Mudances

Another week on the road with Flog It… Day 1.

seo_amigo — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:08:03 +0000

It was decided that the best time to leave home this time would be as early as possible on the Tuesday morning because we had to get from Girona up the Motorway to Avignon then across country to Roussillon to deliver those blasted chairs which if you have been keeping up with us you will know have been in store here since before they learned how to slice bread. Then we had to cross from the east side of France to the western middle around the Vichy / Moulins area to deliver the main part of the upward load hopefully before it got dark as the client was to be away back to Holland the following morning plus we had no idea where the delivery was other than on a private unmarked road in the middle of nowhere. And we were hoping for a sleepover of course followed by an early Wednesday start for the run up to the port of Dieppe.
So that was it, at the crack of 1pm we left Spain, crossing at La Jonquera into France and headed for the first toll booths at Le Boulou… Where we were immediately pulled over by customs to be searched!! Nicky must have been pretending to be asleep again as we cruised through the border area, she always looks suspicious when pretending to be asleep!! So that was us off to a good start as usual, somebody somewhere does not smile on us too often. Anyway they were happy and friendly chappies and were very careful not to put their bovver boots where they would break anything. Instead they used a certain few chairs as stepping stones to make their way around the truck, which is something I would not be telling the client when (or if) we ever get as far as Roussillon today. Clearing customs we headed north towards Avignon and then cross country towards delivery number 1. For a change I cannot fault Gertrude, since we traded her in for an upgrade last time we were in England this younger model has done us proud and took us right up the dirt track, past the wild dogs, horses and locals with knives in one hand and tomatoes in the other, straight to the hotel at the end… Luckily not called the Hotel California. The hotel car park served as a somewhat tight turning area and then we stopped to unload the four chairs at last and were we glad to see the back of them. Ever since we put them in store they have travelled with us here, there and everywhere except to where they were supposed to go and have been nothing but bad luck. They are gone, good riddance, hopefully the person that must have died whilst sitting on one of them will now haunt someone else for a while. Actually the house was next door to the hotel but did not have an address of its own, the whole row just used the same address as the hotel – Which was in fact very nice, out in the countryside with chairs out in the garden etc. I wouldn’t have minded staying there for the night but those chairs were still just too close for comfort so we headed off towards Lyon, then Clermont Ferrand and then out into the wilderness and up into the hills along narrow winding roads with deer jumping around and rabbits turning tail and racing away in front of us like being chased by greyhounds at a night out at the dogs.
Arrival at the old mill was actually quite uneventful, Gertrude knew exactly where to send us, along a private track owned by the local electric company to the only house on the road, by the side of the river. It was even a tarmac road, admittedly it was narrower than the track of the truck and our wheels were in the dirt on either side, but what the hell, we made it. This old Lynx truck has had a sheltered life until now, it has seen nothing yet. On arrival at around 1am, yes we missed our E.T.A. somewhat, as we do, our Dutch friends were sitting out by the river around an open fire, chilling the beers and wine in the river and generally enjoying the simple life.
As it turns out, they could not get into the house due to a cock-up so that is why they were all outside and why we could not unload and why we all sat around drinking until 3am before finally retiring to…… The barn!! One light bulb which we could not turn off, a door we could not close, an airbed with no covers and spiders hanging from the ceiling in cobwebs the size of fishing nets. I think tonight my mouth will stay tightly closed while I sleep. Up there in the Massif the days are warm at the moment, but mid summer or not that was one freezing cold night in that barn, and it lasted a damned long time. I can’t wait to see the house properly tomorrow and the plans are to turn it into a B&B and it is perfectly situated to be an overnight stop for us on future runs. But for now I am glad that for some reason I packed a fleece for this trip and that we always keep a couple of thin blankets in the cab just in case we need to spend a night high in the mountains in winter with snow all around us, which we do on most trips actually, but not for much longer if this B&B gets up and running.

