along lane 1 as usual. It was a bit hairy slotting in and on reflection if it happened again I'd have gone down to the M25 and round to the A12 instead. Safely off the M11 I follow the A414 back towards Chelmsford and trun off at the sleepy hamlet of Highwood to load at a yard there. I'm booked for 0930 and I pull in at 0900. The bad news is that they're not sure if it's going or not but are happy for me to sit and wait.
And wait a bit longer. It's a load of trench sheets and bits for deep excavations that are destined for Tottenham Court Road where they'll be unloaded by tower crane. There's some complication with paperwork however and the waiting continues until 1130 when they ask me to load their JCB 3CX instead. I'm all ready to go and suddenly there's a brand new battery to be fitted so this delays me a bit more whilst they clamber up and swap it over. At 1200 I'm ready for the off and I've got one of their lads riding passenger as he's bored with being in the yard. It's a simple run over the QEII bridge and drop the machine raight next to the tunnel crossing offices. A good run back and we're back in their yard just after 1330.
There's still no word on the TCR job, although by now we'll only load it for deivery tomorrow. Finally at 1415 they decide it's not happening so send me away having got one short move done for 5.5 hours. Back at the yard there's a couple of errands to run in one of the vans before heading for home at 1615.
Distance 176Km
Thursday
0700 Start. No rush this morning, it's first stop Truck East at Witham and there's not much activity here until about 0800. They replaced the ABS sensors the other day, today they are going to replace the rings on the hubs in an attempt to cure the longstanding problem. I get turfed out of the cab and have to sit in the waiting room, there's no magazines or anything to look at apart from a Scania accessories brochure or two and I have to listen to the blokes in the service reception gassing away like a bunch of old women.
Finally at 1100 they've finished it, and have tested it and ask if I want to take it on test, I decide that I'd test it for real and just get on with some work. My job is to collect a machine in Great Wakering near Southend so I leave the axle down and make it to Southend before the ABS trips, I reset it and it's fine for the rest of the journey.
I'm loading a JCB 5t machine with no buckets or anything else, the customer is a fencer and he puts all the bits and bobs on his trailer and just leaves the machine to move which makes a nice change. Ordinarily I'd run with the tag axle raised but I want to see hove the ABS fares and leave it down, I'm slightly disappointed that it trips a couple of times in Southend but overall it's a great improvement. It might be a case of letting everything bed in properly and it will ultimately disappear, I'm prepared to play it by ear for now. If the problem persistantly reoccurs we are running out of things to check although my next suspicion would be the wiring, I reckon that when it was chopped and extended the wire was joined rather than replaced. Time will no doubt tell. The little Jake is dropped off at Maldon and I run back into the yard where there's a bit of a lull for a an hour and a bit.
The sun is shining so I drag the steam cleaner out and have a quick blast round, spray a bit of stuff over the dash and generally tidy up a bit before heading off to CRH plant at Witham (again) around 3pm.
They've booked me to move some of their plant and apparently their head office reckon it'll all fit as their driver has done it on his 6 wheeler. Only when I arrive things have changed slightly, the plan is to load a 6t dumper (was a 3t) plus a 140 roller and a JCB 2CX Airmaster. I do like a challenge but I can see this being not do-able. First I back the dumper right up to the headboard and then back the 2CX up so that the airbox on the back is nestled right under the dumpers skip.
A quick check with the tape shows that I've got 1m left so clearly a 1.4m roller is never going to fit even if we manage to spin it round with the 2CX. There's a bit off faffing about and some phone calls and they decide to drop the dumper and just load the roller and 2CX. I just start to unload / reload when it starts to rain. And Hail. And bloody well hammer down whilst I'm offloading the dumper and reloading the roller. Fortunately it soon stops just as I'm ready to put the JCB on which has got an enclosed cab. Typical.
After a bit of a session with the chains I head back to Danbury and call it a day at 1630.
Distance 191Km
Friday
0530 Start. I'm well out of the habit of early starts, too many last year for my liking. I'd much rather drift in when someone else has done the Fort Knox entry procedure but sometimes it's inevitable that early starts are needed. I'm on the road by 0545 and I can't believe how busy the A12 is that time, it's a happy compromise though as I'm heading for Basingstoke and whilst the M25 is busy I can pass Heathrow by about 0700 and avoid the big hold ups that would catch me if I left any later. My address in Basingstoke is a bit vague but it's an area I've been to in my last 2 driving jobs and I decide to have a scout about when I'm there, I can't find the exact location but a quick phone call to the site contact gets me a bit more detail and I'm just around the corner. At 0800 exactly I'm there (should get a job with OnTime) and it's a simple handover of the 2 machines. I decide to cut back to the M3 through Old Basing along some lanes I've used before and I now notice some 6'6" restrictions that have clearly been there a long time, it's too late to do anything but go through anyway and I emerge unscathed on the M3 at the Hook junction. First brew up of the day is taken at Fleet on a 15 but I decide to push on to South Mimms before taking a 30 in case there's anything else to do later.
It's around 1100 when I roll out of South Mimms and I'm back in the yard about 1200 ish, there's not much doing except to load a couple of machines when the fitter has finished servicing them.
There's 2 for Monday and I reckon they'll both squeeze on, trouble is they'll be the wrong way round but I'l ljust have to reload on Monday. First on is a Yanmar 5.5t which is put on tight to the bulkhead, it's all on ready when the boss announces that the maggot (our 1.5t mini) is going out this afternoon. It goes on the back and is delivered to site down a narrow track elsewhere in Danbury.
Back at the yard the othe machine (anothe Yanmar 75) is ready and after a bit of careful positioning it sits on the back taking up almost all of the remaining space. I'm now informed that there's also a pecker (hydraulic breaker) to go with the 75 and I attach it to the 55 for safekeeping until we can switch it around.
I'm all done and on my home just after 1630.
Distance 352km
Total for the week 1250Km
