It is rare that I don’t get on here a complain about something, but today is different and in some special way truly amazing.
It with the greatest happiness that as of 10:11 this morning I can welcome to this world Oliver Michael Elwood!!
Weighing in as a light-weight 3.65kg / 8lbs, 50cm, born in Slovakia
Alex, seriously, I’m buying and you can pay the bail!!
I’m totally over the moon for you 
Only today I was wondering about if or not to lower my internet presence when I had a glance at my hits only to see this;
Sometimes I enjoy nothing more than my fellow bloggers and netiacs (my word).
Click on the picture to be taken there 
Well I was supposed to start work at 6pm but then a call came through at 9am asking me to start asap…
Whistling off to work I was given a tractor unit that had been sent up for MOT from the Lostwithiel depot (yes, that is a place) and told to drive to Sparkford to pick up some organic milk and take it to Wyke Farm cheese.
Well first off, this truck was disgusting, I mean heaving, minging (to coin an old military phrase for 
filth).
But they had decided to send it back in the same state as it came.
Well if this thing had passed an MOT, the MOT isn’t worth a damn!!
Arriving at Sparkford all became clear when it transpired that ‘Dave’ the guy who was supposed to be do this run, had had a bit of a run in with a brick – thrown by youths from a bridge.
The good thing is the windscreen these days are almost 1 cm think, the downside is that while they’re laminated and this stops the window caving it. The problem with laminated windscreens is that when impacted they send small needle like shards around inside.
Dave suffered a scratched right eyeball.
Ironically, the damage didn’t seem that bad, more like a gun shot.
I picked up his load, gave h
im the time of day and went on to Wyke Farm.
As soon as I turned up, it seemed half the tankers in the area did! And with only one Organic pump and worse, only one CIP point, things soon started backing up.
Returning to base with an unwashed tank, I rang a fellow driver ‘Steve’ asking if he’d left yet as I’d left my cigarettes and lighter there – he said I shouldn’t worry about them as I was only going to set fire to them anyway! LOL
A further run to Westbury ensued with time becoming tight as I wished to get back to go for a drink
with my mate Dave from across the road.
I got home at 11:45pm, ran it, washed, changed, washed my hair and was back out in under 5 minutes – women readers might just wanna take note of that!!
We hit the local pub hard consuming 3 pints of ‘Bombardier’ ale in 35 minutes before heading over to Dave’s for philosophical conversations and several malt based drinks and soft Fr**ch cheeses – before being turf’d out at 3am…
An interesting day followed by a great night.
Sunday fell out of bed at 3pm feeling like I had been run over, unfortunately whatever had done so, no one thought to put it in reverse and drive off me…
01:00 in the early hours of the morning found me standing in the middle of an unfamiliar milk yard. Base of operations today was the Sparkford depot and during my journey over, my car suddenly made a whole new noise.
Some kind of hose or diaphragm has broken and I’ll damned if I can tell where it is… Basically, every time I accelerate I hear air! There is a small power loss, but nothing great for now.
Anyway, back to work… The run was to go to another depot at a place called Grately which is right next to the UK home of th AH64 Apache helicopter at the Army’s Middle Wallop base. There I would drop an empty tank and pick a full one and take it to the Dairy Crest dairy in Chadwell Heath in east London.
As ever, few things ever quite go right and I head east on the A303 at 01:30 and suddenly remembered that the A303 had been shut for carriageway work for weeks…
Soon enough I came to the signs at Wincanton that told me to take I diversion, but oddly enough my gut told me to go straight on… However, logic said that I have a large truck and should follow the signs, so I did!!
Only to be taken almost right back to Sparkford!!!
I then followed this incredible detour around all the country lanes and villages you could imagine before almost an hour later getting back on route!!
Getting to Grately I found another problem – access, or lack of it… The site had a large RSJ barrier secured by a combination lock for which I didn’t have the number – and there was no cellphone coverage.
After walking quite some way to get a signal, I rang up and got the combination numbers only to then find that you can hardly hold the lock in a position to see the actually numbers… 40mins it took me to open this gate – crazy!!
A further 30, and I’m back on the road heading into a somewhat busy London for 5am on a Sunday morning.
It was only when I was at the dairy and asking other drivers which route they took around the Mere roadworks when everyone started smiling at me – I said “what?”
Mere road works had been cleared and open for the last two days!! It’s just hey haven’t bothered to take down all the ‘road closed’ signs!!
Ah well, it’s all fun at the end of the day!
The journey back was awesome, sunny and it was most certainly the most beautiful Sunday of the year so far!
12hrs work done, felt like I had worked every minute of it too – couldn’t find my air leak when I got back, but the TWBrit Car of Character did, as it always has… got me home
This the face of the lady who helped bring in the smoking in public places ban and in the process helped almost killed off the village pub in the UK…
She didn’t force the Tobacco companies to produce and prove a safe, none invasive taxable product, no she just does a job paid by cigarette and alcohol taxation!!