It’s all Golf.

seo_amigo — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:04:33 +0000

After our delivery a couple of weeks ago down to Polaris World we were yet again called upon this weekend to do a collection from a golf resort, this time in France, Golf Saint Thomas near to Beziers. I must admit that the surroundings were beautiful and the restaurant at the golf club was suitably expensive but with good reason. The food was to die for and luckily we were not paying so it all tasted even better. There were a lot of unfinished properties on the course which are still for sale so if you are looking for a golf property in France then believe me you cannot do much better. Anyway, the job was to collect a motorbike, a couple of bicycles and a few other bits and bobs from Golf Saint Thomas and bring them back down to Tamariu for the new owners of a property which we manage here. The collection was completed without incident and then we had a fantastic lunch and then drove back home with all the goods and will take them around to the house probably tomorrow. My schoolboy French is very rapidly returning to me now and I am sure I will be fluent if we have to keep on going to France so often. In fact we have spent more time in France this month than we have here in Spain. Actaully I think between myself and Nicky we can converse better in French, Dutch & German than we can in Spanish!! Anyway that’s it for now, for the rest of the week we have the “day job” to do and then I have gardening every day so the vans will all be parked up and ignored for at least a week. About time too as my bum bone is really starting to suffer from being on my derriere too long.

Polaris World – Condado de Alhama.

seo_amigo — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:31:46 +0000

Friday 5th June (yes I know it was a while back but I only just got time to do this) we set out from home with a van load of goods heading for Polaris World, Condado de Alhama in Murcia. All the goods were already loaded from a couple of weeks earlier in Tamworth so we just jumped on board and headed south for a steady drive, arriving about midnight. It took some finding the way in to the resort as Gertrude had no idea of the streets as it was all new but we finally found a well guarded gate with a very helpful security guard who pointed us in the right direction. We pulled up outside the apartment, grabbed our bags, let ourselves in and then settled down for a night on a hard marble floor. Lovely!! Early next morning we awoke to a wonderful sunny day and by 07:00am we were already unloading the van into the apartment and chatting with the locals, all English. We did learn one thing though, you know the Polaris World adverts in TV where you get that Spanish guy called Juan telling you all about it? Well he is real and he is called Juan and he is moving into Condado very soon and everyone said what a nice guy he is. Seems to me we need to speak to Juan about getting some more work down there, especially if we end up moving our base down there later this year. Anyway, within a couple of hours we were done so we locked up and left the keys where we were told and then after a quick breakfast in the van we headed for Los Pinos house hunting. Quite a few nice suitable properties down in that area, you never know we may end up down in the area. After three viewings it was up to Denia and our usual hotel for the night but not the usual staff, we did not know anybody – Or more to the point they did not know us and it cost a fortune, nearly twice what we normally pay. But none the less we had a good stay and cannot complain and after breakfast the following morning we were just getting into the van as we were approached by an English man enquiring about the cost of a removal from there in Denia down to Puerto Banus on the Costa del Sol. We tried our best to negotiate our way into the deal but the problem was that it was Sunday and he was not, and could not move until Tuesday so unfortunately there was nothing we could do to help so once more we set off home towards Tamariu. The van should be able to do this journey on its own by now, and it virtually did. Whilst over in England a couple of weeks earlier I went into Halfords in Tamworth and finally had Gertrude cremated, what a total waste of space that GPS was. I was very worried about leaving the store with a replacement Garmin, I really wanted a TomTom because Gertrude had really destroyed my faith in the make but the very nice man in the shop insisted in an upgrade to a slightly better model and I have to admit that since then she has not let us down and we have been pretty much on time at all destrinations since. Time will tell. This coming week we have another long journey ahead of us so it will get a good test through France, Luxembourg, Germany, Holland, Belgium and back. We collected goods in Lloret de Mar today ready to go and we know our way so if she plays silly buggers we will know. The photos are already on Picasa and in the slide show on the Blogger blog at http://blog.flog-it.net/ in case you are not already there.

Coming up after this trip we have Roussillon and Beziers next weekend and then around the end of the month another trip to Holland and beyond which could yet turn into another Marathon and end down in the Costa del Sol. More next time, hasta luego.

