The Week At Work As It Was

Monday saw me leaving at 05.00 and heading down the National 1 towards Madrid before following one of the new ring roads round the place and then heading further south on the National 4. Arriving at Valdemoro I eventually saw the company where I was to unload on the other side of the dual carriageway which meant having to go 10 kilometers past the place before being able to turn round, upon arriving at the entrance I got in the queue to enter, eventually managing to pass the weighbridge I parked at the allocated spot and waited for someone to come and take a sample which they duly took 45 minutes later, another hour later the sample has been tested and approved and I can finally begin to unload. After unloading it was back around Madrid to clean the tank at San Fernando de Henares, a phone call revealed that my loading address was a place called Villanueva de Alcoron which is in the middle of nowhere between Guadalajara and Cuenca and that I could load till 21.00 this information proved to be wrong as upon arriving at the place at 18.00 it was deserted, being an extremely remote village the choice in recreation and eating facilities was zero minus so out came the emergency supplies and the gas cooker and it was a case of watch a video and bed.
Tuesday at 08.00 the man arrived and I was actually weighed and ready to load at 08.30, the ridiculous loading procedure here took till 10.00 before everything was done and I could leave this dust bowl



and I away I went cutting across country towards Molina de Aragon and Monreal before heading north to Zaragoza after rounding Zaragoza I followed the National 2 past Leida

as far as Cervera before taking the C 25 past Manresa and Vic as far as Girona before taking the motorway up to the border where I filled both the diesel tank and the stomach beofre climbing the hill to the border and entering France eventually spending the night just outside Beziers.
Wednesday mornings entertainment was unloading just outside of Orange at a place called Laudun in 60 mph winds before cleaning the tank and reloading at Orgon just south of Avignon and then heading up past Lyon and eventually spending the night near Toul.
Thursday I stopped at Metz to get my Eurovignette and refuelled at Capellen in Luxembourg before entering Belgium where I turned right just after Arlon and followed the National 4 as far as Bastogne before turning right again and reentering Luxembourg and unloading at a small place called Wiltz, once that was done it was back in to Belgium and head towards Liege on the motorway passing through the eternal roadworks and getting stuck in a jam in the tunnels on the Liege ring road due to an accident and another jam on the other side Liege where they are digging things up yet again. Crossing the Dutch border at Eijsden just south of Maastricht I then endured the all day jam in Maastricht due to it being the only motorway in Europe with traffic lights on it. I had the tank cleaned again at Elsloo before going back into Belgium to load at Genk and then start heading back south.
Well this week started by leaving home and heading for Zubiri just outside of Pamplona to load for Calais, after loading I took the N121 down to Irun and crossed in to France and followed the usual route up past Bayonne, Bordeaux, Angouleme and Poitiers stopping for my time off just north of Poitiers.
Tuesday the excursion through enemy territory continued and just managed to get past the hell hole called Paris before the rush hour started with a vengeance , taking a 45 minute break at Ressons I was on the customers premises in Calais just before dinner and had the load out in 45 minutes, ringing in for further instructions I was told to go to Belgium and ring in again before Gent so I went and got a 2 day Vignette and a coffee at the AS24 and headed for Belgium, when I rang in they told me to get the tank cleaned at Opdorp´s in Sas Van Gent and that I would be loading Cerestar in the morning.
Wednesdays fun started at Cerestar with comments along the line of "your load is in a storage container and you will have to go to Opdorp´s to load it" which had me thinking that if some pratt had told me that yesterday it would have been loaded by now . Anyway back to Opdorp´s to get the load blown in from a container a long weary process but 3 hours later the operation was concluded and I rang in for further instructions as the load was for Gerona and that is on the wrong side of Spain for me. I was told to go to a parking area near Namur and that I would be swapping trailers there for one that is loaded for Amorebieta near Bilbao which I duly did and managed to get as far as Orleans before the hours ran out. But as I was going along the RN20 between Paris and Orleans just after the first climb with overtaking ban for lorries a french registered Audi A4 decided to ignore the give way sign that was in front of him and promptly ended up being battered by a Volvo weighing 40 tons .
Here the fun started as described.
I let the vehicle roll out to an emergency stopping area some 75 yards further on so as not to block the dual carriageway and got out to see how much damage had been done and whether or not anyone had been injured.The Gendarmes arrived 10 minutes and was listening to the French driver telling him that I had rammed him from the rear for no reason, meanwhile I was listening to all this and collared the older of the 2 Gendarmes and pointed out to him that if I had rammed the moron from the back why was neither my vehicle damaged at the front nor his at the rear, the Gendarme smiled and said "don´t worry it is obvious what has happened he has not observed the give way sign". When the Gendarmes pointed out to the Frenchman that he had no damage at the rear of his vehicle he tried to change his story that I had pulled in after overtaking another vehicle, something which was quickly proved to be untrue because if I had been overtaking another vehicle I would have been going faster than I was and would not have had time to slow down enough to get in to the emergency parking area and that if I had just finished overtaking another vehicle then that vehicle would not have had neither time nor space to avoid being implicated in the accident as well. Anyway we filled out the accident form the Frenchman insisted in using his as it was in French so I let him and he proceeded to note his version of the event afterwards I filled in the minimum details required by law and refused to sign it as I didn´t agree with what he had written, at this point the ethnic Frenchman who had sufficiently recovered by now became loud and told me that I must sign it and he only shut up when I started to head in his direction , the Gendarmes then explained that I am not obliged to sign anything that I disagreed with and after taking fotos of the damage to both vehicles we parted company

If I have rammed him from the back where is my damage ?

or his ?
His damage was



and mine was




Thursday was a relaxed day cruising through enemy territory to see how far I could get before the Gendarmes parked me up as it was a bank holiday in Spain and the border was closed and this duly happened just south of Bordeaux and there I spent the night.
Friday had an early start to get through the border before it clogged up with all the vehicles that had not been able to cross the day before and I sailed through San Sebastian before the rush hour started and arrived at the customers premises in Amorebieta at 08.30 and lo and behold the buggers had decided to make a long weekend of it and wouldn´t be opening till Monday so I toddled off home.
The first full week back at Transport Van Overveld began on the Monday with the 1st drop being right in the middle of Bilbao at a new shopping centre, knowing the location I decided to get in there early and it was a good job that I did as they wanted me the wrong way down a one way street and on the pavement, after informing them that any police problems would be theirs and not mine I positioned the truck and we set about unloading and by 08.00 I was on my way to the next drop at Lezama which was out in about 10 minutes as was the 3rd one in Etxebarria, now it was time to head for the Lidl RDC in Llodio where as expected the day ground to a halt and it took 4 hours to get rid of 16 pallets, after that I headed for Alonsotegui between Bilbao and Balmaseda to unload 10 octabins once again lady fortune smiled upon me and I was on my way within the hour. Arriving at the last address just outside Santander they said they were closed as deliveries were not accepted in the afternoons, a bit of dealing and wheeling and the last 2 pallets were tipped. Having been told that I would be loading Tuesday morning just outside of Bilbao I went home for the night.
Tuesday at 08.00 I was at the loading address only to be greeted by the famous words "it´s not ready till this afternoon". Eventually I was loaded and on my way by 13.00 with instructions to pick up some groupage at Bergareche´s in Irun, arriving at Bergareche´s I went in to the warehouse to ask where they wanted me and was greeted by a young warehouseman in a most disagrreable manner, as I was informing this moron that the correct way to greet a superior being is on bended knees the warehouse manager came out and recognised me (we have known each other for 10 years) told me where to put the truck and gave his man a bollocking saying "don´t upset this one ".
Groupage loaded and I headed across the border in to France to change trailers at Castets to the tune of can you be in Vigo before 17.00 tomorrow ? to which I replied if every thing goes to plan yes. Plan ? bullshit the trailer turned up 2 hours late so I only got as far as Beciñlas before the hours were up.
Wednesday communicated to the office in Holland that they would have to tell the client that I wouldn´t before there before 18.00, this seemed easier than attempting to explain to the Dutch plonker in the Barcelona office as to why. Arriving in Vigo at 17.45 they were waiting for me and the 8 octabins were out in 45 minutes and away I went heading for the Portuguese border at Tuy where I was pleased to see that the motorway to Oporto has now been completed so I used the motorway to go down past Oporto and eventually ran out of hours at Barcelos where I parked up for the night. Upon parking up I noticed a small sign in the parking area informing me that the ticket for the motorway was only valid for a maximum of 12 hours, now Oporto to Lisbon is 3 1/2 hours plus 9 hours rest equals 12 1/2 hours so I decided that in the morning I would exit and re-enter at one of the junctions before the 12 hour limit was up so eliminating the possibility of any problems.
Thursday off I set and did the thing at one of the exits and arrived at the customers in Alverca about 20 kms outside of Lisbon and here the fun started. The consignment is cradles for aircraft engines. The aircraft is Dutch military and is on a Portuguese military airfield and now try as an Englishman with Spanish identification papers and a Dutch truck to explain to some brainless Portuguese airman why you want to enter his base. Eventually succeeding in gaining entry the cradles were unloaded in 30 minutes and I was told by the plonker in Barcelona to reload there at the same time. Off I set to find the resident Dutchman who says "reload ? you are going to wait ? but it won´t be ready till next week", he then went on to explain that the reload would be the engines which were still firmly attached to the aircraft and that while it only took a few hours to take them out the problem was that there was no one available to do it. Returning to the truck harbouring visions of a weeks holiday in Portugal with a sunshiny 18 degrees celsius I told our man Barcelona what the problem was and he said "that can´t be true the Dutch military in Holland have said it will be done today" now as we all know military organisation is at the best of times somewhat slow and multiply that by the distance between Holland and Portugal and the possibilities of cock ups are numerous and although the man in Portugal had informed Holland of the problem it still had not filtered down to where the information was needed, 2 hours later Iam told to go to Vitoria in Spain empty. And off I go passing through the rolling Portuguese countryside intending to cross the border at Badajoz

A shady stretch of Portuguease national road

Passing Elvas on the new stretch of Portuguese motorway

The Spanish town of Badajoz can clearly be seen before arriving at the border

Leaving Portugal
and passing Madrid I got as far as the restaurant at La Cabrera before the hours ran out.

Friday begins with birthday greetings from the family and Vas is another year older as he sets off up the A1 passing Burgos and Vitoria to load in Legutiano which was followed by another pick up in Elgoibar which was loaded in 20 minutes and it was on the way to collect another 5 pallets at Hernani that the week went tits up as whilie I was driving along the A8 between Bilbao and San Sebastian I felt a tug on the vehicle and heard a whistling noise, not seeing anything untoward in the mirrors I decided to reduce speed and continue to the next parking area before investigating the matter but lo and behold 2 minutes later there is smoke bellowing from the drive axle and I pull over on to the hard shoulder which is about half as wide as the truck and notice that there are flames in the hub which I doused with my thermos of coffee before deciding to just slowly roll the 300 metres to the next motorway exit where I could await the Volvo assistance in relative safety. Where they couldn´t fix it the same day so I went home and will be collecting the motor Sunday evening before leaving for Holland.

This is what caused the problem
Well this week got of to an unsociable start leaving home Sunday evening with the brother in law giving me a lift to pick up the truck which if you remember was left in the Volvo garage in Ollaberria Saturday so that they could finish repairing it. I then ran solo to Hernani to pick up a trailer loaded for Holland,

A night time shot of the motor
surprisingly as I crossed the French border at 22.30 there was no queue of trucks so I had an easy run up through France as far as Chatellerault before going to sleep.
Monday consisted of finishing the run through France and Belgium in to Holland with no difficulties apart from a snow blizzard as I went past Roosendaal and I was parked up again at 01.00.
Tuesday morning the boss said take the truck to the Volvo in Roosendaal and let them give it a check through as apparently the vehicle has a history of breaking down, I also asked him about getting a new mattress as the one in the vehicle is like a block of wood and he said OK to that as well as getting the sun visor fixed and the headlight full of water replaced and a complete set of floor maps which have disappeared. Once all that had been done I picked up a trailer that was loaded for Spain and took it as far as Orleans where I swapped once again with one of our French drivers who took it the rest of the way this was done as it is part of a contract which guarantees delivery in the north of Spain within 24 hours. After changing trailers it was back as far as the BP truckstop at Roye and wait for the next trailer.
Wednesday I ran down through France doing a drop in Angouleme and another near Bordeaux on the way and got as far as Le Muret on the forest road just south of Bordeaux wondering what was going to happen the next day as the radio was full of stories of extremely bad weather in Spain and of numerous roads blocked because of snow, my mobile rang and I was treated to the dulcet tones of Jimbo wanting to talk to me. Shortly afterwards a satellite message told me to forget going to Oviedo because of the bad weather and to drop the trailer in Hernani and pick up an empty one to load near Bilbao
Thursday ran to Hernani changed trailers and went home as the pick up in Mungia was for Friday at 12.00, the roads were terrible with ice every where although it seemed that this part of Spain had escaped the worst of the weather, apparently there were truck movement bans operating in several regions due to the snow and snow was even falling on the Costa del Sol and in Northern Africa as well as the temperature in Albacete dropping to 28 degrees below. Friday I loaded the Mungia and was told not to be in Irun before 18.00, knowing that the Transport Centre in Irun would be chaos on a Friday I got there at 17.00 and it took me an hour to get from the entrance to the customers premises where I was duly informed that it would be a few hours before I would be loaded. Now some of you may be asking yourselves "well why go there so early if you know you will have to wait ?" I will explain the transport centre in Irun is small and was designed by a moron as usual there is stacks of space for parking cars and none for trucks, the loading bays are extremely tight, several companies such as Hamann and ABX cause chaos as the amount of vehicles visiting their premises is far superior than that for which the centre was designed , all this results in some horrendous queues to get in to the place especially on a Friday evening and the later you get there the longer the queue and as I left at 21.30 the queue was backing up on to the motorway.

Queuing to get in to the Transport Centre at Irun

As you can see the Transport Centre is divided in to small yards with several companies in each one

As the evening wears on it just gets worse as there is not even enough room to manouevre on to a bay

As night draws in there is no respite
Leaving Irun I drove as far as Castets where I went to sleep.
Saturday morning was spent waiting for the next trailer to arrive and I took it as far as Irun where I handed it over to one of our drivers who lives in Madrid and he would be taking it the rest of the way, I than ran solo to Hernani and picked up the trailer that I left there Thursday and will be leaving Sunday night to unload it in Oviedo on Monday morning.
Well Monday saw me heading towards Mieres just outside of Oviedo and it has been a while since I was last sent out to this part of Spain so I was pleased to note that the road has improved greatly between Torrelavega and Oviedo and that it is now nearly all dual carriageway. Arriving at the customers premises I was greeted with "how the hell are we going to get that out of there" to which I replied "no worries I have ramps" "those ramps won´t take that weight" says he "Oh yes they will" says I and proceeded to prepare the trailer for the unloading operation which consisted of sliding the roof forward and the curtains on the left hand side as well as removing all the planks of wood and the supporting posts before loosening off and removing the securing chains.

At this point old worry guts returned and said "that thing won´t fit through the back doors its too wide" so I just smiled at him and proceeded to turn a handle situated under the left hand side of the rear door frame and the door frame widened.

after which I asked him if he was going to stand there all day with his mouth open or was he going to get that thing out of my trailer. Once the machine was out I closed the trailer and stowed away the chains and ramps and went off to do a collection in the middle of Oviedo and another just outside of Vigo in Tremañes before going home for the night.

Tuesday I arrived at the 1st customer of the day at 08.00 to be greeted with its not ready and settled down for a 4 hour wait as it was a 12 pallet pick up, eventually leaving there just after 12.00 I went and picked up 2 more pallets at a factory just outside of Amorebieta and was told to get to Castets asap to swap trailers with one of our French drivers and then tale to Amezketa and give it to another of our kermits to take on to Madrid as it had to be in Seseña by 07.00 the next day, after doing this I then took his trailer which had been loaded with paper and took it to Hernani where I dropped it off and picked up another trailer to start unloading the next day in Zaragoza.
Wednesday saw me at the customers premises at 08.30 to be greeted with "Are you back at Van Overvelds then?" "No" says I "Its a bloody ghost" after which the warehouse manager bought the coffees and we then unloaded and I proceeded to the 2nd customer who was on the Industrial estate in Alfinden on the other side of Zaragoza with this drop only being 2 pallets I was soon on my once more heading down through Daroca and Teruel towards Valencia where I unloaded the rest of the trailer in Albuixech where the sun was shining and it was a lovely day with an afternoon temperature of 18 degrees. Informing chaos control that the trailer was empty I was sent to Turis to load wine which didn´t take too long either and I returned to the vehicle with a sample bottle of the produce before heading to a small village up in the Valencian mountains near Alcoy to load another pallet the next day.
Thursday the 2 pallets were loaded by 09.00 and I was on my Catarroja to load another pallet in blazing sunshine before heading back up the same road past Teruel and Daroca before turning off to go through Alumnia de Godina and Epila to cut through to the Zaragoza - Logroño road before turning off on to the motorway to Pamplona where I had another pallet to pick up in Orkoyen before calling it a day.
Friday was a late start as I didn´t have to be in Castets until the afternoon to swap trailers after which it was a complete tip at Azkar´s in Hernani beofre heading off to Gueñes to load the next morning.
Saturday I loaded a complete load of cleaning materials for somewhere near Paris and no one knows where I will be told Monday, so I toddled off home to HM.
Well this week did provide a few amusing moments and started Monday by leaving early with a supposed destination being somewhere near Paris which eventually turned out to be Garonor for 07.00 Tuesday morning but it turned out that I would not be going that far as that chaos control wanted me to swap trailers at the restaurant at Mondesir on the Route National 20 just south of Etampes, when I asked who I would be changing with I was told it would be Mike Thomas a Welshman who lives in Bordeaux who I have known for several years and who also had no idea that I was back on for Van Overveld so I told the planner not to tell him who he would be changing with and for him to wake me up upon arrival.
Tuesday I had worked out roughly what time the Welshman would be arriving and was waiting for him with the curtains closed and the lights off and as he knocked on the door to wake the driver he was greeted with a loud Baaaaahh at which his face was a picture for the Gods as he said Oh shit the Englishmans back and that was before he had even seen me. Anyway after swapping trailers I trogged off down through France to unload at Azkars in Hernani just outside of San Sebastian and then to swap my tilt trailer for a sliding roof tautliner, my amazement at such unknown generosity was answered when I was told that I would be loading drilling bits at a drilling site right on the Spanish-French border the next morning (crane work obviously), as the drilling site was only 50 yards over the border I decided to park up there for the night and walk back across the border for the evening meal which I duly did after arranging the loading time for tomorrow with the German site manager.
Wednesday morning I was just making coffee when I realised that the 2 site workers talking next to my cab were speaking English and one of these was Welsh and the one doing all the moaning had a distinct Scouse accent (how strange), after listening to their warblings for several minutes I lowered the window and asked the Scouse if he could piss off and do his genetically induced moaning elsewhere and they both looked at me and said "You´re English ?" replying to the obvious the Welshmen grinned and said "We beat you lot at Rugby" with a smile all over his face which I soon removed by asking him as to how he was getting on relating to the local sheep. Anyway loading commenced and the drilling bits were in and the load was secured and the trailer closed in about 2 hours after which the German site manager demonstrated to the Welshman that during the loading process I had been teaching him the Welsh national anthem "Bah Bah Black Sheep". Passing through France another message from our super efficient traffic office informed that I would be changing trailers again at Charles De Gaulle airport for a trailer with destination Madrid which I duly did.
Thursday was spent barrelling back down through France with all sails to the wind and the hatches well battened down.
Friday I started by trying to unload the 1st customer in Azuqueca de Henares just outside Guadalajara only to be greeted with "its 2 months early we don´t want it" after 20 minutes of negotiations they agreed to accept the 1 pallet and I set off for Coslada where the 2nd drop was at a logistics company called SLI who if they had been any slower would have been going backwards, next stop was 6 pallets for Domans also in Coslada before dropping another 5 pallets off at Kuhne and Nagels, upon arriving at the last customers in Coslada he said "wecan´t unload it our fork lifts broken" so I arranged for the company next door to take it off for them before heading off to the 1st of drops in San Sebastian de los Reyes, upon arriving at the street mentioned on the CMR I realised there is no way a 40 tonner is going to get down there so I decided to investigate on foot and had walked the entire length of the street without seeing the company that I was looking for so I asked the postman and he pointed across a building site that was effectively blocking the whole road to a building on the other side of it that was next to the old main road and said "there it is" uttering a few minor obscenities I walked back to the truck and did a circuit of the whole industrial estate and a residential area and finally got to the address where another 2 pallets were duly dropped and I set off towards the next one which turned out to be a Japanese restaurant where the stuff had to be hand balled off after which I was invited to Sushi for helping them as raw fish is not one of my favourite dishes I politely declined the offer and made good my escape heading for an address in Madrid, once again I arrived at where the street was and saw nothing but office blocks so once again I set off on foot to investigate and found a small workshops nestled in between the office blocks and well out of sight, speaking to the owner I asked him where he thought I was going to put the truck to unload and he said "back it in" upon which I pointed out to him that it was an artic and that if they wanted the bloody crate that I had for them then they would need to find the owners of about 10 cars that were double parked and get them moved which they set about doing and 30 minutes later I began to negotiate my way down this street with the mechanics from the workshop going in front pushing in wing mirrors so that I didn´t have to bother removing them with the motor, eventually getting to where the workshops were the road is a tad wider and I find enough space to park the motor and show them the crate which is big and weighs 1500 kilos he then shows me his little electric hand pushed fork lift thingy and says "we´ll take it off with this", "ok mate it´s your crate but the responsibility is not mine if it gets broken" and the balancing act began, at the same time a queue of vehicles as built up due to a smaller vehicle doing some manouevering further down the road and as we begin the balancing act some impatient sod ina big Peugeot starts blowing his horn making the person moving the forklift jump and the crate wobbled precariously one of the Spanish workers asked this sod politely to desist and by way of reply got a 1 fingered salute so reaching in to the trailer for the large crowbar that we had used to help move the crate I just leaned on this and fixed the bugger with a meaningful look and lo and behold the horn blowing stopped.
After all this I closed the trailer and upon returning to the cab there was a message telling me that I wouldn´t be able to unload any more that day as the last 3 companies all left early on Friday afternoons and that I was to drop the trailer off in Torres de Alameda and someone else would finish tipping it Monday not bad for a Friday 8 drops all round the general Madrid area so I toddled off to drop off the trailer and pick up one loaded for Northern France, Belgium and Holland before going to sleep.
Saturday was a nice leisurely run up past Burgos to home with only a message via the satellite system to inform me that I would be swapping this trailer for another one in Castets on Monday at 13.00

