Any Silver Cloud

This blog was for me to get my head around everything that was going on, and i felt that putting everything on paper as to speak this would help, i'll hopefully look at this post in weeks/ months and smile.This week has got to be the most turbulent week i have had to endure and to say everything is p***ing me off, well that would be mildly putting it,even the small things have become major issues.There is so much going on and i want to take stock of it but for the life of me i feel that im backed into a corner and everyone is trying to take the p**s, maybe thats really how it is and i don't want to believe it.There were certain aspects i knew i would have to endure, i remember someone saying just keep your head down and get on with it and everything will be ok,Easier said than done for somone who won't be walked all over.

I really thought i would cope out here on my own,i thought i would be strong enough and those who retreated back to blighty never gave it a very good shot how i have to bite my lip now,maybe im to stubborn to give up who knows,we haven't been able to lay any firm foundations here yet, which makes me feel that i don't actually belong anywhere.To be truthfull maybe the visiting off Ladypen then David has made things alot harder i see the places we visited bringing back such good memories making jumping back on a 767 all the more tempting.

For my sins i have been on a deidcated run for the last couple of weeks not bad miles but they certaintly wont break the bank,we do what they call a Fish Run,which entails picking up a loaded trailer of Yes fish from Moncton NB, then its suppose to be sort of an express run over to Montreal QC,then Ajax ON,then Cambridge ON, where each wharehouse takes there stuff off which is theres and maybe add to the trailer for the next drop if you get my drift, i say suppose to be an express run, except those wharehouses don't seem to get the grasp of that.Its pretty mundane and the days can be very long as you can imagine sitting waiting for these a******s to unload and reload,then its back to Moncton with a reload, so your up and down the same road where now the novelty has worn off due to the fact we always travel back up this route, then again i suppose its better than travelling up and down the m6 and alot more scenic,infact we were diverted of the main highway sunday afternoon due to an accident and the detour took us through some delightfull little villages.

Embracing Canada

IM all for intrigation and adjusting to the way of life over here,im not for colonising places like what has happened in the Uk,but there is one thing i can't get my head round.A few years ago there was a sports man( I think) not sure if he was a hockey player but he was very famous,(really im being a bit lazy and i can't be bothered to research him Sorry if you want to comment about this feel free)anyway his name is Tim Horton,anyone over here will see his legacy there are an abundance of his shops everywhere you go.I want to say these are coffee shops but they sell all different kinds of drink, Patisseries, donuts,sandwiches etc.Now the point to this post is as follows: Canadians go mad for this place, the drive through is often longer than any traffic i have seen on the road,what ive noticed is they don't make brews at work or home they just drive down to there local T H, OK fine i thought if thats what you do.Tell me the logic in this, Brian who lives next door goes out at 6.30 every morning drives a mile up the road for his daliy fix, ive put the kettle on made a nice cup of Proper Tea and drinking it before he is back .A guy who was giving me a lift back from work said i have just got to stop at T H to get my wife a coffee on the way home, what can't she boil a kettle or something (lazy *****) i thought.Even all the English guys over here and the euorpeans go mad for it, maybe there just trying to fit in.Now im not really a coffee drinker but i tried it thinking it was going to be some magical taste and well how dissappointed i was, it just taste like a normal average coffee,so i decide to go for my forte. i LOVE TEA in which they sell so when anyone asked me if i want a drink, tea would be the answer,and what came back everytime was what one could only describe as a mixture of the River Thames and dishwater, absolutely awfull !!!!!!!!.So as from last friday when i was asked by another driver when i was in Montreal shall we stop for a Timmys, i Have boycotted the place,i am not parting with my hard earned cash for what words fail to decribe what they served,but im going to try rank,rancid unpalatable,putrid the list could go on and on,a mixture of dog and cat P***would probably looked and tasted more apealing than what i was given,i wouldn't let my worst enemy suffer what they gave me.Now this is my experience and oppinion yours maybe different.
Rant over maybe more to follow!!!!!!!
Have a nice Day

