Two magpies
Sometimes waking up in my lorry home after
a long night’s sleep I spend a few minutes reckoning the advantages to my life.
I’ve been an atheist for many years but
sometimes I am overwhelmed with a huge joy about being alive. In my childhood I might have thanked God, but
now I just blog about it. Maybe I’m a bit bipolar as I often also feel the
complete opposite, and only last week was down in the slough but this morning
it was definitely joy, an almost elated feeling of happiness and
challenge. Not that the morning is
particularly auspicious. It’s just started
raining but the sound of the rain ‘on a tin roof’ is poignant and
evocative. Every time I move around in
the lorry, my chandelier (renewed this year with a lovely present from good
friends) with glass rather than the previous acrylic one, makes tiny tinkling
sounds which seem this morning to add a treble line to the percussion of the
rain on the roof. The pigeons are in
full song and the squirrels are drumming their strange and eerie calls around
the trees in the yard. Every so often
one makes an intrepid tightrope foray along a twenty metre telephone cable
across the road. How extraordinary it
must be to be a squirrel, with all that flexibility of balance and
movement. And I speak with some
experience of the business of both.
One of the great things about living in a
lorry is the simplicity it offers. In a
way it’s both a requirement and a pleasure.
A requirement because of the inevitable weight issues involved with
deciding what I can live with and a pleasure because I enjoy that sort of
challenge.
Last week on my way back from Anglesey and
the final day of filming I was pulled up by VOSA. What happens is that a VOSA van at the side
of the road pulls out in front and a flashing sign tells you to follow
them. I’m a sitting target for such
things with my vintage lorry and painted sides. At the roadside checkpoint they
weigh the lorry and trailer and it turns out that my front axle is slightly overweight. The inspector was a Jobsworth of epic
proportions and obviously didn’t like me or my lifestyle. The problem (I discovered afterwards) was
that because the trailer was not loaded in quite the way it is usually it was
transferring some weight to the lorry and the result was the overweight front
axle reading. I tried to adjust the load
but because I was annoyed I wasn’t thinking properly about the reason so
couldn’t achieve the required reduction in axle weight. The Jobsworth insisted
that it was an offence, a fine and he would not let me out of the check area unless
it was fixed. That’s when I started to
become annoyed with his attitude and said that staying there would be alright
as I lived in the lorry anyway and staying in his checkpoint would be OK with
me. That really annoyed him as it was
Friday afternoon and obviously he was not going to be able to lock the place up
with a squatter and two dogs living on the site. Impasse.
Eventually the police arrived. He had obviously phoned them about the issue
and the Police officer was good at his job.
He sorted the issue and offered to escort me back to my yard which
apparently pacified the Jobsworth. Result I get back OK and the Jobsworth could
go home feeling vindicated.
So the upshot is that I have to have the
weight Prohibition lifted (probably another cost), pay the fine and maybe have some
weight taken off the front of the lorry in case it happens again. Not a real problem as the front of the lorry
has a built in wheelchair lift (a legacy of its NHS days) and that must weigh
quite a lot so I’m planning to have it removed which will relieve the
problem. The new trailer axles are now rated
at 2.75 tons so I can put some items that I usually carry in the front of the
lorry in there instead. It will mean a new driving test (a trailer test) as
currently I can only have a train weight of 8.25 tons with my current one and I’m
near that limit (so the Jobsworth had told me gloating). So I have applied for
a medical which has to proceed a new provisional license, will book some
trailer lessons and sit a trailer test. The
vehicle and trailer in which I have to pass this new test is half the size of the lorry
and stage trailer. Bureaucracy. Anyway it will all be done for May and then
once again I will be completely road legal for the season.
So yes a real strength of positive vibe
this morning. Onward and upward.
All the best from a road near you,
Mr Alexander