This is the lady who went and studied hard to be a British Member of Parliament, taking a BA in American Literature, History and Film Studies!!
So committed was she to her course she did it at the University or East Anglia, not in the US as you would have thought.
This is the lady who quit because she thought she was ‘window dressing’ for Gordon Brown’s Cabinet… Yes, she’s pretty, a bit of Eye Candy if you will… But not to me!
This is 
the lady who was sceptical of a mother who said she just bought her son a new set of webbing to go to war in Afghanistan… Who then told the woman that soldiers do have all they need and that they have a habit of swapping kit with American soldiers!!
This my friends, is a woman with her head completely….. Sorry, I’ll re-phrase for this lady who is the MP for Don Valley in South Yorkshire – yet went to Twickenham Girls School and spent most of her life in London.
For work on behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and all it’s citizens, for the 
actions bringing down an industry of our nation heritage and for having no clue at all about what the soldier on the ground has to put up with due to the fact she probably only talks to officers – today Caroline Flint, for the selfless and indeed thoughtless actions against the people of this nation I hereby award you with the ultimate accolade of you’re career to date…
The HUA
On behalf of ever member of the British Armed Forces past, present and especially those fighting in Afghanistan today
This video is captivating by the way it was shot – it’s real but looks like a toy or model world
Over in Sioux Falls, South Dakota BigDog aka Dave has been a busy chap… He’s just been upgrading and swapping out his IT solution. Oddly enough he’s opted for a 17” Dell laptop… and good for him.
It’s funny really, my Dell Inspiron has a Centrino T2050 possessor and is still more than capable of anything I wish to use this laptop for – and this includes playing Battlefield2 with all the video settings to max!
However, looking at the release of Battlefield Bad Company 2 on PC a couple of days ago – I wonder if I actually have the power to even start that game… I must look up the specs… BigDog – buy that game – so Iz can whoop yo sorry ass!!
Other stuff…
My new camera is unbelievably outstanding – I’m simply stunned at the pictures it takes!!
I left my previous camera to my mate in Chepstow, and frankly I’m glad I had to buy another. It’s a Samsung ST500
bought from Camerbox.co.uk for a fraction of what Amazon charge for it.
I have continued my ruthless cutting of people I follow on Twitter. Some of whom are even friends of sorts, but this is not to say I’m falling out with anyone as we can still communicate on twitter without the following thing. It actually stops ‘extra’ followers appearing which had become a hassle… This is, except for one UK follower who has turned out to be a stunning and insightful individual whom I won’t mention (other than they get larger by the day).
The big spring clean is under way here as I rip through my place throwing out EV
ERYTHING I don’t use. I’ve always travelled light, and always have the need to live light – but rarely succeed… Until now (I’m hoping). Besides, I live alone and if anything were to happen to me it’d make the job of clearing me out of the way much easier (I’m laughing here – yeah, good luck with that!!) 
Most admin has been carried out other than requiring a medical for my truck licence…(£113). So I’m simply cracking on with life and looking forward to warmer weather.
News also this week is that they’re gonna release a load of new bugs into the UK. These weird mite-like critters suck the life out of a plant called the Japanese Knot Weed which has become a real problem in the UK. While it can grow a meter in 3 weeks, what you see is a bit like the tip of an Iceberg – the root structure is vast!!
I guess we’ll end up being over run with those too at some point..
Work colleague and Farmerist WKD and hubby ‘C’ have been preparing for lambing. I had no idea just 
how hard work this is until JK of all people started lecturing me about it.
This (for those who may read this blog) is a bit of a concern… I can’t be having JK learning more about this farmerist business!!
Hopefully WKD will furnish us with pictures of the whole process and lots of ickle lambs… (hint!)
My cousin’s lad and friend ‘Matt’ has been having an odd year.. Matt is an avid climber of sorts. I say ‘of sorts’ because he’s into ‘Bouldering’ (no, not blundering as the this spell checker would have me write). While he does the odd rock face, he loves nothing more than to wrap himself around large oversized pebbles! This sounds ok until you realise Matt 
is around 40 ft tall and has the wing span of a 747!!
This last year he’s had the misfortune of having his Land Rover stolen and as such getting to he most favoured places of the Peak District curtailed. This however did not stop him legging it to India to do some climbing a few weeks ago.
Matt is at a place in his life I know all too well as I’ve actually been where he is now – and I’m sorely envious of him.
If Matt is anything like me, he’ll probably head off and work his way around Europe at some point. The only thing I would recommend to him is to get his HGV class 1 – because love it or hate it, it’s one hell of a fall back income.
However, Matt is very much his own man! He’ll do what he wants and he’ll do it his way – and I of all people get that.
I do of course hate him for it lol
I have been quite busy on Twitter lately, it’s a useful medium to say the least. I have met some fantastic people on there and with recent events most have been wonderful.