Monday started with picking up 8 empty containers in Igorre which went smoothly and afterwards I decided to take the short cut through Lemoa to Amorebieta in order to fill up at the Shell station in a Iurreta but as I entered Amorebieta and had gone past the turn off that goes round the town a 100 metres later I see a sign saying no entry for vehicles weighing more than 8 tons (that wasn´t there the last time I came through here) anyway reversing back to the junction was out of the question with all the traffic behind me and there was nowhere that I could turn round so I had no choice but to carry on, lo and behold not even 200 yards further out steps Plod in the form of a municipal policeman, now before I go any further I will explain that here in the Basque region of Spain there are various police forces consisting of the Guardia Civil who limit their activities to an anti terrorist role, the Ertzaintza which are the infamous red bereted Basque police who do all the other normal policing tasks and every half sized town has their own municipal police force which are in fact not much more than glorified traffic wardens and consist mainly of all the rejects from the other police forces and the local village self importance brigade, any way this plod stops me and says "that will cost money trucks aren´t permitted along here" to which I replied "It would help if the sign was placed where it would still allow us to divert", "not my problem" says he, "ok" says I "start writing the ticket", "don´t you want to know how much it is" he asks, "not really" I replied "it won´t be getting paid anyway", "and why not" asks plod, so I explained.
1. You write ticket fining me as and I live in Spain I don´t have to pay immediately and have 7 days to pay.
2. I am back here Sunday taking fotos of the positioning of the sign and of the last possible diversion.
3. Instead of paying the fine I appeal against it and supply the fotos as evidence.
4. Appeal accepted because of illogical positioning of sign.
5. I make sure that the local press get copies of fine and fotos.
6. Both you and the local council look bloody stupid.
So please feel free to carry on writing if you so wish. He scratched his head looked at me and said "well I´ll let you go this time" so away I toddled on my merry way and filled up at the Shell in Iurreta before collecting another 4 pallets just up the road in Berriz. After Berriz it was in to our Agents Mandiola in Astigarrage to unload everything that I had picked up Friday and today and then go and load contaminated soil at the old gas works in the middle of San Sebastian which is in the process of being demolished, 20 big bags of contaminated soil later I am back at Mandiolas to load 4 of the pallets that I had left there earlier, at this point the black box started to beep with instructions to leave this trailer in Hernani and pick up and empty one and go and pick up a complete load at Bergareche in Irun which I did and was most surprised to be in and out of there in an hour and duly armed with instructions to do a swap over the next day in Angouleme I entered enemy territory and headed north managing to reach the restaurant La Belle Cantiere 20 kms north of Angouleme where I parked up for the night.
Tuesday I got up about 8ish and made coffee before drawing the curtains and upon firing up the engine I noticed that it was -10 outside, looking in the mirror I got a nasty surprise a flat tyre on the trailer, a quick message on the black box to see what time my trailer would be arriving confirmed that it wouldn´t be there before 10.30 which gave me time to let the sun rise a bit more and warm up mother earth before I ventured outside, when I had mustered up enough courage to face the brutal elements an inspection of the offending Michelin revealed that a bolt had worked it´s way in to the tread and was the reason that said tyre was now devoid of air, damn thing must have been picked up at the gas works yesterday. Duly armed with wheel brace and jack I set about changing the wheel and the job was completed before the trailer turned up for the swap over. Having swapped trailers it was away again to Spain to unload in Hernani which went smoothly and then drop off the empty trailer and pick up a full one and head back north to spend the night again at La Belle Cantiere.
Wednesday the trailer arrived at 08.30 but due to the hours I couldn´t leave till 09.00 and it was back down to Azkars in Hernani and unload which left me with 1 pallet to deliver at our agents Mandiola but as time was running short chaos control decided to leave the pallet on the trailer for the time being to make sure that I was back in the gas works for another load of contaminated soil before they closed for the evening, with the soil loaded it was retrace my steps to Astigorraga to unload the 1 pallet and then amuse myself in the rush hour traffic to get out of the San Sebastian area which in turn allowed to participate in the evening queue at the border (what ever happened to the free flowing borders that the EU promised us all those years ago ?), due to the traffic at that time of evening I only managed to get as far north as Bedenac before the hours ran out and ended up having to park on the entrance slipway to the service area for the night. Now this is something that has increasingly annoyed me over the last few years as the Route National 10 has been turned in to a dual carriageway bypassing many of the villages the result has been that many of the restaurants have closed down and disappeared thus reducing the amount of parking available on what is one of the busiest north - south routes through France obliging drivers to park in the most dangerous situations like in these fotos


or get a fine next day for going over their hours, add to this at the same time on the rare occasion that a new parking area is built it remains closed off and used for months on end, there is this one just north of Bordeaux

that has been finished now for more than 6 months as has the one on the other side of road and still neither is available for use why ?????.

Thursday I left Bedenac and changed trailers again at the La Belle Cantiere and headed back down towards to Hernani again as I was passing Bayonne we were suddenly attacked by squalls of snow and hailstones which turned the motorway white within 2 minutes but I was still in Hernani on time and this is when the black box communications system started going in to overtime and once more confusion took the upper hand. The first message was "unload as quickly as possible and go and load in the gas works again" to which I replied "how do you think I am going to do that, with being an hour later than yesterday when I only managed to get in there 5 minutes before they closed" a few minutes later a message arrived from the boss himself "when empty change trailers for the loaded one that is parked in Hernani" ok no problem, but a few minutes later the author of the original message comes back with "let me know when you empty and I will phone the customer and see if they will wait for you" ha, right, great 2 people sitting within 3 metres of each other sending me different messages so I replied "please confer with the man who is sitting opposite you then make a decision as to which one of the messages you want me to comply with as I find it extremely difficult to split the truck in two so as to keep you both happy" once the vehicle was unloaded they had sorted themselves out and I changed trailers at Hernani and headed north again getting as far as Bedenac again where I actually managed to get a proper parking space for the night.
Friday was leave early and going up past Angouleme, Poitiers, Tours and Orleans everything was going well until about 8 kilometers before the end of the A10 where the world appeared to have come to a standstill as the Parisiennes struggled yet again to come to terms with a bit of snow, eventually reaching the turn off for Massey I decided to go for a swan through the suburbs and see if the situation was any better I was lucky and 15 minutes later I was on the A86 which was free flowing and passed Paris without any further problems and eventually reached the BP Truckstop at Roye where I was to wait for the next trailer. After changing trailers I headed back towards Paris and stopped at Vemars as according to the radio a recent fall of snow and a couple of accidents had turned Paris once more in to a disaster zone, at the same time it was announced that the Lille area had been closed to goods vehicles as had Limoges and several other parts of the French road system. My bone of contention with these sudden bans due to bad weather is as we are paying for using these motorways are they not legally obliged to keep them open? and to have sufficient of the necessary equipment to do so ? it seems to me be ridiculous that we pay and are then told to park up because the motorway is closed because of snow.

This frozen fountain in Paris does give the impression that it is a bit chilly
Saturday was a run down through France in weather ranging from blinding sunshine to snow blizzards and unfortunately due to the restrictions placed upon us by restrictive EU legislation a bit of imaginative time keeping was necessary in order to get home.
First drop Monday was on the other side of Bilbao in a placed Zamudio and this is where the fun started all the drops that had to be done first were in the front of the trailer because of the 2 secondhand forklift trucks that were destined for Portugal this meant that the first few addresses were all going to be from the side, anyway the first pallet was out quite quickly in Zamudio and away I went passing round the topside of Bilbao past the airport, happily going in the opposite direction to all the rush hour traffic and made my way to a new extension of the port of Santurzi which is where the ferry comes in from Portsmouth after finding the company which has only recently moved there from the TIR Terminal in Bilbao it was a case of unloading 5 pallets of metal drums which once again were in the front half an hour later the trailer is closed and I am just about to leave when the black box tells me I have a message which says "on your way to the next drop stop off in Onton and pick up 48 empty euro pallets that were left there 2 weeks ago" shit that will complicate things even more. Arriving in Onton after a 15 minute drive from the port it was open both sides again and start squeezing in the bloody pallets before heading off to the next customer just outside Santander in a place called Guarnizo where they relieved of 3 pallets of locks and at last I had a bit of space so as to be able to start organising the empty pallets, the next drop according to the CMR was in the middle of Gijon where I am sure they don´t want a load of ships spares so a quick phone call to directory enquiries followed by a call to the customer confirmed this and we arranged to meet each other at the entrance to the port of Gijon at 15.00 after which we proceeded to the customs office to sort out the paperwork as the load is ships spares in transit, once permission was given to unload we proceeded to the warehouse and the had the stuff out an hour later, as it was obvious that I wouldn´t be on time to get the next customer off today it was time for a coffee in peace and quiet before making my way up past Aviles and along the Atlantic coast before following the National 634 inland as far as Villalba where I turned right and made my way towards the next customer via a maze of secondary roads.
Tuesday was a late start as the customer was a veterinary surgeon who had ordered some animal feed and they didn´t start until 08.30 and half an hour later I was on my way winding through the hills and joining the motorway just south of Ferrol and passing La Coruña I arrived at Arteixo where I had to unload 2 pallets a big textile factory and as always with these big places they had a system in place for unloading trucks that defies all logic not withstanding an hour later I was on my again and using the N525 to cut of the corner I started heading south again passing Compostela Santiago and Vigo before arriving at the Portuguese border and entered the country that I refer to as European Africa where the objective of most of the drivers appears to be to kill and maim as many other drivers as humanly possible any way heading south on the A3 I went round Oporto and got a lovely view of their new football stadium and eventually arrived at the Dow factory in Estarreja. Once again the buggering about that is necessary to get in to this place is unbelievable and half an hour after arriving I was kitted out with a gas mask and gas escape warning tags and was allowed to enter and unload my 1 pallet. Once this was done it was off to Albergaria A Velha to unload 2 forklift trucks before joining the IP5 and heading back towards Spain. The IP5 is a road that was financed by the EU and was supposed to include bridges, viaducts and tunnels but someone pocketed the money and the road was built with a lot of very steep climbs and drops and the result of this has been numerous deaths and accidents due to brake fade but it looks as though at last someone has forced to the Portugues to do something to rectify this situation as it now appears to be one great big roadworks with the obigatory hold ups, eventually I managed to get back in to Spain and parked up for the night at a place called Sanctus Christi.
Wednesday I went past Salamanca Valladolid and Palencia before arriving at the biscuit factory at Aguila De Campo where I had to pick up a complete load for Lidl in Holland after a 2 hour wait the biscuits were loaded and I cut through on the back roads as far as Burgos before joining the motorway heading for Vitoria and left the motorway again at Miranda de Ebro to fill up with diesel. The black box started squeaking again with the instructions to drop this trailer in Hernani and pick up another one that was loaded for Holland once this had been done it was in to France and I managed to get as far as Castets before the hours ran out.
Thursday I left Castets with the BP Truckstop in St Andre Cubzac just north of Bordeaux as my next target where once again I would be changing trailers, whilst in the BP Truckstop I learnt from one of the Carr Brothers drivers that one of his colleagues had been killed Tuesday in an accident just south of Burgos while on his way to Madrid, what a week in Spain for the transport industry firstly an illegal Rumanian driver flattens 5 Guardia Civils 70 kilometers north of Madrid and now this. Anyway my trailer arrived and it was off back to Irun to do a customs clearance for the air conditioning parts that had come from Japan once this was done it was out of Irun, round San Sebastian and up the National 1 to Vitoria just as I was arriving at the Industrial estate I noticed a lot of flashing blue lights in the distance and as I got closer I saw that one lorry was on the inside lane with no side left in his trailer and the whole structure bent backwards and another was off the road and down the ditch with his trailer intact but with the cabin well flattened, I later learnt that the vehicles were still there 5 hours later which usually means that someone has died and they have had to await the judges permission to remove the body. I managed to get the Vitoria unloaded and headed home for the night as the next 2 drops were in Bilbao.
Friday I started by unloading 8 pallets of gloves close to the centre of Bilbao and this was followed by 16 pallets of plastic in Derio near Bilbao airport, now the intention was to fill up at the Shell near Durango and then go and load paper but Holland intervened and it was off through mountain passes on the back roads

To pick up a pallet weighing 70 kilos passing close to mountains like this one

before carrying on to the paper factory at Amezketa

would you believe that through here is a great big paper factory ?
where the wait began 6 hours waiting to get loaded and why because the bloody factory only has 1 forklift to load the trucks and move the rolls of paper in the factory and off of the production line and there were periods where not a single vehicle was loaded of more than an hour and a half an absolute disgrace in my opinion. Eventually loaded it was in to Hernani and swap trailers for one with a bit of space in it and head of to Astigorrage to load a few pallets of groupage, upon arrival I was greeted with "you can piss off I´m not loading anymore tonight" it was 22.30 fair enough thinks I and transmits the info to chaos control in Holland and headed for the border managing to enter France as far as Castets before the imaginative time keeping was stretched to its limit.
Saturday was up the A63 and RN10 round Bordeaux, past Angouleme to change trailers at the Shell at Ruffec before heading back home again

