Firstly apologies theres no pictures cos me being a clumsy sod lost my camera while nosing around the german gun emplacements on the cliffs over looking St Valery en caux on tuesday morning doh
Monday arrived in the yard at 6am , nice lie in for once to collect my wagon and drive across to Rugeley to collect the lowloader trailer from the farm where it normally lives, that done had a nice little drive over to Iichfield to collect a very elderly JCB Hydra-digger must of dated from the early 50’s and an equally aged Winget dumper bound for St Valery en caux in Normandy for a bloke whos doing a self build ,
took me all my skill as driver to get the little dumper on the trailer as it didnt want to stop, , still all chained down and ready to roll
collected the directions off him and a nice bundle of euros for the tolls and my food and made my way down to Folkestone get the train,
off the train and in France, first time driving on the " wrong" side of the road scary at first but got the hang of it, arrived at my destination in St valery with just 5 minutes of a 10 hour driving left, talk about cutting it fine
parked up and walked the 2 miles back into town for a drink and some food
Tuesday woke up around 8 ish as the chap wouldnt be arriving in St valery to unlock the gates at the bottom of his drive till late afternoon decided, go off and do some exploring, , walked back into town found a nice cafe and a ver nice breakfast washed down with loads of decent coffee, spent ages exploring around the german gun emplacements on the cliffs , lost my camera so some lucky frog will be happy in finding my Canon eos
arrived back at the wagon around 3 o clock with enough food to feed an army for my tea just as the chap arrived with the key to gates and his caravan, in tow behind a elderly Bedford tk 7.5 tonne tipper, so I unloaded the JCB after coaxing it into life with threats of hitting it with a hammer if wouldnt start, and that little dumper tried to kill me again when I was driving it off with its iffy brakes
Rang the the boss to tell him I was unloaded and ready to come back only to be told theres a collection of a truck in Maidstone on thursday morning , so spent the night having a bbq and chatting for hours with the chap and his french wife and telling me about their plans for the house they are building
Wednesday drove back up to the train after a decent british fry up off the chap and his missus and stopping to stock up on decent wine and ■■■■ for the wife
arrived back on british soil unscathed by my trip wednesday afternoon and made my way up to Maidstone services, found somewhere to park up and settled down only to be woken at some ungodly hour by some paddies doing trailer swaps
Thursday found my way to the address of the collection, to my surprise its actually a farm just outside Detling,
seems my boss has a thing about classic wagons as I’m collecting his new restoration project a very moss ridden Scammell Crusader tractor unit , and a selection of tea chests containg new parts, amazing that it actually started and ran so drove it onto the trailer, what a fantastic noise them detroit deisels make , arrived back in our yard around 3 ish and the bosses face was a treat as he saw the moss ridden scammell, seemingly he hadnt seen it when he brought it