Work and Molly

quiet motorway

Yesterday I did a Friday run into Oakthorpe at Palmers Green, London. What a traffic nightmare?! It does seem to me that while the mayhem never gets any less, it never stays the same – it just keeps getting worse! lol
Today I start at 16:30 and on the cards is a run into Bridgwater followed by a single run to Westbury. That is a nice evenings work and if all goes well, it’ll be completed in under 10 hours.
Tomorrow is another 16:00 run to Oakthorpe, delivery time 22:00… however, this is the other end of the weekend with what seems like the world trying to rush back to London!
But oddly, I’m not complaining!

rocketboom_logo-copyMeme Molly has finally returned to Rocketboom! She had to return to the UK earlier this year to obtain a US residency visa / green card. All is now apparently sorted and she’s back in New York City to kick in to the daily news from Monday.

Published in: on 19 September, 2009 at 14:49  Leave a Comment  
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Old Devon, a modern past

A couple of miles or so north east of Honiton is a little village called Smeatharpe. There’s little of anything interesting about this typical quaint Devon village, unless you look over the odd hedge.
upottery runwayIf you did, you’ll recognize the vast slabs of concrete that are beginning to melt in to the green of the fields, because this was RAF Upottery.
The life of this place was incredibly short, a year of operational use, that became the UK home and starting point for a story that became a household name.Image(183)
Today, I had a stroll around the old airfield, I walked all of the runways, and one now has a cow shed on it. I walked further, climbed fences and saw the remains of the bomb dump. And even checked out the sad state of this ancient Air Traffic Control ToweImage(184)r.
To me, airbases hold something special. These are the places where men and women came to live, fight and die. These people sometimes travelled great distances, may be they might have been orphaned by their then fallen home nation, or might have just lived around the corner.
But the gates on these places were for many, the last gates they walked upotterythrough, as so many thousands past through them never to return, to never know a world without war, or indeed – to feel freedom once again.
The pressures were high, so the social scene was often intense, but more to the point in this case, these slabs of concrete and one building was the last friendly home and embarkation point to E Company, 506th Regiment, attached to 101st Airborne Division. I’ll translate: Home and embarkation point to Easy Company – the Band of Brothers…upotrunway

airfieldupotteryWell Hanks and Spielberg certainly didn’t film the show here, but as the sun fell on Upottery today, I thought about this place and it’s other roles in that one year, its anti-submarine warfare and air logistics.
For a moment, I stood in the center of where one runway intersects another. watching the sun go down, feeling the breeze of a dying summer and listening to the field of silence around me.
Sometimes, I don’t ever want to be anywhere else than where I am at a moment like that.

To me, these places mean something, to others – they’re just another field with a slab of decaying concrete.

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Published in: on 17 September, 2009 at 22:22  Comments (6)  
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Lazy Day and a credit card…

settlers4So far, I haven’t achieved a thing today other than wash a few clothes.  I was going to go out and have a look around either, an old WW2 place or a couple of villages near Sparkford.

What I did however, was sit and play Settler 4 on the computer all day long!! So, it’s 8:10pm as I write, so I’m about to butcher my hair and then go food shopping. Then I’m gonna go through all my old clothes and thrown them out.
And tomorrow – I will be up early and see if I can achieve all three of these things.

Other stuff – Kayne West: what a tw*tish thing to do to someone!! If I had won the award, I’d have simply put it down and said “I’ll just leave that here than” and left!
I think you’ve had one too many fame tablets Mr West.

Today when the mail came, in came in the form of a new credit card, not one I ordered, but one with a sizable limit. My bank assumed I wanted one so they sent  it – very nice… Or is it?!black-card
Around a year ago, my car blew up (don’t worry, it was Fr**ch – they’re supposed to do that). The bank would not help in any way, shape or form – yet I have no debt at all.                           (Not the card in the picture sadly)
My credit rating should be awesome, but apparently it’s so good, no one wants to lend me anything. So, when I don’t need financial services, and I’m not stuck between a rock and hard place – I get a shiny new platinum card.
Well, thank you – it’ll go at the bottom of a drawer somewhere.

 
Odd, just very odd!!

Published in: on 16 September, 2009 at 20:30  Leave a Comment  

The Fall Season on TV

I don’t own a TV, as such I download shows after they’ve aired, watch them and then delete them. If they’re any good, I may buy the box set at the conclusion of the season.

This week and over the next few weeks the US Fall season starts and as such many of the shows I watch and enjoy are back. However, there is one show missing ‘Life’, and for the life of me – I don’t understand why not.

So here’s my list of entertainment and is some cases Brain mulch

Bones                                     17 September           Season 5

CSI: Miami                            21 September           Season 8

House M.D.                           21 September           Season 6

How I met your mother     21 September           Season 5

NCIS                                     22 September           Season 7

NCIS: Los Angeles              22 September           *New*

C.S.I.                                     24 September           Season 10

The Mentalist                      24 September           Season 2

Smallville                              25 September           Season 9

Numb3rs                              25 September           Season 6

Stargate Universe                   2 October                 *New*

‘V’ (2009)                                3 October                 *New*

Published in: on 15 September, 2009 at 20:06  Comments (3)  

Proving that old sayings aren’t that wrong

WKD was telling me the other day how her father had been looking forward to WKD icon1going flying with a mate of his. This friend has his own light aircraft and he had been keen to go along and see Devon from the air.
However, upon landing the aircraft wing tip came into contact with some vegetation and, well, I think the words were, ‘ they had a bit of a hard landing’.

Last night, WKD sent me a photo of this ‘hard landing’.

Now in the aviation world, it is said that ‘any landing you walk away from – is a good one’.

I think it’s fair to say that in true British fashion, they proved the point very accurately – but bloodyhell!!!