Monday was an early start as I had to be in Alovera near Guadalajara at 09.00 which as usual turned out to be a waste of time and was eventually tipped at 11.00 after which I then tipped in Torrejon de Ardoz and in Alcala de Henares before being told that I would be loading tomorrow in the paper factory at Amezketa, so heading north once again I got as far as Miranda de Ebro before the hours ran out.
Tuesday was another early start and after filling up at the Shell at Rivabellosa I was in the paper factory at 06.00 and was loaded immediately, fortunately I already knew that I would be changing trailers in Castets so it was off past San Sebastian and over the border in to France and got to Castets with time to spare before the other trailer turned up which was loaded for Madrid area. Once again over the border and past San Sebastian then taking the A15 up past Pamplona as far as where it crosses with the A68 before following the national road down through Cintruenigo, Agreda and Almazan before joining the A2 at Medicanelli I managed to get as far as Ledanca where I spent the night.
Wednesday was a timed tip at TNT in Seseña just south of Madrid at 07.00 after which it was back in to Aitena in Alovera to tip 3 pallets. After loading at 2 addresses in Torrejon de Ardoz I set off for Cintruenigo to load 23 pallets of wine before heading for Astigarraga to swap trailers once more and headed for Victors in Burgos where I had to swap trailers with another driver who had enough hours to get the trailer to Madrid on time, after swapping trailers the night was spent at Victors.
Thursday I had to go to Agoncillo near Logroño and swap this trailer once again for an empty one and start by loading 2 pallets of wine in Cenicero and another 28 pallets of wine in Mendavia (the wine stocks in fortress Vasco are looking good before heading off on the N111 to Pamplona where it was swap trailers again and back towards Madrid once again getting as far as Ledanca.
Friday I started by unloading some groupage in Azuqueca de Henares before heading for Coslada where I had another 4 addresses to unload after which it was off round Madrid to the other side to Pinto, on arriving at the address there is no one there as it 14.00 I assume that they are still at dinner and settle down to wait, at 15.15 there is still no one there so I inform the office in Holland and they start making enquiries, during this time a group of painters enter the building so I ask them if they know when the customer is going to turn up and they said the warehouses are empty and are being decorated ready for the next occupant , informing Holland of this they tell me that the customer in Holland says there must be someone there so I tell them once again the warehouses are unoccupied, an hour later they come up with a contact telephone number which upon trying turns out to be no longer in use, eventually they give me another number that works and it turns out that the company moved to new premises in Getafe 6 months ago so much for people knowing where they are sending their goods so of I go to Getafe and eventually unload 6 pallets of CD´s. After this it was battle through the rush hour traffic to get to Caterpillar in Arganda del Rey to unload 3 pallets of spare parts, knowing that it would be a waste of time I went to try and unload the last address in Rivas Vaciasmadrid but they had already gone home, upon informing chaos control of this I left the trailer in the security parking near Algete and set of with the tractor unit to pick up a pre-loaded trailer in Azuqueca de Henares before heading north on the A2 once again and up past Agreda getting as far as Valverde before it was time to stop again.
Saturday leaving Valverde it was head for the A15 and up past Pamplona stopping to refuel at the Shell in Mugiro before changing trailers once again in Hernani and setting off across the border in to France to change trailers once again in Castets and turn around once more this time headed for home.
Monday I left at 06.00 to be at the first address in Torrelavega and got there nicely on time but to no avail as the bloody place didn´t open until 10.00, then to cap it all they only had a little hand pushed electric forklift that couldn´t unload from the side as the trailer wheels were in the way so we had to borrow a pump truck from some neighbours and pull the double stacked pallets to the back, once this was done I headed off to unload at a new IKEA store in Oviedo and when I got there I discovered that they were still building the bloody place and apart from that as their forklift truck had been broken all morning there was a queue of vehicles waiting to be unloaded that had to be seen to be believed, arriving there at 13.30 I had eventually tipped my 5 pallets at 21.00 and set of to do the remaining hour that the tachograph would allow.
Tuesday upon arriving at the address indicated on the CMR I was pleased to discover that the truck would not even fit in the street so away I went on foot and they sent someone to escort me to a nearby transport company where the stuff was eventually unloaded and now it was just a case of going 20 kilometers down the road to Arteixo to unload the remaining 8 pallets at a company called Inditex this place gets right up my nose, not so much the warehouse personal who are pleasant enough but the pig ignorant pratts that man the gatehouse and if I come here much more it will not be long before someone gets slapped anyway I digress, the 8 pallets were tipped and it was a long run down the A6 as far as Astorga before cutting across past Leon to load at the biscuit factory in Aguilar De Campo, here once again my patience was tried and tested with several hours of waiting and watching how nothing was loaded I decided to go to bed and tomorrow is another day
Wednesday eventually got loaded before they decided that they had loaded the wrong stuff so out it all came again and the loading procedure started anew, eventually the peasants got it right and away I set across country lanes towards Burgos only to be halted by a demonstration just before I got to Burgos fortunately this only lasted 30 minutes so the journey soon resumed up the A1 past Vitoria and San Sebastian before crossing the border at Irun in to France managing to get nearly as far as Poitiers before parking up for the night.
Thursday all went well as I cruised up through France until I arrived in that hole of a place called Paris where the whole world came to a stand still, honestly the moron who designed the French road system must be an automatic candidate for plonker of the millenium. Eventually escaping the madhouse it was up past Lille and in to Belgium briefly stopping at the border to get a Eurovignette before advancing upon Antwerp where the world came to halt once again causing me to be 3 minutes over my driving time as I pulled in to the yard where I parked the trusty steed and went to spend the night at my daughters.
Friday after getting the motor washed I hitched up another trailer and started heading back down south and it was plain sailing all the way through Belgium ad northern France until I got to Paris where all hell was let loose as the French knocked off early for the long weekend. After a 3 hour battle to get round Paris it was off to Poitiers to park up for the night.
Saturday was a nice quiet plain sail home.
Well after spending all day Monday being pampered by HM and kept in sheer luxury it was back to work on Tuesday with a vengeance with the first drop at 08.00 in Burgos after which it was off to Palencia to drop off one pallet before heading for the Renault factory in Valladolid where as always it goes pear shaped and it took 2 hours to get rid of 5 pallets after which I set off to find a company called Reliance what a bunch of morons, while the company may be called Reliance it is a franchise for a DIY chain called Conforama now if they would just put that on the paperwork it would make life a lot bloody easier, any way once found in to the yard both sides open and out came 12 tons of work sheds, now empty contact chaos control for the next mission which is go to Nava del Rey and collect 2 pallets of wine so off I set and upon arriving in the village it is one of these wine places that was built when donkey and cart was the major form of transportation talk about bloody tight but I got in and back out again without bending or breaking anything, chaos control then came out with go back to Valladolid and load a pallet of wine at Azkar which is just around the corner from where I was tipping the sheds the only difference now being I have to battle through all the rush hour traffic to get there. Once loaded they decided to send me to the biscuit factory at Aguilar de Rey to fill up the trailer once this was done it was straight to bed as the hours were up.
Wednesday leaving the biscuit factory early it was up to Miranda de Ebro to fill up and carry on heading for the border until the black box beeped with a message to change trailers at Castets in France and head back to Madrid so it was off to Castets and change trailers and head back south getting as far as Gomara before parking up for the night.
Thursday was up at sparrow fart so as to be at TNT Sesena by 07.00 and was in there an tipped by 06.30 and headed back north across Madrid again to Alovera just below Guadalajara for a 09.00 tip which was out by 08.30, so turning round and heading south again the next tip was in Alcala de Henares and once again it was out in a flash after which it was in to San Fernando de Henares to the UPS depot to tip 1 pallet which took 1 1/2 hours, once that was out and UPS were left in no doubt as to what I thought of them it was off to Kuehne & Nagels in Coslada to tip 41 small pallets. Before this was out chaos control started complicating things again as I was on the unloading bay the message arrived to go to Valdemoro and start loading and must be there before 13.00, I told them that I am not empty yet but they insisted so there I am with 5 tons of plastic that is going to be in the way. Once tipped in Coslada I headed for Valdemoro to collect the 8 1000 litre containers and they were Oh so happy when they saw the plastic was in the way but they did end up moving it after having a good moan, upon telling chaos control it was loaded they came back with "while you are in the area" and gave some more collections to do, so I shot off to Leganes to get rid of one of the drops that I still had to do before collecting in Villaverde after which it was back across to the north side of Madrid to load 18 pallets just outside Fuencarral and then another 4 in Algete and at last I was free to head in the direction of my last drop in Arevalo which is on the way to Salamanca but as the hours were getting scarce the day ended 30 kilometers west of Madrid.
Friday I was at the unloading address as they opened at 08.30 and the stuff was out in half an hour and I set off to do another collection in Miranda de Ebro which was 3 pallets of glas for Holland as I was loading this chaos control told me that they had 3 colli to be picked up in Irun and that each one was 6 meters long (make my bloody day)anyway after filling up again at Miranda de Ebro I headed for Irun and after a bit of queueing I arrived at the customers and the fun started.
¨I said if we move those 2 pallets then we can put the stuff on top of the containers¨
He said I'm not doing that
I said ok and started to close the curtains
He said what are you doing ?
I said me mate ???? you want to play silly buggers then I'm off and the stuff can stay where it is
Needless to say I didn't get the curtains closed as he relented and moved the 2 pallets .
Now came the good news of the day no trailers going south this weekend come to Holland.
Saturday finish off driving through France and Belgium to arrive at chaos control and disappear off to my daughters place.
Monday I began by unloading at EMI´s in Uden before making my to Cuijk to unload 20 pallets of sacks of god knows what, then it was in to Weert to unload a couple of pallets of groupage before making my way to JLG´s in Maasmechelen in Belgium to load a 20 ton high reach, once this was in it was back in to Holland to load 4 pallets in Maastricht before making my way back to the base at Etten Leur where after a short wait I changed trailers and started making my way back south again spending the night just past Paris.
Tuesday was an uneventful run down through France getting as far as the border at Irun.

ednesday the first unloading address was in San Sebastian followed by unloading 6 pallets of groupage at our agents in Astigarraga, after this a run up through the hills to to unload at Oricain and Sorauren just outside Pamplona before filling up at the Shell at Mutilva Baja. Arriving at Pinseque just after dinner the 1 pallet was out quickly and I headed off for Malpica on the other side of Zaragoza to unload 3 pallets of Cobalt and while waiting I had the chance to speak to a driver from Brian Yeardleys who was loading at the same address, once this was out I just managed to get to the unloading address in Epila before they closed which enabled me to get as far as Barracas between Teruel and Sagunto before parking up for the night.
Thursday morning I headed for Almazora just outside of Castellon to unload 1 pallet and was amazed by how much the road system has changed here in the last few years with lots of new roads having been built in the area making getting around a lot easier, the only pain being the amount of roundabouts that have been built as there seems to be one every few hundred yards , after unloading the pallet it was off to my last unloading address at Lliria to unload 12 Octabins, after this our office in Barcelona decided to send me in to Turis to load 28 pallets of wine and I arrived there at 13.00 just as everyone disappeared for dinner, as this seemed a good idea I took a wander in to the village in search of a restaurant and soon found one where I had a soup starter followed by tomatoes stuffed with mince complete with all the trimmings this was rounded off with a nice piece of cherry tart and coffee followed, the price of all this was 6 euros 50, once the wine was loaded I was sent to Chiva to load a couple more pallets but unfortunately as it was 17.00 they wouldn´t load me as they couldn´t get the customs paperwork done in time. I then droppped the trailer in their yard and went off along the old main road and found that one of the old bar restaurants from years ago was still open so I stayed there and enjoyed a couple of drinks in the sun before enjoying the evening meal after which it was off to bed.
Friday the 2 pallets were loaded and by 10.00 I was in Alacuas getting our agent to dismantle the 2 pallets and stack the boxes on top off the others as I would be needing the space for some ceramics once again it was obvious that in this area a lot of money has been spent on rebuilding the roads and what used to be a good half hours winding through small narrow roads has turned in to less than 15 minutes on new wide roads, once the pallets were split it was back on to the A7 as it goes round Valencia heading towards Sagunto where I noticed that the toll booths for the toll motorway have been demolished and moved a few kilometres further north thus allowing the motorway to be used as a bypass for Sagunto which always used to be a terrible bottleneck, a couple of kilometers later you can choose to either continue on the toll motorway or take the normal roads which is what I chose to do and although there is still 5 kilometres of old road complete with roadworks until just after Faura it then turns into a nice stretch of dual carriageway until just after Nules where the A7/N340 splits and goes towards Castellon and the CV10 goes round Castellon as well but much further out and this is the one I followed until reaching the turn off for L´Alcora now speaking of roundabouts on a 8 kilometer stretch I counted 7 of the damn things before arriving at Ceramics Aparici where I was to load 3 pallets of tiles, while waiting to load these I couldn´t help but notice the abundance of eastern european vehicles that were waiting to load and I saw that a Czech vehicle was loading a complete load for the UK upon speaking to him he told me that this was happening quite frequently, anyway 30 minutes later the tiles were loaded and I had the paperwork in my hands and it was back the way I came as far as Vall D´Uxo where I cut off the corner by taking the N525 as far as Segorbe and headed back up past Teruel before having a 45 minute break after which it was head north past Cariñena and Epila getting as far as Pamplona before having the second 45 minutes off, the day had been pleasant and when loading the tiles it was bright sunshine and about 20 degrees and although there had been a 80 kph side wind most of the way it hadn´t been too bad but now I could see the dark clouds that were covering the mountains between Pamplona and San Sebastian and the temperature had dropped to 2 degrees as I set off for the last part of the journey winding my way through the mountains on the A15 it soon started to snow and the motorway was quickly completely covered with the stuff, as I went past Mugiro I noticed that the snow ploughs were still parked up and doing nothing and as far as I could see the drivers weren´t even there although the radio had been giving out snow warnings for the mountainous areas all day, as the quantity of snow covering the motorway increased the slower the vehicles became as they approached the longest drop on this stretch which is a 6% drop for several kilometres with a service station at the top and all the Spanish disappeared and parked up so I decided to take advantage of their absence and carried on down the hill with a long queue of cars behind me none of which dared to overtake until we reached the next tunnel where they took advantage of the tunnel to come screaming past and then scaring themselves shitless when they came to the end of the tunnel and everything was white and the nice truck that had been clearing the road for them was now behind them, eventually reaching the bottom it was a short run along the N1 before turning off at Andoain and passing through Urnieta to get to Hernani where I dropped off the trailer and picked up another which had 2 pallets in it to be unloaded in Bilbao in the morning but as I was now 15 minutes over the 10 hours due to the delay incurred by the snow I had to park up here for the night.
Saturday I awoke to wind lashed hail stones bouncing off of the cabin, made coffee and set off up through Hernani to the old N1 and followed the loop around and up the hill to get on to the A8 heading for Bilbao where I unloaded 2 pallets at Media Markt in Barakaldo before heading home. Having never claimed to be a whiter than white professional, I suppose the truth can be posted here so this weeks post has very few times so as not to make too easy for the expected critics .
The week began leaving in the early hours of Monday morning, they wanted me to leave Sunday night at 22.00 but I don´t see the point in spending 2 hours sitting in the queue to cross the border so leaving at 01.00 I sailed across the border and through the toll booths without hinderance and cruised on up through France eventually saying bollocks to it just outside Tours and spent the rest of the day sleeping.
Tuesday I managed to get past Paris and Antwerp before the chaos started and unloaded 6 pallets in Breda before loading 2 more at another address in Breda and went to the yard to spend the day sleeping. I hate this leaving on a Sunday night it buggers you up for the whole week . Tuesday night had me leaving to swap trailers at Dole in France.
Wednesday morning early changed trailers in Dole and went to sleep while waiting for the next vehicle to arrive so that I can swap trailers with him and start off for Zeebrugge but a always the best of plans fall to pieces and instead of going to Zeebrugge I end up changing trailers again in Gent and heding back down to Spain on a mission.
Thursday evening I managed to unload 2 addresses near San Sebastian, 1 machine in Durango and 6 pallets in Berriatua before going home for the night.
Friday I started by unloading 10 pallets in Arrigorriaga just outside Bilbao before heading off towards Vitoria to unload the last pallet in Izarra, now empty the trailer needs filling so its back down the hill and load some pieces of metal in Lemona before refuelling in Iurreta at the Shell where the next set of instructions arrived which sent me to a factory in the middle of nowhere to load some castings for Holland before heading off to our agents near San Sebastian to swap trailers again and head for home for the night.
Saturday I unloaded some Plasma TV´s at a shopping centre in Bilbao before repeating the procedure in Vitoria and Logroño before picking up a trailer full of wine in Agoncillo with the instructions to yet again start heading north Sunday night.
Well away I went at 23.00 so as to give the starting grid at the border a chance to clear before I got there and as such the border was reasonably clear when I got there and it only took me 10 minutes to get in to France and between the first two toll areas I saw the nights first victim on the other side as a Frenchmens week had got off to an excellent start jack knifing his truck, how he managed this was not obvious as it even though it had rained earlier the road surface was dry continuing up the forest road towards Bordeaux I had a nice clear run and eventually had my 45 minute break at the Shell on the Bordeaux ring road. From Bordeaux up the RN10 past Angouleme and rejoined the motorway at Poitiers without incident until just before Tours I was treated to the sight of the remains of a peugeot that had decided to argue with a Portuguese Scania and had come off worst, shortly after this I decided to say bollocks to it and pulled over to go to sleep.
Off again Monday afternoon passing Orleans and sailing through Paris and past Lille and Antwerp without incident the boring run came to an end in the yard and I decided to go and spend the day at my daughters.
Tuesday evening was the start of another night run this time heading for the truckstop at Habay in Belgium just off of junction 29 of the E411, once there as everything was closed it was run back towards Brussels for half an hour and have a coffee at the motorway services. After the break I continued on towards Puurs which is between Brussels and Antwerp just off of the A12 and reported to the reception of the FEIGE RDC to be told "you aren´t booked " I replied Oh yes I am" once again he said "no you are not" a quick satellite message later and a phone call from the customer and the vehicle was unloaded post haste, after which I was sent across to Antwerp to load 30 pallets upon reporting to reception I was asked "can I see your ADR certificate please" I replied "no because I haven´t got one" "Ah this load is ADR" to which I said "fine goodbye" and toddled off back to the motor to send a scalding message to chaos control asking them why they are wasting my bloody time sending me for a load of ADR when they know that my certificate has run out,

Approaching the Kennedy Tunnel in Antwerp

Inside the Kennedy Tunnel

going around Antwerp you can see that the roadworks are still in full swing with junctions blocked off

And piles of muck all over the place
a message came back to go and swap trailers at Frans Maas in Bergen op Zoom instead

Going around the northern side of Antwerp you can see the dock cranes
and bring it back to base which I did getting back in at about 11 o clock Wednesday morning and back to another day of sleeping.
Wednesday evening the trailer was loaded and ready by the time I woke up and I set off south passing through Antwerp and Lille before having to take my 45 minute break at the toll booths at Senlis because I couldn´t get parking space on any of the service areas. Through Paris I got as far as Orleans and went to bed.
Thursday was a daytime journey down through France on the usual route and passing Bordeaux the weather was wet and as is the case in France brought the necessary chaos with it




The tailback was several kilometers long and I was pleased that it was all on the other side and headed off down the road to the Spanish border,

once over the border I took the first turn off and followed the N121a towards Pamplona I hadn´t got far before the traffic came to a stand still, there had been yet another accident

on this stretch unfortunately this is something that happens with monotonous regularity as the first 15 kilometers is extremely tight and with lots of sharp bends add to this the idiots that come chasing along it and chaos is pre-programmed, I decided to spend the evening at the restaurant at Sumbilla which by the way has the best showers in Spain as it was only 20 minutes form the next days 1st drop, the evening meal consisted of a Macaroni starter followed by Pork steak fillets and a sweet washed down with a half bottle of wine and a coffee afterwards all this came to 9 euros.
Friday morning and the fun begins the 1st address was unloaded in a flash and I headed for Pamplona to unload 2 more pallets where I had to wait an hour because H&S won´t allow 2 vehicles on site at the same time. After this I left Pamplona heading south towards Madrid to unload 2 more pallets in a place called Peralta another 10 minute tip the day was looking good until I got back in to the cabin and noticed that there was a message from chaos control which said one of the customers in Zaragoza needs to unload his machine before 15.00 to which I replied Ha Ha Ha and how the feck do you think I am going to do that as you know I still have 2x Calahorra, 1 x Ribaforrada, 1x Borja and another Zaragoza before its his turn, the reply was skip them and go straight to the customer so off I went and got in there at 13.00 and the fun and games started as we had to move 6 pallets of sacks so as to be able to get his machine out from the side with out tearing all the sacks open, eventually this is done and I set off to unload on the Industrial Estate Malpica Alfinden which is some 20 kilometers outside Zaragoza heading towards Barcelona once this was off it was cut through the middle of Zaragoza to get to the next customer and I caught the bugger just as he was taking his overalls off, he looked at me and grimaced so I smiled at him and he put his overalls back on and took his pallet off of me, now it is major decision time so a message is sent to chaos control "and what do you want me to do now ? all the Zaragozas are tipped and there is 2 pallets for Caspe (on the way to Castellon) still in the trailer plus the Borja, Ribaforrada and Calahorra (in the opposite direction)" the answer came back "head for Caspe and we will phone them" away I went and 15 minutes later a message came in "don´t bother with the Caspe they are closed unload at our agents on the Malpica Ind Estate so it was back through the middle of Zaragoza in the rush hour and back on to the Malpica to unload the 2 pallets for Caspe due to the other loads still being on the trailer I had to open both sides of the old tilt trailer to tip for the 4th time today, meanwhile instructions had arrived that the customer in Borja would unload me that evening so off I set and in Borja it was both sides open again but at least the stuff was out, now I had to go and drop this trailer outside the customers premises in Ribaforrada before running solo to Agoncillo near Logroño to pick up a trailer of wine which lo and behold after it has sat there for 2 days it is now in a bloody hurry and they want it in Holland for Monday morning (yet another weekend well screwed) all done the night was spent just outside Haro.
Saturday I went past Vitoria and decided to use the new fuel card(ADS) that we had been given and was pleasantly surprised a fairly new complex had been built close to the Miko ice cream factory with parking watched by CCTV, Restaurant where I had a 2 egg, bacon,sausage and chips breakfast for 3 euros 95 and a shower which cost 1 euro before resuming the run over the hill and down past San Sebastian to the French border, once Bayonne and Biarritz had been passed I approached the roadworks at Lebouheyre with some trepidation as it was Saturday and moron platoon would be out in force and the usual tail back was in place,


the enjoyable part of this is that the tailback was worse on the other side,

And I had time to reflect as to why these tailbacks are worse at weekends than during week and I came to the usual conclusion keep the weekend warriors off of the bloody roads. Taking a 45 minute break just north of Bordeaux I went off up the RN10 and it was obvious that the Gendarmes were bored because the buggers were every where pulling trucks in left right and centre, (I must have been spared because of my angelic looks), going up past Angouleme and Poitiers I parked up just north of Tours.
Sunday early morning it is honking down with rain in buckets knowing that the Gendarmes would only venture out in this weather in a dire emergency I decided to take advantage of their laziness and drove up to Paris and changed trailers before heading back down as far as Vemars before deciding that I had pushed my luck far enough for one day and settled down for a boring afternoon which was only brightened up by watching Fernando Alonso hold off that damn German to win the Grand Prix at Imola.
Monday I set off reasonably early and it was back down the way I came on Saturday approaching the roadworks at Lebouheyre again I noticed a Spanish DAF that hadn´t been able to cope with the contraflow and was looking rather sorry for him self.

Arriving in Irun with time enough to do a customs clearance on the stuff for Vitoria after which a touch of imaginative time keeping made sure that I was heading along the A8 motorway home for night back in the dubious clutches of HM.

