26/02/2011

Sort of an interesting day on Friday, initially had to collect some RPA's and managed to get on the roller in 2 moves. Getting better with those things, when they made them there should have been a bit more play in the side ward movement. Then for the first time i had to take some 'heavy' and I mean heavy stuff to the Decompression chamber, never been and was interested how it all works. Once the stuff was inside the door which must have been at least a 1.5ft thick was closed, the hydraulic locks applied and I went to the drivers rest room. Cup of tea and a bit of TV was in order as this took just over an hour to do. It simulates cargo hold at 30.000ft so if there is something nasty amongst the cargo it will go 'pop' there and not in the aircraft.

20/02/2011

Had a night trunk for K+N on Thursday, initially I was booked to do some shunting (or so I thought) but they call that the delivery of full trailers to other depots around the country. Had two trips to Colchester in some very old waggons, no idea why the chap I was following (as I didn't know the way and no maps were supplied) went through North Circular and Mill Hill. That was coming from Greenford, I would have gone up the A40 and then M25 and A12. Came back that way and it was a whole lot quicker than banging around the roadwork congested up A roads. Absolutely knackered as the lorries did need 100% concentration to keep them straight.

Saturday consisted of spending more time waiting to be assigned a bay in Swissport and I managed' to do 2 runs in a 10 hour shift. Amazing how long it takes those boys to do any work and how does it ever get done. A whole shift and I managed to drive all of 32km.

15/02/2011

Why is it that coming back to the yard seems faster than going to collect the goods. Last night I had to go to Cambridge and it seemed like ages before I got there, on the way back even though the distance was the same the trip seemed to take a whole lot faster. Could it be that I was going 'down hill'. First time ever on the M11 Northbound, not much to see when it's dark.

13/02/2011

Just love this, had to do a run to Romford on Saturday so when I turned up I wasn't sure what I'd be driving as the info that I got was 'it might be an Artic or Rigid'. Once all the loading was done and the leftovers counted I was duly handed keys to a 7.5T, oh well a puddle hopper is better than a van. Took 9 yorks to the mail centre and came back empty as the other artic took all the other bits. Nice and relaxing drive on the M25 but on the way to Romford as I didn't know where the mail centre was i followed the other guy, why did he choose that route to get to the M25 is beyond me. It sure looked longer then the route I would have taken but never mind.

07/02/2011

Ever tried to collect stuff from places on the map marked with just a cross and the map being so small that the Hubble Telescope would have trouble reading it. Well I did today, had 3 collections from fruit & veg markets and then a delivery to the main establishment where it was made into something edible. Must tell one of the loader/packers that just one turn of the shrink wrap around the pallet just isn't enough. Had to re stack and re pick numerous boxes of oranges after they tipped. Finished at around 14:30 and thought that was it but no, had to go back to the last drop and this time load up with Airline food and take it to Gatwick, this time in a van. Managed to finish at 18:00 and got to be hones I'm glad it's all over.