Weeks 17 and 18 were of course spent at home for Christmas.
Week 19.
Back to work after the holiday and for the first time in my life I didn't have the 'Back To Work Blues'.
I left home about 13:45 on Sunday and headed off to Macclesfield in the car. The fog on the Cat and Fiddle was horrendous and so I took my time. I got to the yard about 15:25 and immediately on finding the motor tried to fire it up. The battery was fine and turned the engine over but it wouldn't fire. Putting it down to being stood for two weeks I grabbed the yard shunter and hooked up the jump leads and eventually got it fired up by about 15:45. I'd already loaded all my gear and parked the car and decided, after a quick look at my load that I would strap the German drops off tomorrow at my last Dutch drop, so by 15:55 I was leaving the yard destined for Hull and the loveboat.
I'm getting used to this crossing now so with me being the only one of ours on the boat it was actually quite boring. It will be nice when the good weather and light nights get here.
The ship docked on time on Monday morning and I drove to the Q8 at Europoort to diesel and buy my vignette.
My first drop was at Zwijndrecht not too far from Rotterdam and at this point the weather was merely cold. Two pallets of drums were easily removed through the back doors and I continued on my way.
It was a bit further this time to my next drop at Goirle near Tilburg and the further inland I travelled, the more the snow was becoming evident. By the time I reached the drop, the snow lying at the side of the road and in the fields was something like 8 inches deep, but credit to the Dutch the roads were clear. Until that is I pulled on to the street where the drop was.
The drop was at the far end of the street and once found I was directed to the back of the building where I attempted to back up to the door. They hadn't cleared any snow at all and this proved to be impossible. I suspect that had I been driving a Volvo I wouldn't have had the same problem.
Why I bothered at all I don't know as the drop here was one pallet which had been lifted off the top of my first drop and placed back on the trailer. It was small drums and these were subsequently handballed off once I had parked again on the road.
I now had one drop left for Holland which was for Curries at Nijmegen. Here I backed on a door and the one pallet was lifted off.. While I was there I now strapped the rest of my load as it was all destined for Germany.
I stopped for a break and then made my way to Bochum where at 16:50 I parked for the night in front of the gates at the drop.
My alarm was set for 06:00 local as I was aware that they started at 07:00. This would give me chance to get the curtains open and the straps off. Here a lesson was learned that the CMR isn't necessarily accurate. I was looking for 28 drums but closer inspection of the delivery note revealed that what I should have been looking for was 12 drums and 16 pails. (Pails are the small drums.) But once this was noticed I made a rapid departure, rapid to get over the slippery exit slope on to the road.
My next port of call was at Witten. This is one I've done before and I knew the approach was all uphill. I needn't have worried though as the road up the hill had been cleared. It is a tight turn in to the site but the site itself had been pretty well cleared. On opening the curtains I saw straight away that we were going to have a problem. Drum pallets are two way pallets and the four for here had been loaded for a back door tip. This meant that with a pallet truck that wouldn't go under the pallets in the middle, it was a real struggle to turn them round. The pallets duly came off and I headed off to Hilden.
At Hilden I had yet more drums, this time on three pallets and these came off in short order with no problems. Now it was to the last of my drops with drums. This was a place called Elsdorf and again once in place for loading, with the curtains open I saw that as with Witten the pallets were loaded the wrong way. This time there were six pallets and the struggle with a too narrow pallet truck began again.
I now had just one drop left which was eight pallets of paper for Duren. Once again I had been to this drop before, but it was only when I got there that I remembered it. I drove round the back and put the motor on the bay. It was a downhill approach to the bay and I did wonder if I might have a problem getting off it. Once the pallets were off, with the diff lock on it was a case of getting as far as I could and then backing down to try again. It took about five minutes to get on level ground and after consulting the office, I left and parked for a break on the road.
My first collection was on behalf of Stromps and was to be collected from Hemer to the south of Dortmund. A trip of about 80 miles and I found the place with no problems. Calling in he told me I could get loaded tonight but it would be an hour or so. This being the case I told him I would be back at the crack of doom instead. I pulled out and parked on the road for the night.
Wednesday morning the fun started. At 06:00 local I rose and tried to start the motor. The battery was fine, at first, but as on Sunday it wouldn't fire up. A fitter was duly called and the first thing he found was that my diesel had started waxing up with the cold. As I had the night heater running he piped the exhaust from this in to the tank to start the warming process. He tried tilting the cab but the mechanism for this was frozen so gave that up as a bad job. During the process of trying to get me going he hooked the diagnostic equipment up and I was gobsmacked to see from this that my coolant was registering -7.9C.
The long and short of it was that he got me going erventually and advised me to buy some expensive German winter diesel. I'm pretty certain that Q8 at Europoort had winter diesel in their tanks. He laft after about half an hour and I decided to sit for a while before moving in to load. During this time though the revs started dropping off and when I moved I could only move a little at a time. I rang our office again and the fitter was duly called back. While waiting I managed to crawl into the building and get loaded and once I pulled out it seemed that the motor was now running fine. Contacting the office they said that as the fitter was coming back he could have another look and when he arrived he had brought with him a heater to properly warm up the tank.
I got away from here eventually and my second collection was now being made by one of Stromps own vehicles. This meant that I was now free to run straight to Stromps depot at Krefeld. On arrival here I found out that the guy who would be loading me had been re-routed to pick up my second collection and so as with before Christmas I was to be delayed here.
Once he arrived back the brains went in to overdrive to work out how to fit the puzzle that was my load together. It took a bit of working out but at about 19:15 I finally got away. Although I had woken at 05:00 British, I didn't put my card in till 07:15 meaning that with little driving time showing I could run for a couple of hours which I did parking eventually close to Turnhout in Belgium.
At the start of the week I had been very impressed with the way the Dutch roads had been cleared. It came as a bit of a surprise in Germany to see that they hadn't been quite as efficient.
Dutch.
German.
The snow did make everything quite picturesque.
Thursday morning after just nine hours off I hit the road for Calais. The fog through Belgium and in to France was quite horrendous at times, although this didn't stop the idiots from flying along of course. With just a slow approach to and trip round the Antwerp Ring and through the Kennedy Tunnel, the rest of the journey was quite relaxed if a little hard on the eyes peering in to the gloom. I dieseled at Mannekensvere before eventually getting to Calais and booking on the 12:35 Pride of Burgundy sailing. This feller hitched a ride across the channel sitting here all the way across.
Not a good photo this one as it was taken on my phone, my camera having been left in the motor.
Once off the boat at Dover I managed to get to Dunstable just before 16:00 which gave them enough time to tip the front half of my trailer before they finished at 17:00. I now took it steady as the remaning 11 tonnes of my load was all in the back half of my trailer. I ran to Rugby Truckstop where I parked for the night.
Friday morning I left Rugby at about 05:45 and ran to Land Rover at Solihull. Here four pallets, double stacked at the back of the trailer came out through the back doors and I set off to a groupage company at Cradley Heath. Here all bar six pallets were tipped leaving me with just one drop left to make. I knew where this one was as it is one I used to collect out of for Shepherds. I also had one collection to make and getting the details through I was happy to know the collection was to be made from the same place.
With all this done it was over the Cat and Fiddle for the first of four times today. In the yard the two crates were lifted off and loaded on Shaun's trailer before my trailer was loaded.
Once done and after giving the motor a quick blast off with the pressure washer I ran back over Cat and Fiddle to park the motor for the weekend. I now waited for my daughter to pick me up and she ran me back to Macclesfield again in order for me to pick my car up.
First week of the new year completed and next week it's Holland and Germany again but with only half the number of drops.
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