These roadworks near San Sebastian have been causing problems for ages now

just before the peage at Zarautz you see this little beach on one side of the bridge

And this little fishing port on the other side

before the motorway starts winding its way through the hills

Tuesday morning I was off around Bilbao to a place called Zierbena to unload 8 pallets on the way back I got caught in the back end of the rush hour traffic but fortunately this did not cause to much of a hold up and I was soon in Vitoria unloading 11 pieces of air conditioning equipment, after which it was off to refuel at the Shell in Miranda de Ebro before continuing on my way to the Michelin factory in Valladolid, once I was in the fun started "we´re not unloading that " "why ?" I asks to be told that they wouldn´t move the 4 pallets that weren´t theirs to get at their stuff " no problem " says I "give me a pallet truck and I´ll move them " the resounding answer was no so it was back to the black box to inform chaos control of the problem and ask them what they wanted me do, a few minutes later my telephone goes and its the man himself giving me shit on the phone with comments like "can´t you find a transport company their somewhere to take them off and give them 20 euros " to which I came back "not till someone tells me that that is what you want doing no", his reply was "can´t you people think for yourself" so I said "no because if we do we get shit on and if we spend money without your say so we have problems getting it back" and off he went on one of his tirades so I switched the phone off after telling him to get stuffed and that I don´t need that kind of shit. Eventually the black box beeped with the instructions to go to a small transport company on the other side of Valladolid and unload the offending pallets there, upon arrival they are at dinner and didn´t return till 16.00 and by the time there is anyone who knows anything about it it has gone 16.30 before the pallets are out before I start heading back to the Michelin factory to unload, upon arrival I am informed that there would now be a 2 hour wait before they could take the 10 pallets off, this meant that I only just managed to get back to the transport company to get the pallets back on before they closed. It is days like this that make me wonder why I bothered coming back to this circus in the first place so while waiting I made a couple of phone calls and we shall see if anything interesting turns up. Any way I got to the next unloading address just outside of Segovia and even managed to get unloaded before wining and dining and going to sleep for the night.

Approaching Segovia
Wednesday was a run up to Fuenmayor just outside of Logroño to load wine, when I got there I met one of our Portuguese subbies Mathias who had been waiting all morning to load so it took a couple of hours waiting before it was my turn after which they gave me an address to go to in Logroño to collect a few more pallets of wine, I said "that address is not in Logroño it is in Oyon" to which I got back "it is in Logroño" so off I toddle to Logroño and lo and behold neither address or company exist so of my own accord I went to Oyon found the company and loaded the wine, after this it was off to the other side of Logroño again to change trailers with a Frenchman and head south over the hills via Soria towards Madrid managing to organise a night tip in Alovera on the way and just managing to get in to TNT at Seseña to park up for the night.


getting close to the hills between Logroño and Soria

A bit bendy this stretch

before getting to the top

And starting to go down the other side
Thursday after tipping the TNT it was back around Madrid to San Fernando to unload 4 pallets at the UPS depot surprisingly this was off in record time and away I went again to Transerra in Alcala de Henares to unload 4 pallets of CD Roms another quick tip I was amazed and remember thinking to myself at the time "this has got to screw up somewhere", anyway the next tip was in a small village just north of Madrid called Fuente El Saz De Jarama and after finding the track which masquerades as a road that led to the company I discovered that they had no fork lift and that it would all be hand ball so I let them get on with it. Once they had completed their task in 32 degrees of heat the next stop was once again on the outskierts of Madrid in Alcobendas where 11 pallets of outboard motors were soon unloaded and I set off round Madrid heading south using the A1 and the M40 to get on to the A5 heading south towards Badajoz and 20 kilometres later I turned off and headed for a poultry research centre in the middle of nowhere to unload some chicken feed before returning to the A5 and heading further south to the town of Talavera de Reina where I had to unload 12 pallets of plastic packaging, by now the loading instructions were arriving in the black box and I could see that tomorrow was going to be another hectic day but as it was still early I decided to take the scenic route across the hills via Avila using the N502, passing through some extremely nice countryside and with a spectacular climb up through the hills and was parked up by 2100 outside the 1st loading address in Santiueste San Juan de Batistuta.

heading for the hills again

passing castles


And villages tucked away in the hills

Looking back at the road
Friday the fun begins at 08.00 and 2 pallets of wine are quickly loaded as are 2 bottles of said product for the driver and away I sail to a place called La Seca for the next 4 pallets of wine here the stingy buggers gave nothing towards the drivers benevolent fund and soon I was at the 3rd address in Rueda for another 4 pallets of wine better results were obtained here and another 2 bottles of wine were soon gracing the top bunk as I set off around Tordesillas to a place called Morales de Toro to collect 9 pallets of liquid grape and a further 3 bottles for myself after which it was back around Tordisillas and up past Valladolid as far as Burgos before cutting across country to Logroño and in to a small place called Mendavia to fill out the trailer with more wine and a couple more bottles for yours truly, having received instructions that I would be changing trailers in Poitiers tomorrow I set off around Vitoria and refuelled both vehicle and body at the new truckstop at Araia before setting off for the hostile climes of France managing to get nearly as far as Bordeaux before the hours were up.
Saturday I ran in to the Centre Routiers at Poitiers and had a 3 hour wait before the Frenchman turned up with my trailer and I could start heading for home and it was all plain sailing back down past Bordeaux over the border and along the motorway to Bilbao and I pulled in to the parking area in Llodio at 23.00.
Well as Monday was a public holiday I set off Tuesday heading for a place on the Atlantic coast called Castro Urdiales where I had 2 pallets to unload at Ashland Chemicals here I had a bit of a wait as they didn´t open until 08.30 but eventually the stuff was unloaded and I continued following the coast which was still too hazy for any fotos to Maliano where another 3 pallets were delivered to a factory that makes boats screws, once this was done it was around to the far side of Santander and upon arrival I discovered that the address quoted on the CMR is a flat on the second floor and no one was answering the door bell, back down to the truck and a message was sent to chaos control asking for a telephone number which they soon supplied, after phoning the customer he turned up with a Transit van and we handballed the 1 pallet of Verbatim DVD´s in to the van, the next drop was the Nestle chocolate factory at Sevares and if the day had to go tits up anywhere it would be here and sure as eggs is eggs it took 2 1/2 hours to get 2 pallets off, the next stop for today was a veterinary suppliers in Llanares just outside of Oviedo and his 2 pallets of display equipment was out in 5 minutes and I headed off to Media Markt to unload 6 pallets of Div X players and Plasma TV´s which also was soon out as were the 4 boxes of gloves for another customer 2 kilometers down the road in Granda. Now I headed further inland passing Oviedo and following the A66 through the hills to Leon to unload Plasma TV´s at another Media Markt,

Some of the scenery between Oviedo and Leon is impressive







as it was now getting late I decided to head towards the next customer and see if I could find a restaurant to park up at on the way, alas there was nowt and I passed through the village and saw the customers premises on the left which were closed so I went to find somewhere to turn round with the intention of parking outside and then walking in to the village centre to find an eatery, once turned round I headed back towards the customers premises and saw that the door was now open so in I dived taking note of the Real Madrid posters on the wall so after telling him a couple of anti Barcelona jokes he agreed to unload me now as it was only 1 crate and he disappeared soon to return with a tractor and the unloading procedure was as illustrated below.


What would H&S make of that then ?
After unloading as it was now 21.30 I went towards the next customers and soon found a parking place outside a restaurant and duly stuffed my face before going to bed for the night.
Wednesday was a late start as the next address in Valdelecama was one of those Veterinary supply places that doesn´t start till halfway through the morning so at 10.00 I was able to start unloading 14 pallets of pet food after which it was back in to Valdelafuente to unload 2 pallets of gloves. I had already received the loading instructions so it was a case of back around the outskirts of Leon and follow the road out towards Astorga where I joined the A6 motorway and headed north going past Ponferrada as far as a place called Villafranca del Bierzo, upon arriving on the outskirts of the town there was a sign stating that entry was forbidden for vehicles over 6 tons weight, skirting the town I found a restaurant so I went inside and asked how to get to the customers premises,



armed with a hastily sketched route map I soon found the customers in the middle of town but by now they were at lunch and wouldn´t be back until 15.00 to cap it all there was no where to park while waiting so it was back to the restaurant and have lunch myself while waiting, at 15.00 I wound my way back in to the town and they started loading 12 pallets wine and 2 more bottles of said liquid grape also found their way in to the cab destined for the collection at home. Once loaded it was back down the A6 passing Ponferrada, Benavente and Tordesillas as far as Medina del Campo where I deviated on to a side road that cut straight through to the place where the next collection would be taking place Peñeranda de Bracamonte but by now it was 21.00 so it was a case of find a restaurant for the evening meal and watch the semi final of the Champions League between Milan and PSV before going to bed.
Thursday started by loading 12 pallets of mini croissants at 09.00 before starting to head for a small village called Serrado near Valladolid to load some more wine but upon arrival it turned out that there was more wine than I had space for so after conferring with chaos control it was decided to leave 7 pallets of croissants there and load 13 pallets of wine and the croissants would be picked up by another of our vehicles the next day, once the wine was loaded the paperwork was completed and my 3 bottles were stashed away in the cabin I headed north passing round Valladolid and up past Burgos taking advantage of the fact that it is a public holiday with driving ban in France I took a couple of hours off for a wander around the shopping centre just outside of Vitoria before heading for the ADS site at Vitoria to park up for the night, once again the food was excellent.

Friday was another leisurely start as I didn´t have to change trailers in Castets until 13.00 so a gentle cruise down the big hill and past San Sebastian in to France was the order of the day. After changing trailers in Castets it was back in to Spain to unload at Azkars in Hernani before being told to go and load at Transnatur in Irun and this is where the shit started, arriving at 16.00 it was 18.00 before they had prepared the loading list, at 21.00 the first pallets were loaded and then they said the rest of the load had not arrived yet, at 23.00 they said the stuff had just arrived and upon talking to the driver he said he has been parked up here since 15.00 waiting for them to unload him, what a crap company, completely disorganised with absolutely no idea of what is where, when or how to do the job in a normal civilised manner, anyway the last pallets are loaded by 24.00 and with that they say ok you can go now you should have seen their faces when I told them to piss off the truck is staying where it is until 9 hours rest is on the tacho to which they said but we need the loading bay (there are 10 others with nothing happening on them) to which I replied well you should have thought of that before you put me on the bay at 16.00 now this vehicle is not moving till the 9 hours are up, we will call the police he said so I asked him if he wanted their phone number as I would gladly give it to him if he is in that much of a hurry to get done for trying to oblige me to ignore the law, with this he disappeared and at 01.15 I toddled off to drop the trailer in Astigorriaga and head for home.
Well after having Monday off to start the necessary proceedings for renewal of my Spanish residents permit Monday evening saw me heading for San Sebastian with the tractor unit to pick up a trailer that one of the Dutch had left there for me. After picking up the trailer it was a quick run up past Vitoria and down the motorway to just past Burgos where I parked up for the night.

Tuesday was a quiet run down past Madrid before heading further south on the A4 as far as Bailen where I turned off and headed down past Jaen where once again I entered hilly country

As you can see the hills here are different to those in the north of spain

And they are lined with endless rows of olive trees

after a while the hills changed shape and it was not long before I was through them and passing Granada and parking up in Armilla for the night.
Wednesday I unloaded the first customer in Armilla at 08.30 before heading off back past Granada and then taking the A92 towards Sevilla until just before Antequera where I turned on to the A45 which was to take me up over the hill to Malaga

The hill down towards Malaga starts here with a 1 in 7 drop that continues for about 25 kilometres




From Malaga I headed along the coast towards Marbella a lovely stretch of coast line that is only spoiled by the fact that they are building on any and every spare bit of ground
The first address in Marbella turned out not to be in Marbella but in a place called Eliviera which was back along the coast about 12 kilometres, it was here that I was able to pinpoint the exact delivery address and immediately began to wish that I hadn´t. A 25 minute climb in crawler gear had me at the top of the hill unloading 2 pallets of odds and sods for a Belgian who had decided to move there.

The front gate at which I unloaded after reversing the wrong way around the roundabout

This is the rear of the house at which I unloaded before setting off back through the village to begin the descent.


This is the view of the coast from the top of the hill the road which I had to go down was unfortunately the same one that I had used to get up here in the first place which is extremely steep and full of hairpin bends.




and now a look back at where I have just come from

So after all that fun it was off around Marbella to a place called Nuevo Andulacia to unload 4 grass mowers before heading off through San Pedro Alcantara

And further along the coast towards Algeciras with some nice views of that bastion of British colonialism (Gibraltar). Going round Algeciras to get to the big industrial estate on the otherside where I had my last 2 customers. Neither of these took long to unload and I was soon heading further along the coast towards Cadiz where you can get some nice views of the African coastline

The instructions where to load 5 pallets of wine in Jerez de la Frontera in the morning, unfortunately over the last few years the amount of truck friendly restaurants has diminished so I ended up parking at the local shopping centre and having my evening meal at one of the several restaurants within the complex a well deserved meal with a couple of glasses after a tiring day.
Thursday at 08.00 I presented myself to load and was asked for a reference number which I didn´t have, so now it was wait until 08.30 till the Dutch office workers started work and by 09.00 a reference number arrived in the black box via satellite and I was able to start the loading process again only now there are 2 vehicles in front of me and I don´t get away until 10.00 (yet again Dutch efficiency has held up progress), the next loading address is near Ciudad Real so I wind my way through the traffic in Jerez de la Frontera to reach the motorway which heads up towards Sevilla and I took this as far as Los Palacios instead of using the main roads to try and win back some of the lost time, at Los Palacios I turned off of the motorway and cut through on main roads via Utrera, Arahal and Marchena before rejoining the A4 at Ecija and heading up past Cordoba in the pouring rain as far as Montoro where I turned on to the N420 which cuts up through the hills towards Puertollano crossing the Valley of Alcudia on the way which has some of the best panorama views in the whole of Spain unfortunately the density of the rain prevented me taking any fotos. After passing through Puertollano an hour later I was loading 2 more pallets of wine just outside Ciudad Real.
The next port of call was 45 minutes away in Manzanares where another 20 pallets of wine were eventually loaded just as the black box started buzzing with more loading addresses and the question can you load the Villarrobledo this evening to which I answered “no” they then asked why so I told them that due to the 2 hours lost this morning with the reference number that they forgot to give me I would not be there before closing time. An hour later and I am parked up 11 kilometres from Villarrobledo in a nice restaurant stuffing my face and washing it down with San Miguel before getting my head down for the night.
Friday at 08.00 once again I am the 1st in the queue and once again I need a reference number, so the previous days mucking around repeats itself and once again it is 10.00 before I am on my way to the last collection which consists of 1 pallet of wine in a small village called Quero, getting to this address meant going through here

And then spending 2 hours waiting here

The reason for the wait is this is an extremely small ecological wine grower with a staff of 5 people who had left instructions that he be telephoned at least 1 hour before arrival to enable him to be there to load the vehicle, as the Dutch had not done this I could amuse myself for a couple of hours until the good man arrived. I discovered that less than 100 years ago and in some cases up until after the end of the Spanish Civil War some of the people in this village still lived in caves and that these caves still existed, it didn´t take me long to find them.

As you can see the caves were just dug out of the small hills that surrounded the village

With the chimney just sticking out of the top

I must admit that this one still looks as though it is used. I found out later that people do still live in these things.
Anyway the pallet of wine is eventually loaded along with a couple of bottles for the personal collection and away I went cutting back across towards the A4 and headed north around Madrid before fuelling up just south of Guadalajara and then continued north on the A2 as far as Medinaceli before heading cross country once again in torrential rain which didn´t stop until just before Pamplona where the sun shone briefly between the storm clouds to provide a wonderful sunset.

Passing Pamplona I followed the N121 down towards the border and entered France getting to within 30 kilometres of Bordeaux before parking up for the night.
Saturday once again heading north in pouring rain I passed Bordeaux and once again the N10 was closed to goods vehicles obliging us to use the toll motorway, going up past Tours I noticed that one of our wagon and drags was on the hard shoulder so I pulled in to see if I could I help and found out that he had lost a wheel off of his drag and that a new one was on the way and would be there soon so I continued north and lo and behold at the roundabout just off of junction 20 there is another one of ours with half of his load spread across the roundabout, as 2 others of ours were already there helping I carried on heading north and a quick phone call told me that it was Mike Thomas the Welshman who lives in Bordeaux who had lost his load and further to that another one of ours had apparently come down the A15 from Pamplona to San Sebastian too fast and had burnt out his brakes. Anyway a boring run up through France in the rain passing Paris and getting as far as the Belgian border before parking up for the night.
Sunday is not a day of rest as far as the Dutch are concerned and by 08.00 I am on way to unload 22 pallets of wine at a transport company just outside Brussels in a place called Overijse. Once this was out I drove to the yard in Holland and dropped the trailer off and picked up another one and headed back towards the Belgian border amid a flurry of SMS messages from HM telling me that the mother board on the computer had burnt out and from our beloved Biggus with whom I arranged to meet up with at Blois early the next morning. The queue at Belgian border at Rekkem was less than usual due to Monday being a bank holiday in Belgium.

At 22.00 Wacky Races began and it was up through Lille and a nice peaceful run through the middle of Paris before parking up at Blois next to Biggus motor.
Monday I discovered that some people don´t like getting up in the mornings

After making the coffee for both of us we set off south through France expecting our ways to part at Poitiers where I would have to take the RN10 as far as Bordeaux but as the RN10 was closed to goods vehicles we were able to stay together all the way and after a break at the last MSA before Bordeaux

we arrived at Bordeaux together in the middle of a tremendous storm with thunder and lightning, one of the bolts of lightning came down so close to both motors that we actually felt the vehicles shudder, a smooth run was had as far as Castets where Steve had to do a refuelling stop before we continued on to the Spanish border and took the N121A up towards Pamplona as far as the restaurant at Sumbilla where I would have to park up for the night, Steve stopped for a coffee before continuing on as far as Castejon.
Tuesday I was away at 06.00 and unloaded 24 drums at Ribaforada before continuing on down past Madrid and turned on to the A3 down past Tarancon to Albacete where I had to unload a high reach the next morning, there was a decent looking restaurant as I entered Albacete so I decided to stay there for the night.
Wednesday morning at 07.00 I started unloading the machine and was on my way at about 08.00 to start loading wine once again in Villarrobledo. The next pick up was just down the road in Villacanas 2 pallets of door parts which were destined for Russia, once that was in I took the N301 up towards Madrid and passed the Spanish capital using the M45 and M50 to get me on the A1 heading for Burgos as my next pick up was 22 pallets of wine at a place called Gumiel de Mercado just outside of Aranda de Duero where I met up with our Welsh driver Mike Thomas who then accompanied me as far as Vitoria where I dropped off the trailer and went home.
Monday started by running up to Vitoria and picking up an empty trailer before going to a village nearby called Trespuentes where I was to load 18 pallets of contaminated soil that needed to go to Holland for treatment, once loaded I refuelled at Araia before dropping this trailer off just outside of San Sebastian and picking up another before crossing the border in to France as far as Castets where once again it was time to change trailers and have a quick chat with 2 drivers from Parkinsons of Preston before heading back for Spain. Across the border I took the first turn off and ran up the N121A to Pamplona before turning on to the A15 as far as Castejon where once again I took the A roads through Agreda and Alamazan before reaching the A2 and heading south towards Madrid managing to get as far as Las Inviernas before parking up for the night.
Tuesday I left Las Inviernas at 07.00 and was unloading the first address in Azuqueca de Henares at 08.00 being a small transport company this did not take long and I was soon on my to Coslada where I had 2 more to get rid of the first one was a couple of pallets of special paper for a printing company followed by several drums and containers of liqiud flavouring which was to be unloaded at a transport company called Doman and as always this is where it all went tits up and the day ground to a sudden halt and it was nearly 3 hours later that I left there heading for the next target which was a pallet of wedding dresses for Las Rozas, upon arrival I found out they had no means of unloading so it all had to come out by hand dress by dress, after this it was another half circuit of Madrid and head south on the A4 for about 50 kilometres to get to a town called Casarrubios where I had to unload 2 cartons weighing a total of 1 kilo between them, now at 15.00 the day is over as the rest of the load is a timed delivery for tomorrow morning at 07.00, as it is a valuable load I decided to head for the address in Rivas Vaciamadrid and park up outside the gate so that their security guard can keep an eye on things, when I got there an Irish DAF was already waiting so we had a bit of a chin wag before deciding to walk to the local shopping centre to pass the time and find something to eat a pleasant evening was passed in the company of Bernard before retiring for the evening.
Wednesday at 07.00 the 17 pallets where soon unloaded and by 07.30 I was back battling my way through the Madrid traffic to get to Azuqueca de Henares to load cat dirt after which it was in to Algete for a few pallets of publicity magazines before starting to follow the A2 north past Guadalajara before turning off towards Soria and going through Alamazan and Agreda as far as Vilaverde where I was to change trailers and head south again, the trailer arrived at 20.00 and I was away back south listening to the Liverpool - Milan game on the radio, well done Liverpool for defying the odds and coming back from a hopeless situation to win the game, the 1st mission with this trailer was to unload 12 pallets at Aitena in Alovera the same night, but on arrival I was told to go away the reason being although there is a night shift to pick and pack they do not as a rule unload vehicles at night, occasionally they had done so when it was only a pallet or 2 as a favour to the driver but my glorious boss had got in to the habit of sending larger loads to unload at night and they had decided to put their foot down and now nothing will be unloaded at night, unfortunately another case of giving a Dutchman a helping finger and losing the whole arm as far the shoulder. With the next drop being a timed delivery I had no choice but to continue heading south to TNT at Seseña Nuevo and park up for the night.
Thursday at 07.00 TNT opens and their morning is started by having to unload 12 pallets to get to their 3 pallets so 45 minutes later I am on my way leaving the rather pissed off TNT staff to get on with it and headed back through the Madrid rush hour to Alovera to unload the 12 pallets that I tried to get rid of last night fortunately this did not take long as I was soon on my way once again to the next customer just south of Madrid in Getafe where 2 pallets of Cobalt Powder had to be unloaded here they were upset that I would not open both sides of an old tilt trailer to tip the 2 pallets and eventually they gave me a pallet truck and the stuff was out in a flash. Leaving Getafe I got on the M50 to cut through to the A42 which was to take me Toledo where some garden furniture had to be unloaded, after finding the address (another moron with a different name on the paperwork and the building and no bloody house numbers) it turned out to be a local holiday and no one was there, chaos control in Holland eventually said leave the stuff at our agents in Manzanares and then continue with the deliveries the only problem with this was that Manzanares was also on holiday, things were now going to be complicated as Holland were now at a loss as to what to do so I set off to Valdepeñas to deliver 90 empty euro pallets that apparently we owed to a wine producer, as soon as he saw the pallets he refused them as not being up to standard, bloody great now I not only have the garden furniture but also 90 bloody pallets in the way at the next drop. I was now heading further south in a foul mood and decided to SMS Jimbo telling him that it is 36 degrees here and terrible weather to which he replied Bollox as I was passing Bailen where I swung right towards Jaen before cutting off on the national roads through the olive groves as the sunset to get a town called Martos, upon arrival the lights were still on in the warehouse where I had to unload so I went in to find out what time they opened in the morning as I entered I noticed a couple of Real Madrid posters so after telling them a few anti Barcelona jokes friends for life were made and I explained to them the problems that I had with the load, having now gained their sympathy they said no problem driver put it on a bay and we will sort it for you and they did even putting it back in the trailer as I wanted it, after buying a round of coffees for the good people I went round the corner to go to bed for the night.