 

 Dad's_pictures_2009_115

Published in: on 15 September, 2009 at 17:16  Comments (2)  
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Top Gear and Bugatti

Top Gear have just returned from the a private and top secret meeting at the Bugatti factory, where (amongst other things) they were shown the all new Bugatti wilderbeast – The Bugatti Galibier.

Actual specs are not available, but the one thing they do know is that it will be powered by the same engine that mallets the Veyron to 252 mph.

Personally (while not in the market for a super car), I can’t make my mind up about the looks…

Bugatti

Published in: on 15 September, 2009 at 17:10  Leave a Comment  
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Work that just turns out wrong

Yesterday afternoon I was sent to a reload site at a place called Lanreath (pronounce Lan Reth) way down in Cornwall.
This is part of doing a lot of work for a particular Dairy company and when I asked where exactly it was, no one could give me any kind of answer. So I was chasing people around the yard and phone calls were being made.
In amongst all this, WKD and I were kinda having a conversatiLan RL 2on on the move. Well I say a ‘kinda conversation’ because we seem to have these weird ‘high volume’ of information, minimal time to talk things. But the bottom line here is I broke a rule, I did not give her proper time and attention. You see my rule has always been that people come Lan RL 3first, way before any job and the fact I didn’t on this occasion was just nothing short of rude!
I got directions and set off, I was told to go to a place called Dobwalls and turn off for Lostwithiel (yes, that really is a place name), then take the first road - sign posted ‘Looe’. Drive for 3 miles and there will be a large lay-by on the left and this is the reload site.
Errrr – no, it wasn’t…
I continued down the narrow road for several miles until I found a second lay-by where I pulled in.
Phone calls ensued and eventually the place found in darkness.
I wouldn’t have minded too much, but the truck I was driving had a steering problem and on top of this – some moron had removed the rear skids/ramps from the chassis. These protect the rear of the truck and help mount the trailer to the 5th wheel (the coupling plate on the back). As such, as people had dropped trailers, the pins had struck the rear chassis cross member and had done some considerable damage to it. So much so, its now impossible to miss the trailer pin without bottoming out the vehicles air suspension – so after spending a little time wiping my nose (off the windscreen/shield), I was back on my way.7side

I arrived at Severnside Dairy in the early hours of the morning and was met by the ever helpful and friendly security – only to find the whole place was screwed up.
I would tell you about this – but I just want to forget it.
But I will say that when my hours were running out – the security staff were very helpful in expediting my leaving of the site, securing documentation and allowing to leave the still loaded trailer on the road, and for that I am most grateful.

Published in: on 15 September, 2009 at 17:00  Leave a Comment  
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Oo-err, more work…

I normally take Monday and Tuesday off, but after a 12 hour sleep, I’m still ugly, but fully rested… So I’ll be starting today at 17:00 and tomorrow at 16:30. I think I’ll go in early today and stop off at Mole Valley Farmers as my work wardrobe needs an update – see, so fashion conscious – lol!

Then I’ll take Wednesday and Thursday as my days doing absolutely nothing – YAY!! (This is a lie, I’ll be heading out on travels) It’s also coming closer and closer to guaranteeing a Friday off!

Published in: on 14 September, 2009 at 12:55  Leave a Comment  

Hmmm… not the best operation

Starting work at 4am Sunday morning with the usual banter and laughter, the job was to take an empty milk trailer to a new milk depot just north of Bristol – drop that there, pick up a full one and drive on to Cadbury’s.
This depot (Old Sodbury) is ‘new’ in terms of its use for milk, the greater company has used the site for many years and early this year it was to be closed.
I know the site well, and on my last visit, there was a skeleton staff running refrigerated cheese deliveries from there and the rest of the place was cluttered up with old trailers and trucks for sale.

Arriving at 6am, the place was a mess!! The the new areas for CIP (washing tanks out) and where milk was loaded were obvious, but there was no where to drop off an empty tank. In fact, there was barely enough space to turn the truck around.Old Sodbury Here is a very old photo of the place when it had some room.
I did turn it around, stopped and headed into the office. Apart from two ex-farm drivers (new to the job), there was no one. I looked around for job sheets and various other things that would normally be ready – but nothing!
An hour and a half later I could get back underway.

All sorted out, I got back on the road heading north on the A46 towards Stonehouse. I chose this route because it was now sunrise cotswoldbecomming daylight and it took me over the bottom of the Cotswold hills – which is the most majestic run at dawn.

Cadbury’s was a hassle in so much a I screwed up the CIP process and had to drain the tank and start all over again, before heading home in glorious air conditioned sunshine through Hereford, Monmouth and down to the M4 at Newport.

I think the milk operation out of Old Sodbury is going to be very short lived at the present rate – unless someone shows a degree of leadership and flare and moves all the old trailers from all their depots to onSmeatharpee of hundreds of old wartime airfields where a farmer will happily take a base rent on the storage of such things – like this one 10 miles from the main Cullopmton operating base  .

Published in: on 14 September, 2009 at 12:49  Leave a Comment  
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WKD and the search for the GLS

Lady trucker and avid farmerist WKD, lovingly referred to as ‘Sat-Nag’ by her hubby is apparently in search of some GLS (good looking sheep). With the question of ‘What did you do with the last lot?’ Obviously the answer to which is the kind of thing that’ll make small children cry!

Here’s what she’s looking for (I believe they’re called Suffolk Cross)

GLS

It is of note, that there is beginning to be a proliferation of acronyms on this blog – as such I feel the need rise to this challenge, though I will have to add an extra page to probably explain some of the ones I’ll be making up lol.

Published in: on 12 September, 2009 at 18:54  Comments (4)  
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