The Travels & Adventures of Flog-It Removals.

We ended up having a late start on Thursday due to a string of phone calls that I will not go into here, needless to say it was an unwanted start to the trip and also created a diversion for the way back home which meant we had to head south via Limoges instead of the preferred eastern route which instantly meant that the Roussillon delivery was out of the question due to time constraints. That aside, the weather north through France was awful as usual but amazingly we actually hit Oostende on time as the journey through the Massif was not too slow in a virtually empty truck. One happy customer later we departed Belgium for Calais and an afternoon crossing. This was the first time we had chance to look around the ferry for the truckers lounge and restaurant and would you believe it truck drivers get free hot drinks and soft drinks. I like it. We also get quite a good exchange rate on board – Higher then the published rates and to be honest they were worth having, saving the problem of sorting out cash on the other side. On the journey up to Tamworth we had yet more telephone calls from the same source to pile on the pressure and delay us so it was almost midnight when we finally made base camp which did not please our UK team too much as they had a 4:00am start to get up to Morpeth for a collection. We on the other hand had a little lie in before heading out to make a collection locally that is heading down to Murcia and then across to Derby to collect some computer stuff. Saturday afternoon saw the arrival of Frank & Rose back from Morpeth and a quick change over of vehicles before dinner and a night in front of the Eurovision Song Contest. And the winner was, Norway Nil Points – Pity because I liked the Swedish “Popera” style entry and also Azerbaijan. For me Norway was just what it used to be, “Nil points”. Sunday morning we went shopping because a delivery that was supposed to be at base camp for us to collect had not arrived so another delay there as we had really wanted to be on the road early today, but there ya go!! Now that we were working to plan B we headed towards Limoges, got there bang on time and sorted things out, then headed to Le Vallee Heureuse not far from Perpignan, unfortunately having to miss out Roussillon as stated earlier as it would have put us too late. That delivery out of the way we headed down to Spain and amazingly arrived home pretty much on time. Not like us at all, despite the problems everything was on time, Arnie ran like a dream and we got home on the same day we planned. That’s it for a while now, we will head down to Murcia after bank holiday week to make the final delivery and then we need to make ready for the June run up to Holland. If you have anything heading up that way or coming back please give us a shout.  It is pretty certain now that the Holland trip will continue over to England with Arnie and then maybe even go back down as far as the Costa del Sol - Open to ideas. I want to get Arnie signwritten by then too if I can, may even name him like Eddie Stobart does. Sad aren't I?

It's been a while since I last tickled the keyboard to update you all with a blog rather than a tweet so I will just say a few words to keep you informed. The load for Oostende is packed into Arnie and tomorrow morning we will hit the road via which ever route takes our fancy and head for Belgium. Plan "A" is to work two drivers on 4.5 hour alternate shifts + an hour each at the end to give us twenty hours on the road hopefully to hit Belgium in one go and then take the mandatory 9 hours rest. We will instead probably work to plan "B", but we don't know what that will be until it happens - You know us too well!! Then hopefully a quick delivery in Oostende followed by a blast down to Calais and a crossing as early as we can because believe it or not we really need to be in Derby by Friday early evening. I believe "Cutting it fine" is the technical term. In Derby we need to pick up some IBM bits and bobs then head for a stopover and a collection in Tamworth the next day. Hopefully our man Frank has pulled everything into storage there so we now only have the one collection instead of two so we can have an early night (Oh look, there's a pig flying past) followed by an early start to hit Dover in time to get us to Calais around 10pm (HGV watershed) so we can have another marathon blast down to Roussillon and some place near Le Boulou and then home on Monday night. No don't laugh, seriously that's the plan. Can't see it, can you? No thought not.