Martos at dusk

Friday at 06.30 the black box starts beeping so after giving the boss shit for waking me up and informing him that is an inconsiderate pig I slowly made coffee before heading off to Andujar to load 4 pallets of plastic foil, in Andujar it was a case of change professions and become a private detective once again as apparently I only had half of the company name and half of the address ( bloody Dutch are so efficient), eventually the pallets are in and I head back north to our agent in Manzanares to unload everything except the empty pallets before heading back to load wine in Valdepeñas where after a 4 hour wait the euro pallets were accepted and wine was loaded after which it was back to the Agents in Manzanares where everything was stuffed back in to the trailer with a lot of assistance from the extremely helpful staff there, I had made arrangements via the telephone with the customer in Toledo to unload in the morning so I retraced the route that I had followed the previous day and was back in Toledo at 21.00 where after an evening meal I went to bed.

Between Manzanares and Toledo I saw this collection of windmills on the hill
Saturday morning at 09.00 the 6 pallets were soon unloaded and I was on my way home passing Madrid and up over the Somosierra passing Burgos and finally got home late afternoons

Passing Madrid Saturday morning was a right pain

Monday started with loading 2 pallets just north of Bilbao in Mungia, after which it was a run up past San Sebastian in to France to change trailers at the Centre Routier in Castets. Once trailers were swapped it was back in to Spain to unload at Azkars in Hernani before heading up the hilly A15 towards Pamplona while being an extremely hilly motorway some of the scenery is breathtaking






and after passing through the hills I unloaded 2 more pallets in Pamplona, as it was now getting late there was no more to do than run to the BP Truckstop at La Joyosa just outside of Zaragoza and park up for the night.
Tuesday was an 08.00 start unloading some sacks of plastic at the Rubbermaid factory in Zaragoza before heading in to the town itself to unload some electrical equipment at a store in a shopping complex, thus the fun was pre-programmed, although getting in to the complex and on to the unloading bay was not a problem unfortunately the same could not be said of the exit and I only just managed to get out without leaving half of the trailer behind as the exit had obviously been constructed with no thought at all for the needs of larger vehicles. Winding my way back out of Zaragoza through the remnants of the rush hour traffic soon had e on the road heading for Huesca where I turned off to get to my last unloading address in Barbastro where within 5 minutes the 2 pallets were unloaded. Tentative contact with the Sanish version of chaos control in our office in Barcelona revealed that I would be loading wine near Manresa so off I set and arrived there at about 15.30 only to be informed that the load was not scheduled for loading until tomorrow, after some negotiating they agreed to load me the same day although I would have to wait whilst the paperwork was completed but I was on my way again by 17.30 complete with the by now customary sample of the local produce stashed in the cab as I headed for Barcelona to spend the night on the secure parking at the CIM Valles.
Wednesdays first task was to drop my trailer outside our agents in Santa Perpetua de Mogoda and pick up an empty one which I was to load in Rubi with filters arriving at 07.30 I was on my way again by 08.30 back to Santa Perpetua to unload the trailer before returning to Rubi to load again at another customers after which it was back to the agents to unload once more, although the area of Rubi has changed a lot since I was last there I had no problem finding either of the customers addresses due to the excellent signposting of the industrial estates,

the afternoon session had me heading in to the outskirts of Barcelona to pick up a full load of paper rolls which duly took all afternoon and it was 17.00 before I found myself back in Santa Perpetua where I dropped the trailer and picked up the trailer with wine so that our agent could put several pallets of paper filters on top of the wine, while this was being done a message came via the black box from our office in Barcelona saying that they wanted the trailer in Holland by 08.00 Friday, it appears that they got the drift of the by now famous phrase of "bollox' and by 19.00 I was heading for the border town of Irun for the evening meal and a well earned shower, after which I crossed the border as far as La Palme before settling down for the night.
Thursday was the usual boring run up through France passing Orange and this castle near Mornas on the way

I was soon passing Lyon and as the A31 motorway is closed to goods vehicles due to a bridge being rebuilt up near Metz I decided to go cross country and headed off on the national roads through Chaumont, Chalon, and St Dizer just managing to get past Vitry Le Francois before settling down once more the night amongst the rolling hills of the northern French countryside.

Friday I was up early and continued the run on the national roads up to Sedan and couldn't help but notice the large amount of War Memorials that were lining the roads

and I was soon crossing the border in to Belgium and joined up with the E411 at Libramont and dropping down past Brussels and Antwerp and in to Holland arriving at the yard at about 12.00 and this is where the good news started to arrive and trailers were swapped once again and Iset off back to the Belgian border to unload in Meer before unloading 5 pallets at Hazeldonk this little excursion then extended itself to include loading 1 pallet in Goirle and then loading at 3 other customers in the Tilburg area by now I knew the weekend was buggered, heading back to the yard I was greeted there is a trailer for you for Irun you can leave at 05.00, once again the phrase received an airing as I said I am not going anywhere till dinner time as I'm not going to get home anyway what is the point of starting at 05.00 ?????? a hefty discussion later I sodded off to my daughters and will be leaving tomorrow dinnertime.

Saturday I arrived at chaos control at about 11.00 so that I could leave at 12.00 only to find that they had sent my truck to the tyre company for some new tyres something which was not yet necessary and I would have preferred to have left them on till after the summer but I suppose they know best, anyway the vehicle did not return till 13.00 which started me wondering why the hell did they want me to leave at 05.00 then ??????, I hitched up the trailer and filled up with fuel and drove it straight back to the tyre company so that they could put the correct pressures in the tyres before heading south through Belgium but I was not to get far as just after passing Antwerp I noticed the mud flaps were dragging along the road surface, stopping to investigate it appeared that the air suspension did not want to stay in the level position, after several attempts that proved useless to get the air suspension level I discovered that by raising it to the maximum it took 15 minutes to drop back down again this was enough to get me to the Volvo garage in St Niklaas where the vehicle was repaired and off I set on my way south managing to get just Paris before the 10 o clock driving ban set in.
Sunday taking advantage of the inclement weather I decided to chance my luck and set off south keeping a good eye open for the enemy in blue and managed to get well south of Bordeaux before deciding that Lady Luck had done her bit for the day.
Monday the 1st customer was in Irun but didn´t open till 09.00 and the pallet was off by 09.05 and I weaved my way through the San Sebastian rush hour to our agents in Astigorriaga where I unloaded 15 pallets of groupage and reorganised the load in the trailer before departing for Bergara which was my next port of call, arriving at 12.00 I was told it would be 14.00 before they unloaded their 6 pallets so I had dinner at a nearby restaurant and by 14.30 was on my way to the next customer in Amorebieta who had excellent access facilities which included a steep climb and a tunnel

which looked as though quite a few drivers had misjudged their swing in the bends leading up to it, where 2 huge pallets of wood had to be unloaded from the side (this trailer is an old tilt trailer I suppose the tautliners are being driven by Dutchmen again), once they were out a quick hop down the road to Etxibarri near Bilbao and the next 4 pallets of groupage were discharged before I headed further along the Atlantic coast towards the next customer in Gijon who I knew had a large parking area and this is where the night was spent.
Tuesday at 08.00 I enter the customer premises with the papers only to be asked for the analysis documents which I don´t have so they send me to the analysis department where the load is analysed before permission is given to unload which turns out to be another lengthy process but by 10.00 I am on way to my 1st collection in Aviles where after an hours searching and scouring the telephone book I come to the conclusion that someone somewhere has screwed up as there is neither a street with the name that I have in Aviles nor a company with that name in the phone book, after several messages by satellite during which I am assured that the address is correct it turns out that the company is in Oviedo some 50 kilometres away so off I set for Oviedo and duly found the customer on a small industrial estate close to the middle of town and had to wait half an hour for the 3 pallets as they were not ready, once the 3 pallets were in I shot around to the other side of town to unload a small pallet of gloves before heading back along the Atlantic coast road as far as Torrelavega where I turned inland and headed for a small village called Barros where I was to load a machine that was 4.5 metres long this turned out to be a lot of very small machines all boxed and palletised but it still meant stripping the sides out of the old tilt trailer once again, by now it was 17.00 and I headed back along the coast road past Bilbao and went home for the night.




Wednesday morning found me loading 34 pallets of car parts in Elgoibar before heading off to Castets in France to do a trailer swap, the trailer duly turned an hour late and I headed back south across the border round San Sebastian and up the A15 past Pamplona before once again taking the national road through Agreda to Medinacelli before turning on to the A2 for Madrid and just mamaged to park up outside the TNT depot at Seseña Nuevo for the night, by now it was 21.00 and the temperature was still 31 degrees celsius.
Thursday was started with unloading TNT at 07.00 which was only 5 pallets and I was soon on my back around Madrid to Aitena in Alovera where another 6 pallets where soon unloaded and I headed back south along the A2 towards Madrid as far as San Fernando de Henares where 5 pallets of monitors where unloaded at UPS, once this was done I went back around Madrid using the M40 and M45 as far as the A3 which I took heading past Arganda del Rey and stayed on this road for several hours as the next 3 unloading addresses where just outside Valencia in a place called Quart de Poblet the first one was 7 pallets of wash basins followed by 7 boxes of medical equipment, finally the last one gladly accepted his 6 containers of tanning oil and the trailer was empty, I contacted chaos control and was informed that as there were several other vehicles in the Valencia area my first collection would be in Peralta near Tudela in the morning so off I set around Valencia on the A7 as far as Sagunto before turning off inland at Sagunto and began the eternal climb stopping for a coffee just past Segorbe for a coffee before resuming the climb up through all the roadworks where even though I was empty my speed was reduced to a crawl as there were no overtaking opportunities it was just before a place called Sarrion where my blood boiled with anger up front there was a slow moving Spanish vehicle followed by a Birds Scania who was having difficulty passing him as he was right hand drive and behind the Birds was a powder tanker belonging to Transportes Arniella from Santander with several vehicles including myself behind him, after a while on a very bendy stretch of road with an overtaking prohibition and continuous white line the Arniella vehicle decided to overtake the Birds vehicle in the face of oncoming traffic, the only reason that several people were not killed was thanks to the fast reactions of the Birds driver who slammed his brakes on and swerved as far as he could on to the grass verge with his 2 nearside wheels, fortunately it was a hard verge, eventually I passed the Birds vehicle and the Spaniard in front of him and by the time I had passed Teruel I was behind the Arniella vehicle and close enough to read his registration number now I happen to know the transport manager at Arniellas and have his mobile telephone number so I phoned him up and after asking him if he normally employed absolute idiots explained to him what had happened and gave him the time and and place that it had occurred and the registration of the vehicle involved he then profoundly apologised and said it was the second complaint about that driver this week and that he would be sacked immediately upon returning to Santander. I eventually passed Daroca and got as far as Mainar where I parked up for the night as the hours where up after about half an hour the Birds vehicle turned up and stopped at the same place so I told him what I had done and we ended up enjoying the evening meal together in the restaurant before retiring for the night.
Friday my journey continued up through Cariñena and cutting across to Tudela to load 2 pallets in Peralta which took all of 5 minutes and I was soon on my way up past Pamplona and heading for the middle of Basque country to a place called Oñate where the roof had to be stripped out to load steel tubing, after loading the roof was closed and according to chaos control the next port of call was the parking area at Arizeta to drop of this trailer and pick up trailer no 118 but the king pin lock was jammed solid on the trailer so after discussion with those who think they know better I took the trailer number 120 and went back up through the hills to Pamplona and loaded 7 pallets of car parts in a village called Egues before heading back around Pamplona towards San Sebastian and loaded 6 cradles of aluminium foil, once that was loaded I then went to Bergareche Ruiz in Irun where the last 2 collections were unloaded and I set off once more for the parking area in Arizeta to swap trailers again for the one that I had loaded earlier and set off back towards Irun. I was just going through the second tunnel in San Sebastian when the brakes on the middle axle started smoking and this after only 5 minutes driving, setting the vehicle on the hard shoulder in the rush hour traffic I put my overalls on and got the all purpose multi toll out (big hammer) crept underneath gave everything in sight a swift wallop, got back in the cab and released the handbrake and the vehicle moved, problem solved and the journey continued to Irun where I was eventually loaded with a few more items of groupage before going to bed for the night.
Saturday morning I set out for the Centre Routier in Castets where I was to swap trailers at 13.00 lo and behold the Frenchman was half an hour early and I was soon heading back to Spain and home.

I knew Saturday that it was going to be an interesting week when chaos control sent me a message saying that it may be a complicated trailer , but as it only had Oviedo and La Coruña plus a couple of Vigos I wasn´t too worried until I saw the unloading list Gijon - Oviedo - Navia - La Coruna - Santiago Compostela - Vigo x 3.
So Monday off I set on mission impossible and arrived in Gijon at the first unloading address at 08.00 only to find that they had no fork lift with which to unload the pallet, eventually they borrowed one from a neighbour and I opened the side of the old tilt trailer to find their pallet and there it was about a 3rd of the way along the trailer with an IBC on top of it (well done Holland), once the pallet was unloaded it was off to an electrical store in Oviedo to unload 4 pallets of DivX players and once again their stuff is on top of 4 IBC´s and they have no fork lift so box for box it is unloaded much to the annoyance of the staff there. Now it was time to head for a very small village in the hills near Navia where they have hidden a milk factory to unload 2 of the offending IBC´s surprisingly this tip went without any hitches and 20 minutes later I was on my way to a place called A Cappelle near La Coruña to unload 6 pallets of pet food and once again the customer is not a happy bunny because his stuff is stacked on top of other freight thus complicating the unloading procedure as there is no space to unload from the side and it has to be done from the back with a pallet truck, eventually his stuff is unloaded and the goods that were in the way reloaded and I make my way towards Santiago de Compostela wher the customer greeted with the famous words mañana, fair enough says I what time ? at 7 says he so I wander off to find sustenance and liquid refreshment for the evening.
Tuesday at 07.00 I am bright eyed and bushy tailed waiting to unload and suddenly they decide it will be 08.00 at 08.30 a warehouseman arrives and says we want the truck in the cellar unloading bay so off I toddles for a look at said bay and duly inform him that he has no chance as trying to get in there will cause the truck and trailer chassis mebers to intertwine with each other and also once it is at the bottom the trailer will still be at a steep angle so how do they think they are going to unload IBC´s with a pallet truck, at this the warehouseman launches in to a tirade of abuse which I shall not bother to repeat and continued moaning for about 10 minutes till I had had enough, I lost it and gave him a smack, at this point his gaffer arrived and asked what was going on so I explained and after giving his man an almighty bollocking I was directed to a normal unloading bay and the goods were offloaded in 15 minutes. Now I was heading for Vigo where I had 3 drops and the 1st went like a dream and I was in and out in 20 minutes and heading for the docks area to unload 6 pallets of ships supplies which considering the customs paperwork didn´t take too long and I headed for the last drop which turned out to be another customs clearance after which they sent me to a place called Porriño to unload, empty at last a message from chaos control informed me that 3 Dutch tourists apparently friends of the boss had left their pushbikes in Santiago de Compostella and I was go and pick them up, so off I went back to Santiago and collected the bikes and chucked them in the back before heading off through the hills towards Lugo to get on the National 6 which would take to my next collection which once again turned out to be wine but by the time I got there they were closed so it was eat and sleep and wait for the morning.





Wednesday morning at 08.00 the place opened and the 1 pallet of wine plus the obligatory sample bottle for the driver were loaded

and I was on my way to Palencia to pick up 7 pallets of coffee upon arrival I was told that there would be a delay as they had not received confirmation of my registration number and would not load without it, 2 hours later confirmation is received and the amount of pallets has reduced itself to 5 and I head off to Rueda to do another wine collection, it is dinner time when I arrive so I set about stuffing my face at the same time, after dinner the 15 pallets + 1 bottle are loaded and I head back through the town to another loading address which turns out to be up a track

That is suitable for Landrovers but not for 40 tonners at the end of the track the building itself is quite impressive

so one would assume that they have enough money to get the access road sorted, anyway upon asking for the 2 pallets that I had been sent to collect I was informed that they had no records of an order for that customer and after 30 minutes buggering about I was told to forget the collection and head for the next one which I duly did and arrived and found them closed so once again it was a case of find some troughing facilities and bed down for the night.
Thursday commenced with the quick loading of 2 pallets + 1 bottle and I was soon on my back to Benavente

to collect another pallet of wine the customer turned out to be in the middle of town so chaos was caused while I was loaded and did the paperwork, the next collection was more than 3 hours driving away near Burgos and turned out to be a building site where 3 air conditioning units had to be returned to the manufacturer as they weighed next to nothing they were soon placed on top of the wine and I set off for the final collection in Vitoria which was machine weighing 3 tons which fitted perfectly in the remaining floor space of the trailer after which I headed for Araia to fill up and start heading north, eventually crossing the border in to France and getting as far as Souquets for the night.
Friday was plain sailing up through France till I got to Paris where there was a public transport strike so the place was a nightmare and I eventually pulled on to the parking area on Charles De Gaulle airport where I was to swap trailers that night.
Saturday was race down through France trying to stay in front of the tourists for as long as possible and I only got stuck in 2 traffic jams before managing to get home where it turned out HM had plans for the evening as traditional Basque sports such as wood cutting where being held in the square.


