A lot really, you see I was gonna sit here and blog about the last two days work doing a thing I kinda dislike – delivering pallets! Yep up and down the viciously icy country lanes and hills of Devon. I seem to have been on more farms n the last two days than I’ve ever been to in my life.
Not unlike many places, the UK has had a bit of a freeze going on and I swear I could kiss the inventor of the Diff-Lock!!

However, no matter how hard I try to write it, when I finished work today I sidled of to the Milk yard for a nice hot chocolate and a sit down before getting behind yet another steering wheel and driving home (something I do a lot).
But I noticed earlier the WKD’s car was there, but by 5pm only two bulkers had returned!! Another was being dragged across the yard in pieces after being hit by a tree coming in the opposite direction. While this was going on another wrecker was coming in pulling a whole artic (semi) also with what appeared like further tree-like copulation signs
Now I know how much trouble I’ve had the last couple of days and this simply pales into insignificance compared to what the Farm Collection drivers face everyday.
In fact, yesterday I text WKD and simply asked – how do you do your job?
3 hrs later and I rang the Office to see how bad things were and was told –they’re bad! Then I asked if all the bulkers were back and was told the last one had just pulled in.

In the north they’ve had a lot of snow, but down here, it’s mainly been freezing and then out of no where today – it rained!! It melted a few bits of ice but in reality it simply had an ‘oiling’ effect.
Since returning home, about every 20 minutes or so I hear police sirens, so as night draws the days last breaths, the temps are going down and now everything is freezing.
Now WKD is no faint hearted bird, but she is oddly – human! So after all she has done and put up with today, she has to drive home – which is at the top of a fairly steep hill. Now, for some reason (which is completely beyond my understanding), I have ventured into feeling some concern – this is unacceptable, it’s not something I do! But never the less, she is part of the team/crew, and if you’re in one of them – you simply watch out for each other.

So while I did text her to see if she was ok etc, I have heard nothing but a blank text in reply – but then like me, she often spends hours with the phone switched off.

I came across this on YouTube, it’s an audio of a little girl in Ireland doing a crank call.

I get to work at 4:30pm yesterday and notice WKD’s  red missile in the car park. I was gobsmacked, I thought she had finished for Christmas (well until a couple of hours on Christmas and Boxing Day).
Strangely as I walked across the road I couldn’t help but wonder where on earth ALL the Ex-Farm bulkers were. There was only one!
As soon as I stepped into the yard, another agency guy came sidling up wanting information and I talked to him as I made my to the office, only to be sidetracked by WKD, the only Ex-Farm driver to actually make it back to base – why? Because they were all stuck on icy desolate farm tracks!!
This is the trouble with living in a very hilly rural area, yes all the main ‘A’ roads and bus routes are salted, but the rest – no… One guy had been stuck since 8am actually on the lane running up to a farm, but as it was a typical Devon farm lane, it was so tight, he couldn’t even open the cab doors!
I got my job; a run to Westbury followed by an Axminster to Bridgwater dairy.

Heading up the motorway (the long but flat way around to Westbury) I couldn’t help but think that it was interesting that WKD was the only driver to have completed her entire route and returned to the yard on time…
Going past Weston-super-mare we got hit by a powder snow shower that cover over everything amazingly quickly and in no time had laid over an inch of the stuff. Reducing speed quickly as the unit and trailer started to try and go in seperate directions, I started thinking that this too would be a long shift.
The rest of the journey was straight forward until I actually got the industrial estate in Westbury where I was great by a completely white road. This didn’t look like anything until I realised it was a light snow over sheet ice!!

I spent hours at Westbury, a couple of other guys came in, both I knew and one was telling me there was some trouble at Honiton reload site, the very same place it took me half an hour to get moving from yesterday.
We decided on routes back and I was gonna head toward Frome and Shepton Mallet, this as it turned out was not a very good idea as I ended up driving a 10mph and using all my former Land Rover skills to keep going. Oh I so wish I still did the off road driving instruction for Land Rover, by far – the best job in the world!