Such is Life

My plan was to come in Sat morning put all my stuff into the truck do my pretrip, then take our David to the airport,this would let me just leave straight after he had gone,well that went out the window,i was approached by the boss as soon as i came in the yard, could i load someone else's trailer then run it over to Moncton,then come back and get on my way with my load,i reluctantly agreed to do this.I had to cut short my time at the airport seeing him off which i really didn't mind as i don't like these short Hello's and long goodbyes.This quick favour took me the best part of 7 hrs which left me leaving the island very late saturday night,well i got to Moncton and got a very tired head down.Id spoken to another one of our drivers the night before who was also stopping there we had planned to run down to Bangor together, it was nice to have someone to chat to who is in the same boat as myself and who also supports the mighty reds, so it was a few hours of moaning on how the Pair of yanks are ruining our club, then he started talking about sheep i confess i had to turn the cb down as he was getting pretty excited about them.Having said our farewells i pulled into Bangor for some fuel and a nice shower before i headed on south,normally in the evening all the scales are closed in Maine, which they were, but the police were doing log book checks as you came through the toll booths on the Maine Turnpike which was a new one on me,anyway i was ok and not pulled up so off i went down to Massachusetts to park up for the evening.I got to my delivery early afternoon the next day,straight on a bay and tipped within half an hour,my reload came through a load of nectarines for Cambridge On, out of the port of Wilmington, again i was loaded within an hour bloody eck this is going well.Now i knew a mate of mine was out on his mentor trip with James,i also knew they were tipping in that area that morning, i get a phone call that evening they had been sat all day on the docks waiting to get loaded now they have to run all night to get to the delivery in the morning,just goes to show how things can go in this job,but if your sitting about all day you earn absolutely ZILCH.My turn came the next day i got to my delivery point, onto a bay and thats where i stayed for 4 hrs not bad, well they only wanted 6 pallets in this part of the wharehouse, i had to go around to the front to deliver the other 8 pallets i had, and yes i was there another 4 hrs, not bad 8 hrs for 14 pallets in which my hourly rate was for the love of trucking.There is only one thing to do after that, S S S, then head off to my reload which was just down the road from where i was.I made it back to the island 2 days later after tipping my load.

The Show Goes On

Its funny how things fan out,What should of been a nice run back to PEI ended up being a mad dash, as we were informed that they wanted me to tip a trailer in Nova Scotia on the tuesday morning then drop the trailer in Charlottetown,the only thing that made this better was we would be finished earlier for the week or so we thought.The chores that follow are beginning to do my head in, you do take for granted when someone else does all your washing and ironing etc,i thought they would be ok but now i might just buy new clothes every week, i dont seem to have time or the inclination to do it, maybe its about time to get Lady Pen over here permanently.So my day of rest was to and throwing to the laundrette, then i get a phone call, is there any chance of running a trailer to Summerside in the morning, some days off these are turning out to be.Up early we set off for Summerside for a 6.30am booking,the downfall with this job you have to help unload and there can be some handball at least im getting paid per hour which works out preety good.Done and dusted we headed back quick drop of the trailer and were off home.I wanted to show off some of the island to David, so a plan was made and off to the beach we went,he hasn't driven over here so i let him take the wheel(Off the car) after driving in a few ditches and a few scary moments he soon got the gist off things and pretty confidently got on with it.Now i remember being 20 (yes i can remember that far back)i wasn't interested in looking at scenery, this drive really bought all that back because we saw most of the coast as if we were in a rally,under duress i did make him stop a couple of times and get out but i must admit it was pretty cold with the wind blowing.On the island we have a fictional caracter called Anne of Greengables the author Lucy Maud Montgomery who wrote these books lived here in a place called Cavendish,(these books apparently were given to Japenese kids years ago to help them learn English)which is why to this day there are loads of Japenese tourist who come to visit the Geengables Heritage site.We couldn't have a look around, the place doesn't open till May but you can see the farm from the car park.