As Monday was slowly dawning the kitchen staff could be heard preparing breakfast as my female Andalucian servant woke me with a light massage then the bloody alarm clock rang and it was time to get up.
The first drop was 3 pallets of working gloves to be unloaded near the middle of Bilbao and as usual I ensured that I was there before the main rush hour started and at 08.15 on the dot the pallets were with their new owner and I was mixing it with the morning moron patrol as I headed round to the other side of Bilbao to Erandio where a pallet of mobile toilet parts was soon unloaded at a company that rents out portacabins, launching myself once more in to the morning chaos I headed back across the river and took the A8 heading towards Santander for about 3 miles before turning off near Sestao and working my through to Trapagaran where at ABB they soon unloaded there pallet of steel coil. Now I can see the rest of the load and it became obvious that if I continued unloading in the sequence as dictated by chaos control then problems may arise, the rest of the drops are in the Santander area and I am soon heading once more along the Atlantic coastline with a light mist obscuring the view quite effectively, upon arriving in the area I drove straight past the next address deciding to leave it for later as it is a crane job and if as normal in Spain it is an indoor crane there is no way that they will be able to lift the machine over the other pallets. In Maliano the 4 pallets of textiles were soon unloaded and I was heading a bit further towards the centre of Santander where I had another 6 pallets of parts for Trelleborg in Peñacastillo and these were unloaded while the vehicle completely blocked the narrow street. Now it was time to unload the machine so I headed back out of Santander as far as Guarnizo and arrived at the company just as they departed for lunch, a restaurant was soon found and at 15.00 the unloading started with the roof sliding forward and the Spaniards beginning the lengthy process of deciding the best way to unload the damn thing, as usual the presence of 3 Spaniards means a total of 20 different opinions and I couldn´t help but think what it would have been like had I turned up here with the other pallets still in the trailer, eventually the machine is out and I am heading back along the still misty coast past Bilbao to Eibar where 3 cartons had to be loaded, once these were in it was continue along the coast as far as San Sebastian before turning inland along the National 1 as far as Alegia where I headed in to the hills to the paper factory in Amezketa. Surprise surprise whereas here a lengthy wait is the norm rather the exception I was in and out within an hour with 24 tons of paper for Holland niceley loaded in the trailer and I headed back as far as Lasarte where I parked up for the night.
Tuesday was to be an easy day so I started late and it was 09.00 before I set off for the French border and sailed across with no delays and I was at the Centre Routiers at Castets waiting to change trailers at 10.30. At 12.30 the other trailer arrived and by 13.00 I was heading back towards Spain taking the National 121a up towards Pamplona and then heading south enjoying a 45 minute break at Cintruenigo before continuing the journey towards Madrid, a refuelling stop at Azuqueca de Henares before passing Madrid and heading along the National 4 as far as Seseña Nuevo where I parked up outside the unloading address for the night at 21.30, the thermometer was still registering 31 degrees.

Wednesday began at 07.00 unloading 3 pallets at the TNT depot in Seseña Nuevo before battling my way through the Madrid rush hour and heading back north along the National 2 as far as Alovera where several pallets of Kimberly Clarke had to be unloaded at Aitena after this I went to Transerra at Alcala de Henares to unload 5 pallets of DVD´s before deciding to leave the other Alcala drop till later as it was a bundle of steel more than 10 metres long and it still had several pallets on top of it so I went straight to San Fernando de Henares and unloaded 13 pallets of coffee before returning to Alcala to unload the bundle of steel through the roof. The next address closed at 13.00 and by now it was 12.45 so I gave them a quick ring and it was arranged that they would unload me at 15.00 so off I set once more round Madrid to Seseña Nuevo and spent 90 minutes sitting in the sun till they opened at 15.00 and unloaded their 8 pallets of dog food. By now chaos control had informed me that I would be picking up a complete load in Colmenar Viejo so I set off once again to do a 3/4 circuit of Madrid and arrived in Colmenar Viejo as the sky clouded and turned black shortly to be followed by an almighty downpour which only lasted 10 minutes but left the streets with several inches of water covering them as I reversed on to the bay, by the time the trailer was loaded the streets were once more bone dry and I set off around Madrid on the M40 and started to head north on the A2 before turning off at Medinaceli or at least that was the intention but the road was closed so I had to divert and take another road a bit further up before cutting across to Agreda where I spent the night.

Thursday I started at 08.00 and by 08.30 was changing trailers at the hotel in Castejon before heding up past Pamplona and down to the border on the N121a and passing in to France where once again I changed trailers at the Centre Routier in Castets beofre heading off back to Spain where after passing San Sebastian I continued south on the National 1 as far as Burgos where once again I swapped trailers with one of our Portuguese drivers and took over his empty one. Asking chaos control for further instructions I was told to wait so I went in to the restaurant and returned to check for instructions at 20.00 still nothing so back to the restaurant where a pleasant evening was spent in the company of 2 drivers from Carr Brothers. When I went to bed at 23.00 the instructions for the next day had finally been decided upon.
Friday I was off at 06.00 and heading for a small village called Andosilla close to Tuleda to load wine at a logisitcs centre but unfortunately they had not picked the load up the day before and couldn´t do it today either because the wine grower was closed because of a local holiday, after much toing and froing of messages chaos control eventually admitted defeat and accepted that the load was not going to loaded that day. Now it was off to Peralta where after passing a Frenchman who appeared to have taken the bend too fast

I loaded 2 pallets of machine parts before going to Corella where 5 pallets of wine + 1 bottle were soon loaded, the next call was Orkoyen on the outskirts of Pamplona where I loaded a pallet of metal wheels before heading out in to the hills to do another wine collection at Otazu, this was a new address to me and I was pleasantly surprised as I arrived as it was an extremely well kept Bodega set in a rural environment and although not big it was obviously quite prosperous,





unfortunately the warehouse staff were at luch so another 30 minutes was spent lounging in the sun and at 15.00 the 2 pallets of wine + 2 bottles were soon loaded and I was invited to take a look at their wine cellars by the friendly staff.


Now the fun started and I was sent in to Hernani to load groupage before collecting another 2 pallets at our agents in Astigarraga after which I had to go to Bergareche Ruiz in Irun and unload some of what I had picked up and also load some more groupage before heading for my final collection at Hamanns also in Irun, once this was all done it was drive the last 3 hours that I had left which got me as far as Bordeaux before parking up for the night.
Saturday was a simple case of drive to the Centre Routiers at Poitiers change trailers and head for home the day only being complicated a little by a Frenchman who appeared to have for gotten where the road was.

Leaving home at 0645 saw me at the first drop in Berriatua at 08.00 just in time to be the 1st through the gate my joy was short lived though when I opened the back of the trailer and saw that it was all American pallets which meant that I would have to open both sides of this old excuse for a tilt trailer an hour later the 13 tons is out and I am heading back down through the hills to Abadiano just on the ourskirts of Durango where a compressor is whipped out in no time. The next port of call was in Galdakano just outside Bilbao and on reporting to unload one drill arm for a construction machine weighing 2 tons I was told that they have no forklift truck eventually after much discussion I managed to get them to agree to let me unload at a transport company that I knew nearby and they could pick it up themselves later . Now it was round to the top side of Bilbao to Lezama where 1 pallet of paper was soon unloaded. I then phoned the next customer make sure that they didn´t disappear to dinner before I got there and after they had agreed to wait I was battling my way through Bilbao from one side to the other and was soon unloaded. Dow Chemicals was the next port of call and a 1 hour wait was necessary in order to unload 2 pallets of labels and it was 14.00 before I was heading to Mungia to load 6 pallets of valves, an hour later I was off to Basauri to load 4 more pallets of valves before heading home.
Well leaving home at 06.00 I was at our agents in Astigorraga at 08.00 and the 10 pallets that I loaded yesterday were soon unloaded and I was off to the parking area at San Sebastian to swap my empty trailer for a full one, to my horror it was one of our step frames so I knew straight away that a difficult day was ahead of me. As the first drop was on the outskirts of Pamplona I set off along the National 1 and up through the hills on the A15, upon arrival the 1 pallet of pet food was out in 10 minutes. Out of Pamplona taking the N121 south towards Tafalla the next drop was at Soraubarain and was 2 motors for these bloody great windmill things that seem to be the ecological fashion these days, a bloody crane job but at least I have a sliding roof but the damn thing wouldn´t open why ? well first off the roof hasn´t been greased since the day the damn thing was built and the cable for releasing the securing pins at the rear of the roof was broken (the driver who loaded the f****** thing didn´t notice this ?) as they loaded groupage after wards at our own warehouse it would have been a 5 minute job to get the damn fixed. As a result up I climb to try and fix it and as the Spaniard below wasn´t capable of keeping the ladder steady I came back down a lot faster than I went up landing ribs first on a 45 gallon drum. After a breathing and swearing break the roof was eventually forced open and the bloody machines were unloaded, the roof was closed and I gingerly with gritted teeth set off for the next drop in Tudela which was 1 IBC and the offending 45 gallon drum and 7 of his mates this took 45 minutes to get rid off. The end is now in sight and I am heading for the last drop which is another machine but much smaller, upon arrival it was a joy to discover that I was not expected and that they had absolutely no unloading facilities. The drop that brings the bucket to overflowing had now arrived and I dragged out the 2 unloading ramps that we use for the high reach machines and tied 3 straps together looped it around the machine and the other end around a lamp post and drove forward job done trailer empty. Now it was time to head off home and get myself to the doctors where I discovered that nowt was broken and the ribs are only bruised so I won´t be driving for a few days.
There I was at home resting the ribs that had received a good whack when I fell on top of some metal drums when the phone rang and yes you have guessed it the y can´t survive without me so eventually I agree that tomorrow after seeing the doctor to go back to work but with some limitations.
1. I am not pulling any pallet trucks
2. I am not opening any roofs or side of the old tilt trailers
3. And no pressure on me if things go a bit slower than usual.
So Friday morning sees me heading for San Sebastian with my empty trailer to pick up a loaded one and go to Zestoa to load 2 more pallets in the back before heading for the Centre Routiers at Castets to change trailers. The original plan was to then take the trailer to Pamplona and tip and reload but as it was getting late this was changed to go back to San Sebastian drop this trailer off and pick up the one that I had left there earlier, once the trailers were changed again it was off to Irun to collect a complete load of groupage at Bergareche Ruiz, their first comment was "we will have to load through the side" they were soon told that if they wanted to load through the side then they would be both opening and closing it afterwards, after much humming and haaing they eventually decided to load from the back and I was away from there by 21.00 and crossing the border in to France managing to get nearly as far as Angouleme before parking up for the night. The negotiations had been taking place most of the journey as chaos control wanted to swap trailers in Tours and I was telling them that any further than Poitiers would mean that I would be spending the Sunday in France which would mean that the urgent freight for Badajoz to be unloaded Monday afternoon would not be there till Tuesday, eventually they conceded.
Saturday saw me heading for the Centre Routier at Poitiers where at 15.30 the trailer from Holland arrived and the battle began, heading south amongst the first wave of holidaymakers complete with caravans who apparently have nothing better to do than bugger me about. A quick 45 minute break at Souquets and I crossed the border in to Spain at 21.00. Had I gone to Tours I would have been at least 2 1/2 hours later and would have had to put in another break, the ban in both France and the Basque region of Spain starts at 22.00, crossing the border I took the first turn off and headed up towards to Pamplona on the N 121a as far as Sumbilla where I parked up for the night and indulged in a couple of beers with the evening meal accompanied by Woud a Dutch ex colleague who I had not seen for several years.
Sunday saw me leaving Sumbilla at 07.00 and filling up with fuel at Mutilva near Pamplona and then having breakfast at Imarcoain after which the journey south towards Madrid continued without further incident and I eventually parked up at a restaurant just outside Guadalajara and enjoyed a good meal for 9 euros while watching the Formula 1 at the same time, now it was time for a quick siesta and eventually I drove to San Fernando de Henares and parked up outside the first unloading address as this gave me the opportunity to cool the cabin down with the air conditioning before going to bed, when I parked up at 21.45 the thermometer was still registering 38 degrees.

Monday at 07.00 the first drop was 2 drums of non dangerous chemicals which were soon out and I drove all of 200 metres to the next customer where 7 pallets of monitors were to be unloaded but unfortunately they didn´t open till 09.00 but 20 minutes later I was on my way going round Madrid using the M40 and M45 to get me to the A5 without any problems, a nice quiet run down to Badajoz without incident soon had me at the next drop, a new casino which is being built in the town for which I had 3 enormous crates with specially built lights, after eventually finding the person who wanted them and battling my way past the security guards the problems began as did the daft comments such as ; "how are we going to get those out of there" and "do you have a pump truck" or "why not" my answers were well one assumes that if you order the stuff you have the means to unload it", "no I don´t have a pump truck" and " where do you expect to put it when I load 33 pallets ? in the cabin? " eventually they attempted without much success to unload the 3 crates, now they were ready to listen to the driver and 30 minutes later the crates were out and I was heading along the national road towards Zafra where I turned south again towards Sevilla, after passing through the hills I drove around the ring road

Unfortunately the wrong way round as far as taking fotos was concerned, as was soon parked up outside the customers and having my evening meal in the restaurant opposite.
Tuesday the first drop was unloading 17 pallets of gloves in Sevilla but beofre they even started the black box started squeaking with chaos control asking what time I expected to be at my loading address, so I answered as the first drop hasn´t even started yet and I still have another one to unload before even heading in that direction so if you can work out what time I will be there feel free, and once the Sevilla was unloaded I started running about 20 kilometres down the A92 to Alcala de Gaudeira to unload one pallet of suspension parts, now I could tell chaos control that I would be at the loading address in Mairena del Alcor in about 20 minutes, soon finding the customer I discovered that I needed reference numbers for the load which the Dutch had once again conveniently forgotten to send me so once again 20 minutes was wasted waiting for the numbers before eventually loading 27 pallets of Olives




and I eventually left there at about 12.00, deciding to cut across country to get back on to the A4 I passed through a couple of small towns and rejoined the A4 at Carmona and at 13.00 I was unloading 1 pallet of plastic at a factory in Ecija, the next set of instructions were to load 3 pallets of god knows what at Villadacans before 17.00 wrong that would be 08.30 tomorrow so I started looking for a decent place with a shower, once showered the black box changed everything around again cancelling the 3 pallets and telling me to head for Madrid and I got as far as Seseña Nuevo before parking up for the night as I parked up the list of instructions for the next day arrived it looked like fun.



Don´t suppose he wants a lift ?????
Wednesday I left Seseña Nuevo at 07.00 and arrived in Coslada just after 08.00 and set about finding the next collection address but unfortunately from this end there was a 7.5 ton weight limit so I set about finding the other end of the road and as there was no weight limit I could enter, as I got half way along the road looking for the company I came across a sign saying road closed, fortunately there was a roundabout so I swung it around and swanned off to find somewhere for breakfast at the same time informing chaos control that if the customer was in that road then I couldn´t get anywhere near it, eventually they came back with a phone number and I then discovered that the company was not in Coslada but south of Madrid in Villaverde and that it was not 2 pallets but 4 and that they were not ready, communicated this to the plastic Germans and sat back to await further instructions an hour later they arrived go and collect 20 cartons at another address in Coslada, after circuiting the town 3 times I found the road in brand new residencial area some wise pratt has started up an import export business in his bloody garage, anyway the 20 cartons are loaded and I contact mission control for further instructions and they tell me to carry on with the list of collections and added another in Guadalajara for good measure that had to be loaded before 14.00, I answered with are the 4 pallets now ready then ? do we now finally know where the company is ? do you want me to do the Guadalajara first ? because if I head south of Madrid I will not be there before 14.00, after an eternity of super intelligent comments it was decided that I would collect 3 pallets of tachographs at VDO Siemens in Alcobendas (turned out to be 2) and then headed for Guadalajara to collect 1 pallet that was 1 metere 73 x 1 metre 73 x 72 centimetres, there was not one of them there was 3 of the boody things so stacking one on top of the other the trailer was now full so bollocks to the 4 pallets at god knows where and the 1 pallet that still had to be collected in Alcala de Henares, communicating this to moron centre I was told to head north to change trailers in Castets tomorrow afternoon, so off I set along the A2 and it was not long before I noticed an English Magnum limping along the hard shoulder just before a service station so I pulled in and waited for him as I had stacks of time, it turned out that the inside tyre on his drive axle had died a sudden death so while he dropped his trailer I made enquiries as to where the nearest tyre dealer was and found out that there was one about 20 minutes up the road, as the tyre was not in too bad a state the decision was made to drive there with only the tractor unit thus saving the call out costs, having time to burn on my hands for a change I drove up there and got there before him and waited for him before going in I asked him how he was going to pay for the tyre cash or card he said cash so I said leave the talking to me and as the other tyre on the same axle was well worn as well I made enquiries as to what it would cost to replace both of them, a couple of minutes haggling and we had it arranged that 2 tyres including fitting and disposal of the old one could be sorted for 540 euros with no receipt and no VAT paid the owner driver was well pleased and the job was soon done. Now that todays brownie points had been scored I set off once more on my travels but as was approaching Almazan the black box burst in to life again saying that due to problems in France the TNT guaranteed delivery time trailer was behind schedule and where would be the best place for me to change trailers so that I could be back in Madrid at 07.00 the next morning, I gave directions to a little known restaurant just off the beaten track near Gomara dropped the trailer and went to bed at 18.45 whilst waiting for the trailer to arrive. Having finally had a gut full of all the buggering about this week I got the telephone out and made some calls reference a new job and it looks as though I have been successful I am arranging to go to Holland next week to see them in person and if all goes well I should soon be driving around in a DAF Space Cab.
Thursday the trailer had arrived while I was sleeping and it was soon attached to the black Volvo and I was heading south again towards Madrid with all sails to the wind and the hatches firmly battened down and was nicely back in TNT´s at Seseña Nuevo 30 minutes before they opened the 7 pallets of CD´s were soon unloaded and I battled my back around Madrid to get in to Aitena at Alovera and the place was empty so no waiting time straight on the bay and the stuff was soon out despite our warehouse in Holland having once again done their best to destroy the pallets from underneath, now it was out of Alovera and back on to the A2 for about 5 minutes and turn off for the industrial estate Henares in Guadalajara to unload several pallets of drums at BASF, unfortunately once again due to the fact that the Dutch warehouseman have destroyed the pallets I have to unload the stuff from the side, and yes you have guessed it it´s an old tilt trailer, once the drums are unloaded it´s a case of close the trailer and set off for the next drop which is some suspension parts for the Montenegro trailer factory at Alcala de Henares here once more the same old story what should be a 5 minute tip turns in to a farce for the same reason as at the last 2 customers, now I am getting severely pissed off. Having eventually got the stuff out the next one is around the corner where a silencer for some weird sort of vehicle changes hands and I am off to San Fernando de Henares to unload 8 pallets of Dell monitors at UPS these are soon out but now life starts getting complicated as the black box squeaks in to life asking when I expect to be empty so I reply probably about 15.00 as the next customer will be at dinner by the time I get there, I did not have to wait long for the reply and the message to forget that drop for the moment and to start loading soon came through along with an address that after checking the map of Madrid I knew was incorrect so the conversation that followed went along these lines
The address that you have just sent me is incorrect as it is in the middle of Madrid where there are no factories
they came back with
Of course it´s correct it is for Vos Logistics and you are the 29th vehicle to load there you must get there asap
Believe me there is no factory there
Don´t argue
So off I set battling through tree lined avenues and streets full of shoppers ignoring the 12.5 ton weight limit signs to get as close to said address as possible and lo and behold no bloody factory, the sending of messages renews with
Right clever sods I am at the address and there is no bloody factory here

The address
Are you sure ?
Iam not f*****g blind
We will check
10 minutes later a message came back the factory is on the Avenida de Burgos on the other side of Madrid so off I set and get there at 14.55 to be told too late we go home at 15.00 to which I replied fair enough and upon communicating this to chaos control they were not happy so I told them if you super intelligent, know all but nowt daft sods had believed me in the first place I would have been here loaded and away by now but as you lot know better once again the job is buggered. Eventually I set off to collect 20 boxes of plastic trays at San Fernando de Henares before going to Doman at Coslada to get rid of the last 8 drums which had to be unloaded. The black box starts squeaking again with the message that I had to be back on the Avenida de Burgos to load tomorrow morning at 07.00 along with a bollocking for calling the office staff in Holland idiots so I picked up my phone and rang in and said when this truck is loaded I am going home taking my stuff out and then I will bring it to Holland for you and you can stick your job where the sun don´t shine, after which I switched the phone off drove to other side of Coslada and went on the piss.
Friday I was back at the said address at 06.45 and they actually started loading at 09.00 and I was away by 09.45 with 14 pallets loaded and the instructions to be in Oyon near Logroño by 14.00 which I told them would not be before between 14.15 and 14.30 due to the distance involved to which they replied let us know where you are at 13.00, so off I set up the A1 as far as Burgos before cutting across on the national roads to Logroño and rounding Logroño on the new ring road to get to Oyon where upon arrival I am given a bollocking for being to late it is now 14.22 exactly so I have done my best, I was told I may have to wait till Monday to be loaded to which I said fair enough see if it bothers me as I will drop the trailer and in 90 minutes I will be home, eventually they decided to load me and I left there just before 16.00.
Upon informing Holland that the vehicle is now loaded they reply with head for France we may be changing trailers tomorrow so I replied with Bollocks I am now going to Vitoria which will take me 45 minutes by the time I am there I expect to know whether you want me to drop this trailer for someone else to take if it is in a hurry and with which trailer you want me to leave Sunday evening with destination. A reply was not long arriving
If I tell you to head for France you will head for France
Bollocks I am going home and taking my stuff out of the vehicle and you can kiss my arse with your eternal buggering about
and so off I set for Vitoria and by the time I got there the instructions were to drop the trailer so I did so and went home.

