The Wondering Brit

Yesterday started typically, I was at work for 1pm and waited until well past 2.30pm until there was a truck available. It was a chilled wait, talking to the fluffy faced yard guy ‘S’, only to find he was a qualified farmerist too!!  There you go see, I didn’t know you qualified in such things…
During the wait, I even managed to nip around to the local supermarket and get some shopping in while avoiding the Battenberg cake shelf as too much excitement before work really isn’t good for you.

I was down for a double Westbury and as soon as truck became available – I was off!
It was a gloriously hot sunny day and even the traffic seemed to be behaving itself.
Returning to get the second run was however – different. I was asked if I wouldn’t mind going to Droitwich instead. There is nothing unusual in this, well not this week, but my hours would be pushed to the max.
I raced off to Droitwich and just as I pulled on to the industrial estate, my four and a half hours driving limit expired and I need to take a 45 minute break – 600 yards short of the dairy gates.
I finally made it back to the yard with 10 minutes to spare on my days duty and sorted everything out and completed all the paper work, 780kms achieved (484miles) and all was good.
Now at this point, an unusual and should I say, a very old school scruffy driver staggered into the office. He had never been to this place before and certainly never pulled a milk tanker.
The night supervisor asked if I would show him what is what and how to get to Honiton reload site. Now at this point we were all looking at each other – as though to say ‘this guy hasn’t got a prayer’.

TWO hours!!!! It took two hours to give him the information he needed!!
I have to ‘fess-up’ here and say that I do actually enjoy certain aspects of the communication with other people – but not today.
It was now 7 am and all I wanted was my bed!
I didn’t mind too much, though after hearing all these stories about what he had been doing before, when he finally pulled away – it was a relief.
But here is the thing; firstly I wasn’t even sure he could read, secondly, he couldn’t add up really basic numbers and as he pulled away, the truck silhouette getting smaller, I thought – what’s betting that truck never comes back in one piece – and that is something I don’t like, as it invariably means others will be involved.

I spoke to a couple of guys as I staggered to the TWB Car of Character as the time approached 7:30 and eventually drove home (in a fashion). It’s just that, well, after walking through my door and dropping my small rucksack and the shopping from earlier – I thought, I’d better go and check on him.
Back in the car, I headed to the reload site which was a couple of miles away and found him sitting there staring at the paperwork.
Eventually and after much story telling, he had completed the paper work correctly and was following me the easy way back out to the main road. I say following, I was driving at 20 mph (a speed I didn’t know my car could do, I was watching leaves change colour it’s so slow) yet he kept falling behind.
Finally he made it back on the main road, but not without having first tried playing just about every known classical music piece on the gearbox.

I truly hope he gets the job done ok and enjoys his day; after all, we all do have to learn at some point. But I think dropping people that far in the deep end with liquid loads is just darn dangerous.
I finally returned to home at 08:30 and to bed. The phone was ringing by 3 pm and work starts at 6pm.

I know this post is boring, but I just need to write it. I could have written about driving a Mercedes the other day that as I applied the brakes – my hands were violently thrown from the steering wheel due to warped discs, but that can wait lol.