The Island is really changing now the grass is turning green and the tractors have started in the fields getting ready for sowing,it certainly makes a nice change to all the snow and everything looking dead,as it was my first winter although it was very mild by any standards it seem to off gone on forever,now im really looking froward to see how beautiful this place really gets (thats all people keep saying so bring on summer).When Lady Pen came we visited certain areas and looked at places where we thought we might like to settle, i showed our David the same places, although its hard for anyone to make a descison whether they could leave everything behind in England and move over here without discussing it with other people in his life (girlfriend), i sensed that he pretty much liked what he saw, only time will tell.There is so much to consider when you make decisions like the one were making, we can't live our lives through our children now, we have to let them make their own minds whether they want to come over here,we certainly hope they do take up this opportunity.

Justice for The 96

April 15th 1989 3.06pm
We will never forget you.
Justice has never been never been done.
You Will Never Walk Alone.


www.contrast.org/hillsborough

A Hectic Week Ending Up The C N Tower !!!!!!!

This week has been hectic to say the least,The Fresh Prince arrived just after midnight saturday it was fantastic to see him,it seems so long ago when he was dropping me off at the airport.After a quick Bud in the Roadhouse we called it a night, its quite a trek getting to the island so its does take its toll.There was a bike show on in Charlottetown so sunday we decided to have a look with another driver who then kindly offered to make dinner for us,and me not wanting to sound ungreatfull gladly accepted.Unfortunately its not all holidays here and since i had already had a few days off i went into work monday to see what they had for me,since then i haven't stopped not to bore you to many details,our first job was to load half my tailer on the island then fill out in New Brunswick for a delivery in Vermont, another state i hadn't been to so thats wasn't to bad,i was a bit gutted really as i could off done with something a bit further but never mind,i certainly made up for it in the end having done a change over in woodstock when i was on my way back, for a load down to Pennsylvannia.Our first border crossing made us laugh a bit, as we go through the motions with the guard how many people in the truck, where you going etc i got the most unexpected question, Does your son have a letter from his Mom to say he's allowed to be with me? slightly taken a back i explained that he was 20, which the response was well he doesn't look that old,a complement !!!! we had been at it pretty hard and i thought it was about time for some retail therapy, so a stop off at the Bangor mall (Maine)and a trip into Macys( If you go to the cash desk and tell them your from the UK they will give you a 11% discount card which is valid for 30 days). Now down at the bottom of Maine there is a place called Kittery which has a scale house luckily for me (not), i had my first full inspection here, i think they were on a Canadian witch hunt, as it seemed that all the trucks they were doing full inspections on were from the North (dont we love the Americans),after an hour of do this do that and checking all my logs i was given a shiny sticker with number 10 on it and was told to get on my way.I ended up tipping pennsylvannia and getting an urgent message to get myself over to Camden (Philidelphia)as a guy has already loaded my trailer this is turning out to be very nice indeed.The reload was for Toronto so after again sorting out the axles (thats all i seem to do at the moment sliding the things back and forwards getting a little dab hand at this now)i set off, the sun is shining in fact its scorching, how i miss wet old blighty lol,instead of following the sat Nav, i take a different route when i get to Hazelton and this journey i have always done at night, well to see it in daylight its beautiful its certainly makes this job alot more pleasureable,what also made my day was the load offer i got as i was heading up,it was a load back to Summerside PEi, but having done this customers work before i know it wont be ready till sunday, so i started to plan the rest of Saturday, a nice day to be a tourist in Toronto i thought.First on the agenda was the C N Tower this thing is high, great for 2 people who are not really keen on heights Derrrr !!! anyway we both enjoyed it, definately quite an experience,i have done Calgary Tower and off course Blackpool Tower but niether come close to this, we even went to the highest point in the Sky pod i think its 147 storeys high 1465 ft above ground level, then the walk across the glass floor it really does make me nervous even though there are kids just running all over it.The weather here has been fantastic so it was off for some dinner then a stroll around the city before making our way back to the truck via the waterfront.Worn out we headed for the truckstop about 20 mins down the road,i can't believe how fast this week has gone, its been really good and so enjoyable and even better to have someone to brew up for me as we are on the move.