Well I had the call earlier in the day to start work around 1am and was told it was a double run to Westbury.
Later, Dave came around and I went over to his and Annie’s place later for a chat n coffee when I get phoned again - to see if I would go in straight away and swap the milk run for a trip to the pallet hub in Birmingham. The thing was, I was no where near home and the wind had been so fierce the it even drowned out the sound of the traffic right outside my window – and that’s saying something.
So I get to work, and it turns out I’m doing a single Westbury, then going around retrieving tr
ailers from all over the place.
I set off, only to find the main route to Westbury from here, the A303, was undergoing night closures and the diversions they had in place were not conducive to hauling a liquid load – what I mean is, they wanted us to go up a hill we simply can’t get up. So a slight diversion via Castle Cary, flooded roads and tree branches littered the place like an old photo of the Somme!.
Then I find they had changed access in Westbury town itself and have put weight restrictions all
over the main route in – namely a 3ton limit over a railway bridge!! I didn’t know this and certainly did not see a clearly placed sign of any type!! I think 3ton is a little excessive seeing as the bridge could happily accomodate two 44tons trucks side by side normally!
Finally I got there very late and was under the direction to make sure I was back for 8am as the truck was going to Europe (the UK does not class or talk of itself as ‘europe’, that’s a place on the other side of the sea, unless you’re WKD).
As such I didn’t wash the tank, I just tipped and raced back.
I got back at 08:05 and was told there were no other trucks to doing any other work as everything is being used to the max!
So at 08:30 I clocked off!!
Short day or what !! Anyway, I hung back and had a coffee with the people there just in case something came up – the reason? Well we get paid for a minimum of 8hrs, so even if we work 4hrs, we still get 8. As such, I thought it only fair to hang about a little and be available for the full 8 as this lot have been alright to me over the years.
This didn’t stop me getting a full nights sleep, in fact – I could have done with a little longer in bed really! Not as beauty sleep, heck the longer I stay in bed the worse I look – my head gets a bit like one of those wrinkly faced soft toys, but about the size of a water melon, it’s just that it’s so much fun pulling it back into a shape I recognise. Sometimes it works too, other times – not so much! lol
































































