20/01/14

Back to work this morning, the car was frozen up and so was the truck.  I had to scrape the windscreen of the car before setting off to work.  It was a bit easier with the truck as I was in the loading area I just started the engine and left it running while we loaded.  Nice warm cab when I got in.  It was just before half past seven when I left the yard, the sky was starting to lighten illuminating the patches of low lying mist giving the countryside an ethereal appearance in the gradually strengthening light.  Tree tops looming above the mist patches on the edge of the A64.  Carlton store first drop, easy enough, leaving a chemical drop that I couldn't have left at the customers premises without a signature.  Catching some customers in can be difficult sometimes.  Second drop was a farm drop near Cawood, thirty bags of mineral supplement for addition to feed, and yes there was a man with a loader, that's what I like to see on a Monday morning.  Come to that I like to find a man with a loader any day.  Third drop was another farm drop near Brough, no man with a loader so I stacked the thirty bags of sheep feed on the trailer the customer usually stacks them on.  Then a stop for lunch before going to Howden Dyke for a collection of five tonnes of bagged dicalcium phosphate for the mill.  Then onto my last drop; a farm drop at Kelfield, this was a single item drop.  An eight foot lamb creep feeder, easy enough for two people to take off by hand.  This drop would have been my first but because I was fully loaded the feeder had to be palletised and stacked on top of my load of feed.  I didn't feel like handing it down from the top of the load, much easier to get it dropped down with the forklift at Carlton store.  Back to base, to hand in my paperwork and collect my tickets for tomorrow. Unfortunately the first load of the day is to Mallton store, this isn't a long run but I can't get in until eight in the morning which means I have a late start.  It would have been better for my working day to deliver my second load first but mine is not to reason why.  Oh well I get a lie in in the morning until ten to six, so at least there's some advantage.
All in all its been a good day at work, with clear sky's and no rain and that's got to be good at this time of year in the UK.  Got home in reasonable time and cooked a pheasant Coq au vin  for myself and my wife, though I say in myself, it was very good and there's enough left for another meal.  See you tomorrow.