European driving hours really does my head in

Hay People.

Well I was not going to do much of blogs while I’m still in the UK. Not much excitement happens here :-) but I thought I would keep you up to date.

Over the weekend, the wife got me working like a pig lol. DIY on the house preparing it to rent out etc. Then bank holiday Monday is just a normal working day for Clipper. Well for us drivers anyway. So I had a 0930 booking in Swindon where I had to take a Double Decker trailer. The only down side for us to take deckers is we have a low bridge a few hundred yards down our depot, so we have to go the long way round each time. I got down to Homebase right on time only to find out they was not expecting me. (this is a standard weekly booking regardless of whether it is a bank holiday or not) that was the first problem. The second problem was, because I had a decker. The only forklift they had that would reach the top deck to off load it had been condemned, VOR (vehicle off road) so they could not off load me but would see what else they could do. At this point I opened up to see how many pallets was up on the top deck to see if I could handball them off. But by the time I got back to security to let them know, 10 mins later, miraculously the forklift was fixed. Miracle. lol Wot Everrr....But the driver was still on his break for another 20 mins or so. Bummer, I’m laid back so no worries really. Finally over 2 hours later I’m finally done. :-) But this is where the European driving hours really does my head in. I will be so glad when I’m over in Canada where the rules are much more relaxed. For those of you that don’t know. After four and half hours driving you must have a 45 min break. Like me I like to drive as much as that 4 ½ hours as I can before I have to stop. But that is always miles from the next truck stop so end up starving till you can drive on and find somewhere to eat on your travels. :-( They should give you that little flexibility to drive to a food stop of some kind……anyways when I left Homebase, because I had been so long, I had been working for 6 hours which means I have to have a minimum 30 min break even though I have not driven for 4 ½ hours. Their canteen was shut so had to break outside the gate, with no food again. Its no good just having the 30 mins has in another half hour I would have had to stop again for another 30 mins anyway so had the 45 and off I went again. Did get KFC on the move though. :-) So in the end a 9 hour day turned into a 12 hour day. But who cares. In 2 weeks I get to follow a more flexible way of driving lol

Where the adventure begins

Welcome to my blog. Lets set the picture

For years me and my wife had been looking to move abroad. To me life is “one thing leads to another” Well it worked so far anyway. :-) So one day in November 2008, I’m driving my Woolworth’s lorry on my way to my next store, when I here of a Canada Expo in Leeds UK at the weekend. Where if you was interested to find out more about moving to Canada, that was the place to go. Well Woolworth’s was on the way out so it was a good time to start looking. So I dragged the wife and kids round the expo and learned lots that we liked. :-) I left my CV with a few people and things went from there. Now cutting a long story short, I finally fly out in June to New Brunswick Canada to start my new role as a Long haul Truck driver covering North America. You may notice I said “I”, well I will cover that subject later.

So that brings us to this point. I have spent many hours sat in front of this pc screen doing research. Just ask the wife lol. Most of which was from blogs like this, by other UK dudes and families already in Canada. I have learned so much from you guys. I would like to thank you for that. Now it is my turn to do my part and hope others learn from me.

The main reason for this blog, is so all our friends and family can keep up with what we get up to and see just some of the things we see. But also along the way, I hope to give others looking to do what we are doing, a good insight from our experiences. They then get to make there own minds up on whether it is a life they are looking for just like we did.

This is where the adventure starts