Just got home yesterday from work and got a call from the agency. What are you doing this afternoon, nothing much, do you want to do a quick job for me. Now I've heard this before, a quick job and it can last a good few hours. As it was Class1 I thought go on I'll have a go.

Arrived at the clients site and a New lorry presented itself to me, something that I've not driven before. Iveco 450E5. Had a look in the cab and have to admit it looks OK, the layout is good with the dash display in colour, familiarisation over I had a walk round to make sure all was OK. One small problem was that the gear selector wasn't a selector. 3 buttons on the dash, Drive, Neutral & Reverse. Bit strange but what the heck.

Once loaded and secured the side curtains I set off, sat nav took me down the M3, M27 & M275 to Portsmouth(?). Arrived at the destination and decided to have a look see where I might be tipping before I pull up. The place on the manifest and the name differed so it took a bit of finding but once found I arrived and the forklift chappie began to off load. Almost a full trailer of flat packed boxes on pallets, took 2.5 hours to tip.

Reversed back down the road as I couldn't turn where I was and after a few shunts got going back to Aldershot. This time the satnav took me down the correct route. Local roads, A3, B3000, A31, A331 and home. Absolutely chucking it down all the way home, more spray that the wipers could cope with.

The Iveco is not that bad but I have to admit that it's not my favourite lorry to drive, had to constantly fight it to keep it straight and every time it hit a bump it felt like the wheels left the road and were doing a wheel spin. Major problem was not being able to adjust the steering wheel and arrived back with aching shoulders and forearms.