Now I’m not going to sit here and go through my entire list of people I follow or people whom follow me because, well I just rid of half of them LOL!
Twitter is weird, the main reason is that you’re having conversations with people who actually mean little or nothing to you’re life – but are just great to chat to.
In recent times four people have stood out head and shoulders above all others and I really like their input on both my life and general chattiness.
But talking about heads…. Lets have a look at a picture;
This is Gabby from Gabsatrucker – who (for what ever excuse she claims) started trying to take her office furniture apart with what appears to be her head…
Seriously though – have you ever seen a better Cartoon bump than that?!
Moving on
This week unelected Prime Minister of the UK gave evidence at the Iraq Inquiry
– ‘so what?’ you may ask…
Well after numerous heads of the Armed forces stated that Mr Brown refused extra money and desperately needed helicopters – Mr Brown sat there and said he never said no, there was any and all funds available for anything the MoD needed!!
Odd!!
But I read the ‘Blair Years’ by Alistair Campbell and to me after 911 there was a real change in our government (other 
that ignoring it’s people). The UK govt only either listened to the US or responded to media outrage and pressure – which is why the armed forces eventually got more helicopters and vehicles!
I assume this is the belief that the media in some way has it’s finger on the pulse of a nation – well just how wrong they are.
Anyway, the upshot of this is that basically Mr Brown made himself totally unelectable for lying so damn blatantly – bit like Blair did over Kosovo!!
But the public can be blinded…
And finally…
The paper I wrote appears to have fallen on deaf ears or blind eyes… Infact everyone seems to be more bothered
about what goes on in Sweden that using their bloody commonsense and trying to think for themselves – it’s all too painfully obvious, yet these days everyone seems to need to spend a crazy amount of money to come up with little or sod all – go figure LOL
Since being fit to work I’ve only been able to do Milk runs, this work is a vital part of Devon’s local economy but with only two days work in
the last week, we’re waiting for the enevitable warmer weather which will bring a huge increase in the milk yield around this time of year.
When this happens we go to six day working because of the sheer quantity of the white stuff that becomes available.
Sadly though, as milk is a live product, it can’t be stored for very long and we must have moved the milk from farm to Dairy in under 24hrs. Dairies can only cope with so much. Cheese factories can only process a steady consistent amount and this means the rest go to Westbury where they turn it into milk powder. In fact they turn 60,000 ltrs into powder every 15 minutes!
However, last night was a simple run to a weird place called Rattery (I’ve mentioned it before) and then onto Cadbury’s (as in the Chocolate).
Getting down to the farm at Rattery it was dark, I dropped an empty trailer, took the numberplate off and hooked into the steps of the fuel tank and went to find out which trailer was mine…
Bouncing about over mud and puddles I eventually find my trailer and go to put the numberplate back on – only to find it missing…. 15 minutes it took me to find it!!
By now I was looking like a hobo who just lost a mud wrestling match!!
The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful other than my hours running out and needing to take a break within minutes of getting to Cadburys. I ended up having to squeeze ‘Florence’ (the name of this particular truck) under a petrol station canopy where I eventually took my break.
Cadbury’s has recently been taken over by the large US multi national ‘Kraft’ much to the dislike of much of the staff of the company. So, of course – I see this as an opertunity to get to know the staff better.
With questions like;
Still got the sign up then I see – you keeping it?
Are you gonna be going all American on us then?
How long do you think you’ll be keeping your jobs?
And so on…. I don’t think my bonding worked!
A fast paced run back via Monmouth, Newport, dawn breaking the sky over the Severn Bridge and the Sunrise across Sedgemoor was a great end to ‘different’ night.
Arriving back at base WKD came over to my truck all beaming and bobby along – I swear, I’ve never met anyone so
Jolly – ever!!
Beaming away she told me that someone had stink-bombed her truck and was off to get coffee. I stopped and wished her Happy New Year as I hadn’t actually seen her since just after Christmas!
But even with social communication and media of today and keeping in touch, and frankly when I was injured between Her and Gabby – they were the most consistent voices of care – and I aint repeating THAT!!
I dropped my trailer on a bay and went and had a chat properly in that ‘you have 2 mins – Go!!’ kinda way we talk.
It was indeed good to see her and to know all is well with her world.
So… in all, a great 12hr shift
Well I finally seem to have had a productive day and one the issues I’ve been working on for what seems like forever is now resolved.
In the contact section there is a new email address – gone is the old twbrit@gmail.com and replaced with twb@twbrit.com.
Now, if, as and when anyone of my Who’s Who crowd decide they’d like to write a post on here, they’ll get an email address also and under their assumed blog handle/name. There are few people that i’d like to add to the Who’s Who section, but as yet I can not.
Anyway, do have a great weekend
I’m working tomorrow evening so I’ll be a little scarce on the ground…