Some of the reasons why I have decided to call it a day with this circus are
at 23,00 Friday night they are not capable of telling me whether or not I will be home for the weekend or not.
Trailer changes are always done at places which get the Dutchmen home on time and we get home late
Pallets are continually destroyed underneath by our Dutch warehouse making unloading difficult at the very best
Angry customers because there goods arrive damaged
We get all the old tilt trailers for the side and roof loading work while the Dutch unload from the back with the tautliners and sliding roofs
Problems opening trailers because whoever loaded it Holland has instead of putting the planks and roof supports in their correct place just stuffed them between the tilt sheet and the side gates
Lack of maintenace and repairs on both vehicles and trailers
and numerous other reasons which if I were to list them all you would be spending all day reading the list.
Left Sunday and went and picked up the trailer that had been left for me at Vitoria and headed for the French border a nice quiet run apart from the Spaniard who decided to go tits up just before San Sebastian causing a hold up which meant that I could not get to Blois to meet up with Biggus eventually parking up just north of Poitiers. I was eventually wakened by the black box squawking in to life telling me that they wanted me to unload Herkenbosch Tuesday morning to which I replied no the vehicle is coming to you and I am getting out, several attempts later it seems that the message has sunk in and they give up.
Setting off at 20.00 had me flying through Paris and arriving at Chaos control at 06.00 which gave me time to get my stuff out of the truck before everyone else arrived.
Upon presenting myself at my new employers Tuesday morning the first thing that I noticed was the complete difference in attitude here, people smile, make jokes and take the piss out of each other the boss included which makes for a much better working atmosphere than at Van Overveld where the only time anyone opened their mouth was to moan or complain, after an introduction to the way of doing things in the company and an explanation of how the board computer and roof mounted air conditioning worked they kindly loaned me a bloody great Nissan Patrol to go and pick up my stuff which I had previously left at my daughters. After loading the DAF with the multitude of items that I carry around with me I set off on Tuesday evening together with the boss for Madrid and after collecting a Eurovignette at Bergen op Zoom we assed through Antwerp and crossed the border in to France at Rekkem eventually stopping at Ressons for a 45 minute break before continuing on through Paris and then taking the RN20 towards Orleans as far as Artenay where we joined the A10 and decided to call it a good nights work at the service area at Orleans.
Wednesday we set off just before 11 and headed south, the extra traffic caused by the tourist lemmings flocking towards warmer climes was immediately apparent but nonetheless we still made good time coming off of the motorway at Poitiers Sud and joining the RN10 continued south past Angouleme before stopping for a meal at the Centre Routier in Barbiezieux after which the journey was resumed and once again we made good time till just south of Bordeaux where just after turning off of the ring road the traffic came to a stand still and between Bordeaux and the border we suffered several jams caused by tourists. These continual jams caused our planned schedule to fall apart and it soon became aparent that our original plan of anothe 45 minute break in Alsasua and sleeping in Briviesca were no longer realistic so we decided that we could just make the service area between the border and San Sebastian before the 4 1/2 hours were up but as we got to the turn off for the parking area the Basque police were busy cordoning it off (God alone knows why) forcing us to continue to the next one which was a good 30 minutes further where we eventually parked up for a break with 5 hours continuous driving on the tacho, calculating that the traffic jams had cost us about 1 1/2 hours we decided that the night would have to be spent at Vitoria instead of Briviesca.
Thursday we set off at 08.00 and after passing Burgos we got caught uo in another jam this time caused by the Guardia Civil closing down one lane of the dual carriageway and constructing a chicane thus slowing the traffic down so that they could select and stop vehicles for a security check, we eventually pulled in to the Heineken brewery just north of Madrid in San Sebastian de Los Reyes at 12.30 only to be told that we would not be unloaded until after dinner but that we could avail ourselves of the subsidised canteen where we were soon stuffing our faces with some excellent food for the meagre price of 6 euros, if this delay had occurred while working for my previous employer the wait would have caused chaos and the black box would not have stopped bleating, as it was the boss (Alex) just accepted it as one of those things. After the lunch break I was soon unloaded and set off on my own towards Zaragoza where I was to load for Norway but it was already apparent that this would not be happening today as it was now getting late as the 480 DAF made short work of the hills and I eventually parked up outside the customers premises in the town of Maria de Huerva.
Friday loading started at 07.00 and by 09.15 the load was in and the roof was closed and I was making my way towards Irun where I was to do the customs clearance, pausing only to refuel in Pamplona I arrived in Irun at 12.45 to be told that it would be 18.30 before the papers were ready, now things were starting to get out of hand as tomorrow there is a driving ban from 07.00 till 19.00 and then at 24.00 the Sunday driving ban begins and if I wasn't to spend 2 days sitting in France twiddling my thumbs I would have to do some imaginative time keeping tonight while the Gendarmes are so busy herding the lemmings through France that they have no time on their hands to worry about what the trucks are doing. The paper work was received on time and after getting stuck in yet another traffic jam waiting to cross the border I was soon in France and the 480 horses under my bum made short work of the hills and as dawn was breaking I parked up at Vemars just north of Paris.
Saturday evening the peace and tranquility of a sunny day was broken at 18.45 as hundreds of trucks started their engines before the off and at 19.00 the French motorways were flooded by all these trucks launching themselves in to the traffic at the same time, stopping at the Belgian border to get my Eurovignette a 45 minute break was had at Bergen op Zoom and just before 01.00 I was at my daughters.
Leaving Sunday evening I made my way to the Belgian/French border at Rekkem timing it so that my break was up at 21.30 and crossed the border at 21.45 just before the driving ban ended so as not to get caught up in the rush cruised through Paris with no bother at all and managed to get as Meung just past Orleans before the 4 1/2 hours was up and went to sleep there.
Monday was an uneventful run down through France past Bordeaux over the border and taking the N121 up towards Pamplona I stopped for an evening meal at Sumbilla before going to sleep just south of Pamplona.
Tuesday unloaded 2 pallets of cockles in Valtierra just before 09.00 and started weaving my way down towards Murcia and when I got to the roadworks area there was a diversion that took me down a road that not been used by man for several years (fotos will follow when I get home), after negotiating this obstacle I gave Valencia a wide berth passing on the A7 and then heading towards Albacete to save using the toll motorway to Alicante eventually cutting across past Caudete and Jumilla beofre dropping down towards Murcia where I soon found the customers premises and he was not expecting me until tomorrow but was still kind enough to unload the bloody great Jaccuzi that I had in the trailer at 20.30 which left me with just enough time to get to the 1st service area on the way towards Almeria.
Wednesday saw me at the DAF dealers at Roquetas del Mar just outside Almeria where it had been arranged for them to deal with a coolant leak under warranty and to loan me a demo vehicle so that I could go and unload 23 tons of spare parts in El Ejido, upon returning I was informed that the job on the truck would not be finished today so I phoned the boss and he said no problem wait there, 10 minutes later he phoned back to tell me that his wife was on her way to pick me up and that she would take me to a hotel where I could stay the night at company expense and would return the next day to pick me up.
Wednesday afternoon was spent lounging on the sun soaked beach in temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius while enjoying the occasional dip in the waves of the Mediterranean even though due to the winds it was a bit choppy.

Thursday I awakened with the smell of sea air in my nostrils and decided to return to the beach at 08.00 for another swim as it was quite warm and passed the rest of the morning on the beach until the bosses wife arrived to pick me up and take me back to the DAF garage, eventually leaving there at about 18.00 I was still able to unload my last customer in Almuñecar before continuing along the coast road as far as Malaga where I turned inland and went past Antequera and followed the national road to Lucena where I would be loading the next morning.
Friday I was loaded by 10.00 and on my up past Cordoba where I joined the A4 and headed towards Madrid where unfortunately due to the long weekend there was a driving ban for trucks on all major roads heading out of Madrid, but fortunately the extensive local knowledge built up over the years enabled me to negotiate a way around and out of Madrid without falling foul of these bans and I was soon mixing it with the tourists who flocking towards the provinces for their long weekend, as the load was light the DAF made extremely short work of the hills and after a break just before Burgos I continued the journey home and just got to Llodio with 10 hours 15 minutes on the tacho.
As promised here are the fotos from the last 2 weeks

The big mean red Vas machine

Board Computer

Chaos at the Spanish border

The flow of traffic at the border is not helped by the fact that the French have a set of toll booths 50 yards after the border crossing thus severely impeding the flow of traffic

The old national road which were diverted along between Teruel and Sagunto

With its twists and bends and lack of decent asphalt





But it did give some marvellous views of the surrounding countryside

Taking the national road past Jumilla


Roquetas de Mar where I spent an enjoyable afternoon and morning on the beach



Very enjoyable


Leaving Monday evening it was a nice quiet run up through enemy territory deciding to call it a day near Tours.
Tuesday leaving Tours at about 14.00 had me parked up outside the customers premises in Brussels by 22.00 in a Brixton type area but using the door lock system I felt safe enough to stay there for the night.
Wednesday I was unloaded by 09.30 and the instructions were to head for base camp with the vague hint of a possible trip to Liverpool but alas it was not to be and by the time I got there it had been cancelled and I was to be heading back down towards Spain that same evening just as soon as 10 pallets of cheese had arrived and been cross loaded, by the time this was done it was 18.00 before I started mixing it with the tourists near Bergen op Zoom and eventually passed through Antwerp and in to France a 45 minute break being had at Ressons. Arriving Paris no problems were advertised by the overhead Matrix boards so I was looking forward to shooting through in record time. WRONG the A86 was closed off at the junction with the A4 and there were also road works on the Peripherique add to this lots of tourists and chaos was guaranteed. I eventually managed to get as far as Orleans before bedding down for the night.
Thursday everything was going fine as far as Bordeaux where once again the quantity of Lemmings heading south began to cause problems and by the time I got to the customers premises in San Sebastian they had sodded off home.
Friday I unloaded the San Sebastian and once again battle commenced with the tourists as both San Sebastian and Bilbao were at a standstill and I managed to roll in to my next customers just after 11.00, a quick run through the hills to Burgos and we were back in the middle of the migratory season with bloody tourists everywhere and I just managed to get in to Madrid before the customer closed, now it was just a case of avoiding the driving bans to get myself further south and I needed to use the A4 which due to the annual migratory habits of the lemmings was closed to goods vehicles from 13.00 till 22.00 but some imaginative use of the side roads and I managed to pass the banned area albeit with great difficulty and as I rejoined the A4 traffic once again came to a standstill as a bomb planted by the ETA went off at the side of the road, after an eternity I eventually parked up for the night at Puerto Lapice.
Saturday I was up early and delivered just north of Cordoba at 09.00 before cutting down past Lucena and Antequera to get mixed up once more with the tourists going round Malaga, after what seemed like all day I pulled in to the customers premises just outside Marbella and unloaded 3 trolleys of flowers. Now all that was left in the trailer were the ships spares which were to be unloaded Monday morning in Huelva, a weekend on the beach was already planned but before I got as far as Algeciras the boss rang with the ships agents instructions not to go to Huelva but to unload Monday morning in Gibraltar instead.
So here I sit in Gib enjoying the sunshine with Boddingtons thrown in for good measure

Firstly I will show the fotos that I couldn't post from the last report which show the road from Santander to Burgos



and the arrival at La Linea and the first views of Gibraltar and a quick sightseeing tour.

The 1st view of Gibraltar

Getting closer

A nice welcome after walking across the border

A view of the rock across the town


The old town gates

Another shot across the town

The sightseeing tour ended here
Monday after finding out who the customs agents were on the Spanish side I entered the customs area

The customs entrance
and let them do their thing after which it was across the road to the Gibraltar customs and it was here that the day became interminably long and it was 13.00 before I left there to head for the docks and upon arrival at the stevedores there was no boat so asking where it was he smiled and pointed to a boat anchored out in the bay, so we unloaded the stuff with a forklift truck and it was transferred to a lighter

The goods were transferred to the lighter with this old crane


and they said "do you want to come with us" as I had to wait to receive some goods from the boat I thought sod it why not and off we set for a guided tour of the bay of Gibraltar free of charge and it was interesting to see how it was all done as the goods were lifted on board the boat with a crane



this is the one we were heading for



Friendly bunch the crew
and one of the crew started fishing while the others did the work he had a good day and went home with 2 decent size fish,


once unloaded I was told that they had unloaded the parts that I was supposed to be collecting in Huelva so as there was nothing for me to collect we headed back for the docks and the boss eventually came with instructions to head a little in the general direction of Malaga and I eventually parked up for the night in San Pedro de Alcantara.

Tuesday at 08.00 I was back on the beach as there were still no instructions, at 13.00 the instructions arrived and I was to load the next day in Requena near Valencia so off I set up past Malaga, Granada, Jaen and eventually cut across inland towards the A3 Madrid-Valencia road and arrived just outside Requena at 22.00 and parked up for the night.
Wednesday at 08.00 I arrived at the customers and was the first to be loaded with a complete load of wine plus my customary 2 bottles and away I went heading round Valencia and up past Teruel and after a midday meal in Calamocha I cut across via Ricla before refuelling near Pamplona and following the N121 down to the border at Irun and entered enemy territory eventually parking up for the night just before Bordeaux.
Thursday I took the usual route up past Angouleme, Poitiers and Tours and managed to get past Paris before the evening chaos started and ended up parking up for the night between Arras and Lille.

Paris at its best
Friday it was up at sparrow fart so as to get past Antwerp before all hell lets loose and breakfast stop on the Dutch-Belgian border at Hazeldonk was well enjoyed before heading towards Haaften where the wine was eventually unloaded at a supermarket RDC. Once empty I was to head for Rotterdam where I was to load that afternoon for Copenhagen. Arriving at the customers I was pleasantly surprised to be introduced in a friendly manner to all the staff present and immediately offered coffee and cake (well done Inter Supply), by the time everything had arrived and had been loaded enough rest was on the tacho to enable myself and Gerard who is in another of our trucks to head off straight away and start mixing it with the Rotterdam rush hour and we got caught up in 2 more traffic jams as we went past Utrecht and Zwolle before crossing into Germany near Emmen and a good meal was enjoyed in Haselunne were we got our toll collect maut thingies and continued the journey up through the night passing Bremen and Hamburg and we arrived at the ferry terminal in Puttgarden at about 03.00.

The bridge that joins Puttgarden to the German mainland
Saturday morning saw me getting on the boat and getting my head down for an hours sleep and we arrived in Rodbyhavn at 04.00 and had a nice clear run through a fairly flat Denmark and floated straight through Copenhagen town centre with no problems to get to where the cruise ships berth,

Parked up on quayside

Copenhagen harbour entrance

The yacht berths with the cruise liner Nordica anchored behind

Weird shaped Danish houses
The boat the Silver Whisper arrived punctually at 08.00 and was virtually immediately followed by another one right behind it and with the ferry that came from Sweden,

The Silver Whisper arriving
after all the preliminaries had been satisfactorily concluded they began to unload the 2 trailers as I got a conversation going with the Chief Steward who was from the Phillipines and spoke excellent English, the result of this was it was not long before Hamburgers and coffee appeared for our breakfast and once unloaded we were also invited on board for the midday meal.



The provider of food and coffee
We now needed to wait a few more hours to get the necessary 9 hours on the tacho after which we headed back through Copenhagen and down to the ferry at Rodbyhavn which was by now filling up with lemmings mainly of German origin with their caravans who obviously returning to the Reich as their holidays finished,

Rodbyhavn waiting for the boat

Entering the boat


Bye bye Denmark
once on the boat a cut price meal was enjoyed in the drivers area for 4 euros and an hour later we were back on teutonic soil and I eventually parted company with Gerard who had another boat to unload near Rostock while I was to return to Holland empty, I just managed to get past Bremen before the official German driving ban set in so I stopped for a coffee and a 45 minute break before setting off once again and turned off the Autobahn at Cloppenburg and took the Bundesstrasse past Lingen and Nordhorn and crossed the border in to Holland at Oldenzaal and started looking for somewhere to park up as it was now 02.30 by 03.00 I had found a space near Enschede and got my head down.
Sunday was a quiet run down past Arnhem, s´Hertgogenbosch, Tilburg and Breda and in to the yard where after a coffee I disappeared off to Jennifers.
Monday at 09.00 the motor and the trailer were given a bath at the truck wash in Roosendaal before setting off to the DAF dealer where 2 24 volt sockets were fitted using normal house plug sockets so that the coffee perculator doesn´t melt the plugs, once this was done I had to go to Barendrecht and load some fruit and veg before going to the Spaanse Polder in Rotterdam where more fruit and veg was loaded, now it was back in to Inter Supply where a few more pallets were loaded and I found out that the boss had loaded for the same boat so we set off together towards Amsterdam where after getting permission to unload from the Dutch customs we set off for the port of Ijmuiden where we had an evening meal and a couple of beers before going to sleep for the night.
Tuesday the boat Funchal arrived at 08.00 and immediately began to disgorge passengers and unload garbage before we could begin to unload, as this is a very old boat the loading facilities were a touch primitive and this took quite some time but once again we were treated to coffee and croissants by the Rumanian steward Daniol.



