The 24 Hour Job

This is the first post on my new blog at roadtransport.com. They asked me to write my lorryday blog here.

I started work yesterday at 5 a.m. and I finished this morning at around 8 a.m.
I don’t want to get the WTD police on my case so I’ll explain.

I had to have a night out but I wasn't prepared for it. I didn’t have a change of clothes or any provisions so it felt like I hadn’t stopped working for 24 hours.
I know I should always be prepared, and when I looked at my run the night before I should have known better. I even posted it here and on the trucknetuk forum.
I’ll list it here again. Started out from home in Leicester at 4.30 this morning. It was thundering and lightning and throwing buckets.
This was the M25 at 6.30.



I had my first drop in Horely Nr Gatwick Airport, 30 doors in frames to a building site for Jewsons.
I was behind this Moffet driver.

I wish I had one of these, none of that handball nonsense. I’d be "right then where do you want it?” No more being invisible at the Goods In office.

After the Gatwick drop I had some more doors going to Dartford, just next to Bluewater shopping centre.
It was in the middle of a new housing estate and wasn’t showing up on my sat nav. I stopped and looked up the company on my Mini Dell laptop and found the street I needed. It was in an area called Greenhithe, that’s why the Sat Nav couldn’t find it, it was looking for streets in Dartford.

When I arrived I found an empty building site and drove up a long muddy track and eventually came to a cabin and a solitary JCB. They didn’t know what I was doing there because as usual they didn’t know their head from someone elses arse. The lad in the High Viz with the Clipboard insisted they hadn’t ordered anything and that all the houses were completed.

I explained to him that all I knew was the address and the plot numbers (which were both correct and stated on the paperwork). After much umming and erring he decided to play safe and take them off. Just as I was pulling the curtains closed the boss turned up and guess what? Insisted he hadn't ordered anything either.

I suggested they took off the shrink wrapping on the pallet and looked at them. "Oh yeah" was the unanimous cry, "the doors for plots blah blah and blah!!"
Paperwork signed and a very slidy reverse out into a very trendy and highly populated housing estate later I was heading for Job Three.

This is on my way into London and when the batteries in the camera decided to go flat.


Job three was the job from hell.
A building site right in the heart of The City of London, the banking district. I was expecting to find a ghost town, tumbleweed blowing down empty streets, pass by empty sushi bars and bistro's, see destitute beggars in shabby pinstripe suits selling the FT and have to fight my way past desperate men shouting "Giz a Job!" in cut-glass accents. But I was suprised to see sharp suited men and women lying on the grass (yes real grass) outside trendy gastro pubs drinking pints of chilled beer and ice cold shiraz chatting and smiling. I found the building site and was directed to the Goods In entrance and that’s when every thing came to a grinding halt.

I had a name and a telephone number but that wasn't good enough for them.
The kind security guard, who had watched me nearly wipe out a few ‘bankers’ because they were desperate to cross the road while I was getting an 18 tonne truck into the underground car park, decided it would be best if I kept going around the block until I could find the person I needed!! What??
But as some of you drivers will know, like London traffic wardens ,there is no reasoning with a building site security guard.

So I was driving around the Barbican area and past the London Wall and then back up to Silk street until my boss could get in touch with the person I needed.
I had been around four times when I was waved down and went back into the underground loading area. Twenty minutes later and I was out and looking for Job Four.

Job Four was 40 packs of flooring to Brentwood. It was a brand new Community centre and they had just finished the tarmac literally 30 minutes before I got there. That meant I couldn’t back into the car park and use the tail-lift so it had to be handballed off. The two lads that drew the short straw were not best pleased.

My last drop was Ipswich, well a little village, right in the middle of weight limit hell (again) called Nedding in Tye or something like that. The load was a tiny air vent and here I was fighting my way through tiny country lanes at about five minutes to five getting diverted at every bloody road I needed. It was eating into my driving hours and I was still three hours away from home. I only made it back to Cambridge services and I was very close to ten hours. I got settled for the night and was listening to the Man United game. I didn’t hear the goal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyrgvCwszzc because I fell fast asleep and woke around 1 am to the sound of fridges and trailer changes.
Just before 6 a.m. and I set off for home and parked up in the yard. Work said they would phone if anything came in but I had a day at home.

I am in Hull for 7 a.m. so it’s time for bed.