Finally the on the other side of Shepton Mallet the snow and ice disappeared and while the temp had risen to minus 2 oC  it was a welcome drive – only to be flagged down by another trucker who was concerned about a low bridge ahead. He asked if there was another way around, so I asked how tall his truck was (looking like a 13’6” to me) and the reply was….. I don’t know!!!
I told him the bridge height ahead, gave him the low down of what to do and where to go and told him to check his trailer as the height has to be written on it by law (and common sense).

I was then asked to divert of to Honiton and take a look at how bad the situation was there… Well, it wasn’t good! Just the road to it looked like diamonds and shattered glass with the ice and at -5 oC I brought myself to an ABS induced stop at the entrance to the field – with my main consideration being to position myself to be able to pull away again.
The problem was two fold… firstly the tank already there was completely in the wrong place and on the wrong side of the track. The other problem as that the truck driver going in to pick up the tank after leaving an empty one, hadn’t stopped and walked up first to check the state of the ice etc.
If he had, he would have tried to reverse in and probably made it comfortably.
If the tank that was already there was parked where it should have been, he probably would have made it too. But no, in the event, all were abandoned and while I was told that he’d left his truck quite close to the existing tank and dare not move it any further in case they touched, well… gravity and ice can do things with 15 tons and they were now touching so nicely – it made me feel all warm inside (not)

Photos taken I’m back in my truck and……….no go!!
Getting the old Land Rover head on, I reversed back (unwinding the diff) then applied the diff lock and using the left to right sawing motion on the steering wheel, ‘walked’ the truck forward to gain traction and momentum. This works perfectly and almost everytime in a car too (unless trying to go uphill on ice), but in a car you have to go from lock to lock.

I told them that while normal recovery trucks wouldn’t go in to the site, two 8000lb winch equiped Land Rovers with ground anchors could easily recover the whole lot!
I pulled away and the rest is consigned to history as I got my next run done. But it must be said here, that nothing of what I do compares in the slightest to what the Ex-Farm folks do.

Now I will say that yesterday I tried some of these heavy duty rubber ice things on my work boots and was amazed that you can walk completely normally across sheet ice without slipping at all!! I can’t recommend them enough and or all the people to tell me about them – it was my sister, how is known for her polar and mountaineering skill by, well, nothing that ever own a heartbeat!! i.e. NOT.
If I had known how good these were 2 weeks ago, I would have bought the heavy duty work versions for everyone I know!!

Tomorrow – well you remember that really bad day I had in that little rollerskate they called a truck?! They want me to do that again – I’m now hoping and praying that something urgent comes up tonight on the milk…