The boss waiting with the crew

Once unloaded I had to go to Krimpen an der Ijssel to collect 1 pallet of boat spares for Algeciras before heading to Hondslersdijk near the Hoek van Holland to load plants for various destinations in Spain, once loaded I headed for Etten Leur to the tyre dealer to get a tyre changed that was no longer up to standard and set off for Aalst in Belgium where I was to pick up Dimitri one of our drivers who due to a death in the family had had to leave his truck in Almeria and who would be accompanying me on the trip to Spain.
Wednesday we floated through Belgium and Luxembourg and in to France passing through Lyon and going down Le Autoroute L´Soleil towards the Spanish border at La Junquera where I had planned to refuel, I was extremely pleased that I wasn´t going that way as there was a monumental traffic jam that was at least 20 kilometres long due to the amount of tourists. After refuelling it was down the A7 to Barcelona where the first trolleys of plants were unloaded in Rubi before heading back along the motorway as far as Granollers and then turning on to what used to be the N125 in order to get to Lica d´Amunt where more trolleys left the trailer, once this was done we then headed back down the A7 as far as Altafulla where we parked up for the night.
Thursday we left at about 08.00 and it was not too long before we had discovered the customers premises in Benicarlo even though they had obviously done their best to hide the place, at least they had an unloading bay and their allocation of plants was soon out and more empty trolleys were added to the collection. Now once again heading south past Castellon and we changed over just past Valencia and Dimitri took over until we got to the next customers at Mojacar between Murcia and Almeria where several trolleys of plants were unloaded and we now headed for Almeria where Dimitri was to pick up his own truck and our ways would part. Now once more on my own it was head further along the coast as far as a small village called La Herradura where I would be unloading in the morning and I eventually parked up on the beach outside the customers premises.
Friday morning awakening to the smell of the sea air it was 08.00 before we started to unload the plants as they had to get all their small vehicles out of the way first and I could eventually attempt to leave this village with its extremely narrow streets at about 09.00 and after getting several vehicles moved I was pleased to be back on the main road and heading for Algeciras where I had 1 pallet of ships spares to unload and it took 45 minutes to get from one side of Algeciras to the other as I headed back towards Malaga doing battle with the thousands of Morroccans who are now beginning their return journeys back to Belgium, France and Germany before heading up past Antequera and Lucena and joining the A3 in the general direction of Madrid until just past Cordoba where the last few trolleys of plants were unloaded, upon contacting the office I was told that I could unload the empty plant trolleys just outside Sevilla in Dos Hermanas in the morning so I set off southwards once again and spent the night at the BP petrol station at La Carlota.
Saturday I was in Dos Hermanas at 08.00 and was promptly told to piss off until Tuesday as it was a bank holiday weekend so after informing the office I settled down to spend the next 3 days wandering around Sevilla. Tuesday I was back at the place where I had to unload the trolleys at 08.00 only to be told that I would have to wait until 09.00 and eventually the trolleys were out and I was on my way to Almonte by 10.00. Upon arrival at Almonte and after spending 45 minutes on the weighbridge waiting to be weighed in I was loaded in about 30 minutes and 22 pallets of frozen plums were soon heading north in the trailer and after a relatively clear run up past Madrid I eventually parked up for the night about an hour north of Guadalajara.
Wednesday was another nice day and a clear run up past Pamplona and across the border into France at Irun, passing Bordeaux during the rush hour was not too bad and I parked up for the night at Poitiers.
Thursday wonders of wonders and not even Paris caused too many problems and by mid afternoon I was in the yard in Rucphen where I dropped the trailer and then bob tailed up to Rotterdam to pick up a loaded trailer.
Friday morning after going through the customs procedures I was on the Quay side of the Suez docks in Amsterdam awaiting the arrival of the Silver Cloud cruise liner for which I had a trailer full of supplies

Silver Cloud arrives
while the trailer was being unloaded some quick bantering soon had us on board enjoying a free breakfast as the unloading was going to take some time due to the bad condition of the tarmac on the quay side, eventually at 14.00 I was empty and headed back towards Rotterdam in the Dutch rush hour traffic and it took 2 hours to complete the 80 kilometre journey. In Rotterdam I loaded the trailer with supplies for a boat that would be arriving in Copenhagen on Monday and then swapped that trailer for an empty one and went around to the other side of Rotterdam to load a trailer full of fruit for Amsterdam, once loaded it was back up to Amsterdam do the customs thing and park up for the night.
Saturday the boat arrived early and it was so bloody big that I couldn´t get a decent Photo of it due to the surrounding buildings but to give you some idea of the size this thing had 2000+ passengers on board, security was tight with it being an American boat and although the Yanks may at times have their faults generosity is not one of them and we were constantly plied with coffee, sandwiches and hamburgers during the unloading. I did manage to get a couple of fotos of some older boats that were in Amsterdam for the Sail Exhibition.



Once empty it was back down past Rotterdam and in to the yard to once again change trailers picking up the one that I had loaded yesterday in Rotterdam for Copenhagen. Going up past Utrecht and crossing in to Germany at Denekamp near Oldenzaal and taking the Bundesstrasse as far as Haseluenne where I parked up for the night and enjoyed a damn good meal for less than 8 euros before going to bed.
Sundays are not a problem for us in Germany as we are carrying boat supplies and at 08.00 I set off and trundled down the road to the truckstop next to the motorway turn off for Cloppenburg where I enjoyed a damn good shower and had a couple of hours on the internet before continuing the journey past Bremen and Hamburg parking up once more just before Lubeck so that I could watch the formula 1 race on the tv. After the race was over I continued with the journey and an hour later I was boarding the boat at Puttgarden heading for Rodbyhavn. Once in Denmark it is only a 2 hour run up to Copenhagen and finding the cruise liner berths in the town is not a problem as you only have to keep on following the signs for the city centre until you see the quay that you want signposted, arriving in the Frijhavn I parked up for the night.
Monday the boat arrived on time closely followed by two others a bit like London buses all arriving at the same time,

The Crystal Symphony arriving
the unloading was over and done with in record time and I was empty by 09.00 and had done the Danish customs formalities by 09.15 and winding my way back through Copenhagen city centre surprised by the complete and utter lack of traffic jams and congestion and was soon happily tooddling back down the motorway to Rodbyhavn where once again I boarded the boat and an hour later disembarked in Puttgarden and had a nice quiet run until Hamburg where there was a 20 kilometre tailback and one of the disadvantages of not having a maut OBU is that you can´t divert without finding another machine and cancelling and rebooking the journey which would take that long that you might just as well sit out the jam, eventually getting past Hamburg I had an hours break at Cloppenburg again before continuing my journey through Meppen and crossing the border in to Holland at Emmen I arrived at my loading address in Hoggeveen at 20.45 and parked up on their premises for the night.
Tuesday the first of my 2 pick ups in Hoogeveen was 10 pallets of cheese destined for Santander which did not take long and I was soon heading for the next collection also in Hoogeveen at the transport company Otten where I was supposed to be loading 3 pallets an operation which due to a complete lack of coordination on Ottens part took more than 2 hours and I still had to go to Meppel to pick up 1 sack weighing 25 kilos that they had forgotten to pick up. After Ottens I made my way to Meppel and soon found the place where I was to pick up the sack and here once again the fun started all the warehouse doors were locked and at the office door there was a doorbell which no one answered, eventually a loading door opened and a truck came out so I was able to slip in that way, upon finding the warehouseman I could not resist asking him if they stored gold bullion in the damn place, anyway the sack was soon loaded and I made my way to Doetinchem where I picked up 3 pallets of frozen cherries destined for Murcia before heading for Sint Oedenrode near Eindhoven where a further 3 pallets of textiles were loaded and I then headed for the yard and disappeared to Jennifers.
Wednesday was a day off at Jennifers.
Thursday got in to the yard in the afternoon and picked up my preloaded and trogged off towards Spain with a stop on the border at Belgium to buy a new TV for the truck as the old one had died a death after 5 years faithful service and bought myself a little flat screen telly that will receive all over europe for 185 euros. A massive tailback in Antwerp made me decide to use the Liefskenhoek tunnel and Paris was a doddle shooting through it in 45 minutes and eventually parked up for the night at Blois.
Friday gave me a clear run down the RN10 and round Bordeaux as far as the Spanish border although the same could not be said of the traffic going north as all the lemmings appeared to be in a rush to get back to their nests and there were some severe traffic jams which will get no better as the weekend passes. Arriving at my first tip just outside San Sebastian in Astigarraga the 2 pallets were out in 5 minutes and I was soon heading homewards.
Well Tuesday was a doddle really although it didn´t start off too well. Arriving at Lidl punctually ae 06.00 more commonly known as sparrow fart only too be told that they may not be wanting it there and that I would have to wait until 08.00 for more details.
At 08.00 they said that they wanted the stuff in their overflow at warehouse 15 kms down the road in Amurrio but that it didn´t open until 11.00, so off I toddled and sat in the sun till 11.00 and by 12.15 everything was out and my 34 empty euros where nestling in the front of the trailer as I set off home once more to await instructions from those above.
Wednesday I left fortress Vasco at 06.00 and by 08.00 was in Fuenmayor waiting to load wine and while I was waiting a Van Overveld motor came round the corner piloted by one of their Kermits, he then immediately started to tell the warehouse boss that Van Overveld had said as I was loading on their behalf that he was to load first and I was to wait at this point I stuck my pretty head round the corner of the pallet and said No bloody way to which he replied but Gert Van Overveld has said that I must load first.
To which I replied well phone him back and tell him I said he can F*** Off and if he doesn't like it tough he knows my telephone number .
No more was said and an hour later I was on my way loaded and with the customary 2 bottles in the cab cruising past Vitoria and across the border in to enemy territory and started to mix it with the returning lemmings and eventually managed to get as far as Vivonne where I parked up for the night.
Thursday morning I was away early but still got caught up in the shite in Paris and ended up taking 45 on a service station on the A86. Once I was moving again instructions arrived to pick up 4 pallets just outside Gent on my to Holland when I got there it was a nougat factory so once loaded a quick chat with the warehouseman assured that a bag of the local produce also disappeared in to the cab and I set off for Holland where the 4 pallets were tipped in our warehouse and I dropped off the trailer and went to Jennifers.
Friday morning I ran across to Tiel to pick up a hire trailer before going in to Inter Supply at Hoogvliet to load it ready for Copenhagen after which I then dropped it off in our yard and picked up another one and made my way back to Hoogvliet to load again this time it was for Southampton now it was just a case of meeting up with the other vehicle that would be going to Southampton as well (the boss), it was decided that we would meet at the yard. .

Leaving the yard we headed towards Roosendaal and just before Bergen op Zoom his majesty decided to pull in to the petrol station to buy tobacco and have himself a coffee (this after a full 20 minutes driving) I made good use of the enforced break by buying a Eurovignette for Sat, Sun, Mon & Tuesday knowing that I would be needing it, setting off once again it was down past Antwerp sling a right a Gent and follow the motorway towards Ostende before branching off towards Calais just past Jabbeke, crossing the French border we were soon at the Eurotunnel and after passing the French customs bit with no problems it has to be the UK customs who decide they want to check the vehicle with some kind of weird and wonderful machinery which I suppose was checking for immigrants while at the same time the interrogation began "Good afternoon Sir you have not been to England for quite a long time " No says I "why" asks she "because I left to get out of the bloody place" I said, "Do you have anything to declare ?" No says I and was now allowed to pass and put the vehicle on the train, while being wide enough and with ample space for maneuvering it remains a bit of a squeeze to get an artic on these trains and I bet there are quite a few who have screwed it up, once the vehicle is parked on the train we were taken by minibus to the passenger section and like an idiot I decided to try the food now this is an experience that I will not be repeating as it was not only wholly indigestable it was overly expensive as well. Once again England trembled as the conquerer returned although we didn´t manage to get the customs to stand to attention for my arrival and we were soon flying up the M20 towards London with a minimum of traffic even the M25 proved to be no problem but by Fleet services the boss was feeling tired again so we had a coffee break to enable the poor man to get his second wind, wandering across to the petrol station for a coffee I was looking at the prices of the Cornish Pasties which were tempting me when the bloke behind the counter said "Help yourself mate they have just been written off as todays delivery will be here in an hour" never one to look a gift horse in the mouth the pasties were soon devoured and we set of down the M3 and skirted around Southampton on the M27 before heading in towards the docks where we parked up until the morning.
Saturday we reported for unloading and were greeted by 2 jobsworths in Securicor uniforms the result of which was I had to dig my Hi Viz out from where it was hiding still in the sealed plastic bag and then he wanted to give us a body search, I told him if he pats in the wrong place that I will have HM on to him. After all these ridiculous security measures the likes of which I have not seen in any other port the bossman was allowed in first to unload and I passed the time watching the harbour authorities pull a body out of the water, eventually it was my turn to unload, the ridiculous thing about this boat is that the stores manager is an Austrian now someone please tell me what the hell entices an Austrian to go to sea ? I was soon unloaded and by midday I was winging my back towards Folkestone while the boss went of to see someone about business (or so he says) and lo and behold just before the M25 everything grinds to a halt a traffic jam I couldn´t help thinking to myself "welcome home Paul", once through this unholy balls up it was clear sailing all the way to the train terminal where sods law once again decreed I was pulled out for a scan (which of you buggers phoned and told them I was coming ?) once back on the train heading for France where it was back up the same route as the day before as far as Hazeldonk where I parked up for the night.



M3 says welcome home Vas
Sunday I once more changed trailers in the yard and started heading North up through Holland via Arnhem and Hengelo crossing the border in to Germany at Denekamp and cutting across to Cloppenburg where I stopped to watch the Formula 1 before getting on to the Motorway that would take me up past Bremen and Hamburg to Puttgarden where once again I would be getting on to the boat to Denmark and after an uneventful crossing I was away up the quiet Danish motorway towards Copenhagen where I soon found the berth at which the boat was docked and proceeded to bed down for the night.
Monday while I was waiting to be called forward to unload some Danish bus driver tried insisting that I move the truck elsewhere around the corner after a while he seemed to grasp the meaning of the word bollocks and about 10 minutes after this I am pulled forward to unload the ships stores for the Nautica this did not take long.

The Nautica


Copenhagen Rush Hour
and while our second vehicle had now turned up and was being unloaded I went round to the Free Port to do the customs clearance for both of us thus saving time for the second driver, by midday everything was done and finished and we both headed back south to catch the ferry back to Germany with instructions to load in Hamburg that same evening. As we got close to Hamburg the radio announced a 15km tailback right where it would do us the least amount of good so I turned off the motorway and we both cut through the Freihafen part of Hamburg docks

Hamburg Docks
And eventually found the loading address in the Altenwerder part of Hamburg. This unfortunately was a typical RDC with the renowned chaos and it took us ages to get loaded and the only thing that we could do after that was park up.
Tuesday morning leaving Hamburg and going back down past Bremen and cutting back across to Holland via Cloppenburg I just managed to get in to Ikeas at Haarlem without needing a 45 minute break, to my surprise they unloaded and I was allowed to use the stores coffee machine and shower facilities while they unloaded the trailer. Once empty I now ran to Hoogvliet where I gave the rental trailer to one of our other drivers and proceeded to load another one this time the destination was to be Greece. It was mid afternoon before I left just managing to get out of the Rotterdam area before the evening chaos started and I was soon nearing the border crossing Schwanenhaus near Venlo where I got my maut tickets and discovered that contrary to all rumours I could book the whole journey in one go even though I would be taking a daily rest period on the way, the journey down the A61 including a 45 minute break near Koblenz passed uneventfully and following the A6, A5 and on to the A8 I managed to get just past Stuttgart before parking up for the night at Kircheim Teck.
Wednesday I continued on the A8 passing Ulm and skirting around Munich on the ring motorway

The Allianz Stadium Munich which will be one of the new stadiums for next years World Cup
I was feeling really pleased that I seemed to have avoided the traffic jams but I should have kept my big mouth shut because as I came to rejoin the A8 on the other side of Munich I got caught up in a big one that cost me more than an hour, this meant that I would now be needing to take my 45 minute break in Germany instead of Austria. On reaching Kiefersfelden I was surprised to see how simple and effective the Go Box toll system was compared to the German Maut and I sailed across the border even managing to avoid the customary weight controls and headed towards Innsbruck passing some breath taking scenery on the way but fotos were nigh on impossible due to the trees,

Austrian Hill Farmers

Parked up just past Innsbruck heading for the Brenner Pass



at Innsbruck I turned in the direction of the Brenner Pass and the long climb to the top began once again with some fantastic views but nowhere to stop nearing the top I took my second 45 minute break of the day before entering Italy and was immediately faced with a 60 km speed limit for trucks and an overtaking ban which didn´t stop until Bolzano nearly 2 hours later.

I eventually parked up for the night not far from Modena after discovering that the parking situation in Italy is no different to anywhere else i.e. bloody scarce.
Thursday I awoke to a foggy morning and continued my run down past Bologna getting caught in the rush hour while passing and was in Ancona nicely on time to get the 14.00 boat even though I was not booked until the 19.00 one,

The port of Ancona was well signposted

This is the ferry to Italy

Ramp to top deck

Ancona

Once on the boat it was shower, food, drink and sleep until the morning as it was a 19 hour crossing.
Friday as the boat approached the Greek shores and the islands began to come in to sight I was disappointed that there was so much haze that it made the taking of any decent fotos impossible.

Greek Islands




1st View of Padras
Which way is Athens ??????
Upon disembarking and leaving the harbour in Patras the culture shock grips you by the balls as the Greek way of driving is to put it mildly somewhat chaotic, normal A roads are used as highways with trucks and slower vehicles driving on the hard shoulder where possible and the the 2 normal lanes are left to the hare brained greeks who seem to be convinced that an accelarator only has one position, flat to the floor, overtaking manouevres bordering on the suicidal are witnessed every five minutes and as I made my way towards Athens amongst some really beautiful scenery I also noticed a fair amount of old Volvo 89´s and Scania 140 Supers that were still running around apparently still in pristine condition, Athens can only be described as chaos on wheels as the suicidal Greeks come at you from the left, the right, rear, the front and even use the pavement in their death defying attempts to get past.

Athens comes into view



By now it came as no surprise to me that the extremely important and very busy port of Piraeus is not even sign posted and one is left resorting to Sherlock Holmes type methods to deduce its whereabouts, fortunately the boss had loaded Monday in UK also for Piraeus and was already there so a couple of quick phone calls made sure that I was still heading in the right direction and I eventually arrived in the port area of Piraeus where a complete circuit of the port was needed in order to reach the once again unsigned cruise passenger terminal where I eventually met up with his lordship and we set off to sample the delights of night time Piraeus before retiring for the night.


Piraeus Harbour

Ferries come and go with the frequency of buses


Saturday morning the trucks were called in for unloading now this is a real eye opener, Greek organisation a wonder to behold how the hell anyone gets anything done amid all the sreaming shouting bellowing and arm waving that goes on is beyond all comprehension but by about 10.00 I was unloaded but waited for the boss who wasn´t unloaded until 15.00 I couldn´t leave the poor little Dutchman there on his own now could I ? we were supposed to be swapping trailers after unloading anyway as one has to go back to the manufacturers for some repairs, once he was unloaded we set off through the eternal traffic chaos

Just managed to get a glimpse of the Akropolis

Boats and Harbours are everywhere

Villages nestled in the hills

and were soon winding our way back towards Padras along the same route that I had come yesterday and on the outskirts of Padras I filled up with diesel before we entered the port area, now we set off to get our pre-booked tickets for the ferry back to Italy and lo and behold muggins is on the waiting list and ends up watching as my traitorous employer sails off in to the horizon leaving me there, now it was back to the booking office to try and get a reservation for tomorrow and the reply is no chance, eventually after trying three different shipping lines Minoa Lines said come back at 10.00 and we will put you on the waiting list for tomorrow evening. Time to sample some more Greek food and a couple of small glasses of beer and bed for the night.

Sunday I went around all the shipping offices once more and eventually at the Blue Star Ferries office I was told that there is space on the evening boat to Bari now I need to load near Ancona which is where all the other boats going but a definite booking is better than a vague maybe and means that I will have to drive the 460 odd km´s to Ancona instead, by the time the necessary phone calls have been made and payment for the crossing has been guaranteed it is well past midday and my days sight seeing is well bolloxed, at 16.30 we were allowed to board the boat

This one was taking me to Bari

Old boat in Padras Harbour

Trucks and Trailers waiting for ferries
And I was able to get a good shower and prepare for the crossing.

Aegean Sea sunset
Monday arriving in Bari

1st view of Bari

the chaos began as the arrival of two ferries at the same time coupled with the fact that the route from the port to the motorway runs pretty close to the town centre obviously overloads the towns capacity and traffic police dressed in white can be seen at every set of traffic lights blowing whistles and waving their arms uselessly as the Italians ignore them at will,

This is supposed to be 2 lanes in each direction
eventually reaching the motorway I headed north along the Adriatic coastline up past Foggia and Pescara and was treated to some really spectacular scenery but the amount of trees along the side of the motorway didn´t permit much taking of fotos,

just before I got to my loading address at Castelfidardo the weather gods sent me a message that was received loud and clear, obviously they were of the opinion that I had enjoyed too much sunshine and decided it was time for the peasant to suffer and the heavens turned black, the temperature dropped 12 degrees in 20 minutes and it absolutely pissed down reducing visibility to just about nil,


The rainbows and the sunset after the storm were quite impressive

Arriving at the loading address it took about an hour and a half to get loaded and I was on my way north once more heading past Rimini and Bolgna before parking up for the night just outside Mantova.
Tuesday I continued the journey towards the Austrian border and the Brenner Pass as the load only weighed 7 tons I was to go back via Austria.



Heading up past Bolzano suffering the eternal 60 kmh speed limit and overtaking ban I eventually reached the Austrian border and the Go Box peeped as I crossed in to Austria,



dropping down to Innsbruck and hanging a right I was at the German border in less than 2 hours and got my maut ticket at the border before heading up past Munich

Some place names do give grounds for thought