The Travels & Adventures of Flog-It Removals.

At last, almost recovered from the longest journey in history I now have to write this just before departing again southwards for the final leg of this trip. Not that this journey was actually a long one, oh contraire, in fact it was quite short really, just that with the total gross weight of the truck being only 20kg below max when we put it on the weighbridge at Dover it was just slow progress down through the Massif in France. In fact one 200km stretch took us 6 hours to complete and an overnight stop in a Campanile was in order. Now if you are a regular reader you will know I do not rate the Etap hotels, and now I will add Campanile to that list – A double bed & a single in a room the size of a double bed and a single, and the very first time I have been able to stand under a shower without getting wet. Give me an Ibis any day of the week. Looking back over the trip, Friday 13th was uneventful for us although the Premier Inn at Manchester Airport had a rotten day, they got everything we asked mixed up and eventually were throwing food at us as an apology (not literally) yet we just could not eat another thing. The following day the collection of Arnie went smoothly and the drive to Tamworth was uneventful and once we got to load the goods collected from Inverness we realised just how big Arnie was. The goods were like a pimple on an elephants arse. A full LWB van load took up just one small part of Arnie from floor to ceiling. The evening festivities were fantastic, stag & hen nights for some friends who are getting married in Las Vegas next week – The whole ceremony will be internetified so I will be watching it live from my hotel room in Derby next week when I go for training. Today we have unloaded the goods into our faithful Iveco Daily XLWB and it has filled it about three quarters of the way, yet it looked nothing in “Arnold” – I can see this being a good investment. In our spare time we took Gertrude back to Halfords to have her put out of her misery… “Have you updated the software?” said the expert. “Not lately – Since she last dropped me in it I just put her away and ignored her.” “There is an update, please try it out and let me know what happens.” “It’s a bag of crap, I don’t want it.” “Please just try it.” “okay.” Anyway I let him update it, then we drove the rest of the way down to Dover etc and once we got to Calais she… (Gertrude) immediately put us on the wrong road and was once again thrown on the scrap heap. I can honestly say that this Garmin GPS is THE biggest piece of junk I have ever had the misfortune to own, it just cannot map read to save it’s life and I am sure you would do better with a blindfold and a pin. Anyway the drive south was smooth yet slow and Nicky got her chance to re-live her childhood only this time instead of sitting in the passenger seat whilst her Dad drove her around in his lorry, she was in the driving seat herself – We make a good team really when we are not arguing over the “Other Woman” - (Gertrude!!). Once finally back home on Tuesday we got the local deliveries out of the way and then transferred the Inverness load into our good old Daily ready for onward transport down to Javea. Like I keep saying, if you are in the area just give us a shout on one of the Spanish numbers we list and come and join us for a pint or three. Thanks very much to the two Posers David & Jason on board the P&O Ferry Pride of Canterbury, they just could not resist getting in on the photo shoot during the parking of the truck on the ferry so we told them their mugshots would appear on the blog for the whole world to see… So here they are!! A round of applause for David & Jason Ladies and Gentlemen, they do something on the boat to earn a living… Not sure what but it doesn’t look too hard!! Sorry it’s a bit dark lads but your high viz jackets work too well and there was no time for a second shot.

We did take a load of photos apart from this one and once we are back from Javea we will put the whole lot up on Picasa and link it from here so you can take a butchers.