So here was the job:
Honiton to Evercreech, then shoot over to Stamplemead at Frome and trake two tanks of skimmed milk into Westbury..
Start time was 4am, so I’m looking to finish between 1 and 2pm.
First up, I live in Honiton, so I drive straight to the site and pick up the paperwork on the way into work. I get into the office and right it all up and the night manager and I have a good chat before I go and get my truck and an empty trailer.
Every tank trailer has a ‘wash book’ as the tanks are C.I.P’d (washed) after every use and must be washed within 24hrs of them being used again. So, seeing that the wash book said the empty tank had been washed two hours previously, there was no need to check it – but something made me double question it and I checked anyway! Well thank goodness I did because the tank hadn’t been cleaned at all!! And with no spare tanks available, we had to clean this one before I went anywhere.
Putting boiling water through a tank when the outside temp was minus 6 oC is an interesting thing to do – very, how should I say? Musical? In a lively metal pounding way…   Back over to Honiton, drop and swap the trailers and….. no go!!  I could not for the life of me pull away!!  The wheels  just turned on the frozen mud… 30 minutes later and I started to gain some forward momentum and kept it going.
While icy, the roads where not too bad as I hauled 44tons up and over the Blackdown Hills. The A303 was good, Podimoor roundabout was good, the road toward Shepton Mallet was good, then I turned right on to the road to Castle Cary and was straight into Black Ice hell!!!
Seriously, I have no idea how the hell I got to the other end of it with the unit kicking around all over the place – not helped by a trailer full of liquid wanting to push me in directions I really didn’t want to go.
Arriving an hour late at Evercreech to find they were fully frozen up with the temp now being -7 oC and falling. I was there for hours waiting and waiting to get pumped off.
Finally, 3 and half hours after I arrived, I pulled away heading for Frome.
Now it’s been a little while since I’d been to the Staplemead dairy and since then a Fr**ch company had bought it and where doing ‘a little work’ on the place… Really, a little work???? I did not recognise one bit of the place!! It was as if this lot were re-landscaping the bloody Somme!!
Another hour and now 3 hrs behind, I arrive at Westbury – only to be told that the Skim I was delivering wasn’t to their liking, in fact after taking and testing 3 samples, they had a 45minute conference on it. Finally I started to tip the stuff  and had begun texting with WKD. This was the only light hearted part of the day as she said that she’d probably see me later for a chat – to which I said “Oi, no snogging or hanky-panky!!” knowing full well this would have her looking for ways to dispatch herself silently into the next world.  Time moved on slowly and then the CIP failed while cleaning my tank. For the second time in the last few days I came into direct contact with Caustic Soda and was glad I had eye protection and gloves on – as gallons of the stuff poured from the trailer.
Back to Frome and fast swap on to the next tank – and back to Westbury! Where…. They went through the same complete BS they had done before… As the sun started setting, I text WKD and gave her the relief that I would not be back in time to see her as while I was not washing this tank as time was short, she’d be at home at least an hour before I returned and for anyone to hang around for that long just to talk to me would nothing short of insanity.
Hitting the road, WKD let me know that all the truck wash systems were now frozen up and she was going home.
Finally I clocked off at 7pm, 15 hrs after I started…
I went and bought myself a Battenberg cake and went home…
It was just one of those days, but it was over.
I won’t see WKD for a while now, and sent her an email wishing her all the best for Christmas.

Today, well I’m back at it at 4:30pm

I just have to add here, that while I avoid various items of information – the top of this list now being the shopping habits of women… Imagine to my horror when finally sitting my carcus down in a comfortable armchair with a nice big coffee and my cake when Gabby, who is always up for a little retribution and P*ss taking for the grief I give her - twitters me desperate to send photos of the result of a days shopping!!! Just when yer think you’re home, warm and safe from the perils of the day…. I swear, my life is pergatory – I went to bed..

Yes, so here it is, the full version of Fede Alvarez’s short film “Ataque de Panico!” (Panic Attack!) featuring giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
After uploading this less than five minute vid to YouTube – it went viral!
In no time producers in Hollywood were watching and reaching for the phone.  It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of $300 (£186).
He has now been offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film. The movie will be sponsored by director Sam Raimi, whose credits include the Spiderman and Evil Dead films.

With previous talk of winter and snow falling across London today – and a heavy fall forecast for Friday/Saturday, I just had to post these pictures that our Terry aka Little Trucker took on her travels today…
So with a chill now running down my spine, I’m running into Exeter for a Christmas tree from Tesco… lol

So day five is down, just another day to do tomorrow and then I’m gonna relax. This translates to; by the time you read this – I’m working today, my 6th straight day this week. The shortest was 11 3/4 hours, but most have been 13 and 14 hours. The only damage past the usual bruises and scrapes has been the wrenching of a shoulder muscle, so all in all – so far so good.

I have contemplated a Christmas tree this year – well, I guess that was the first bit of willing in a very long time at least, you never know, I might even get one before I find some daisies to push up.

The next few days, I’ll be tidying properly and might, just might find a paint brush in my hand (I’m shuddering at the thought).
I have some chasing up of other stuff in the UK and overseas, so all in all – the days off will busy too.

Well that’s my little update, I hope to have more for you later but as it’s 5:30 in the morning, I’d better get some sleep, then go to the supermarket, then wallow in the shower. Actually, when I move soon (-ish), I must make sure the place I’m going has a huge bath tub – I miss a good wallow (in a beached whale kinda way).
Work this evening will be taking Whey to TVC starting at 18:30, followed by a run to Westbury again