Plan B it is then.

seo_amigo — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:02:09 +0000

We ended up having a late start on Thursday due to a string of phone calls that I will not go into here, needless to say it was an unwanted start to the trip and also created a diversion for the way back home which meant we had to head south via Limoges instead of the preferred eastern route which instantly meant that the Roussillon delivery was out of the question due to time constraints. That aside, the weather north through France was awful as usual but amazingly we actually hit Oostende on time as the journey through the Massif was not too slow in a virtually empty truck. One happy customer later we departed Belgium for Calais and an afternoon crossing. This was the first time we had chance to look around the ferry for the truckers lounge and restaurant and would you believe it truck drivers get free hot drinks and soft drinks. I like it. We also get quite a good exchange rate on board – Higher then the published rates and to be honest they were worth having, saving the problem of sorting out cash on the other side. On the journey up to Tamworth we had yet more telephone calls from the same source to pile on the pressure and delay us so it was almost midnight when we finally made base camp which did not please our UK team too much as they had a 4:00am start to get up to Morpeth for a collection. We on the other hand had a little lie in before heading out to make a collection locally that is heading down to Murcia and then across to Derby to collect some computer stuff. Saturday afternoon saw the arrival of Frank & Rose back from Morpeth and a quick change over of vehicles before dinner and a night in front of the Eurovision Song Contest. And the winner was, Norway Nil Points – Pity because I liked the Swedish “Popera” style entry and also Azerbaijan. For me Norway was just what it used to be, “Nil points”. Sunday morning we went shopping because a delivery that was supposed to be at base camp for us to collect had not arrived so another delay there as we had really wanted to be on the road early today, but there ya go!! Now that we were working to plan B we headed towards Limoges, got there bang on time and sorted things out, then headed to Le Vallee Heureuse not far from Perpignan, unfortunately having to miss out Roussillon as stated earlier as it would have put us too late. That delivery out of the way we headed down to Spain and amazingly arrived home pretty much on time. Not like us at all, despite the problems everything was on time, Arnie ran like a dream and we got home on the same day we planned. That’s it for a while now, we will head down to Murcia after bank holiday week to make the final delivery and then we need to make ready for the June run up to Holland. If you have anything heading up that way or coming back please give us a shout. It is pretty certain now that the Holland trip will continue over to England with Arnie and then maybe even go back down as far as the Costa del Sol – Open to ideas. I want to get Arnie signwritten by then too if I can, may even name him like Eddie Stobart does. Sad aren’t I?

Flog It Air Transport.

seo_amigo — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:03:52 +0000

As the Easter weekend is now well and truly past I will just gloss over the rest of it very briefly. Very late Tuesday our friends arrived (Hi Judith, Mark & Cam), Wednesday we all went out, Thursday we stayed in and then they went home at night. How’s that? Easter finished. Well almost anyway. Some time back (it’s in a blog somewhere) our man on the ground in England got a flying lesson as a birthday gift and this Easter it was time for him to become our man in the air. It would seem he enjoyed it very much and lived to tell the story, so did the instructor and the Cessna. The photos are somewhere in our online albums so all that is needed now is for him to get more lessons over the years ahead, buy himself a jumbo jet and Bob’s yer Uncle Flog It Air Transport will take to the skies. In your dreams!!

The following weekend saw a quick jaunt up to Port Leucate and half a dozen oysters with a glass of wine for 7 Euros. Delicious!! Then in the evening we visited a Hippopotamus Grill near Perpignan and had one of the best steaks in years, but if you want a better one get yourself up to Cuxhaven on the German north sea coast.

Anyway now it’s back to work and the next trip is rapidly becoming one of our round Europe epics looking like it will probably cross France, Luxembourg, Germany, Holland & Belgium as well as Spain and England. All that in Arnie at 12mpg!! I have updated the map accordingly and will also keep the mini updates coming via Twitter.

A quiet Easter weekend away.

seo_amigo — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:43:55 +0000

Easter Saturday morning was an early start, we had to get a villa cleaned before we could depart on our weekend trip. By early lunchtime we were done, we picked up or friends and headed for our Santa Susanna hotel. Arriving luckily before lunch was over we threw the bags into our rooms and shot down for some grub to make the most of the all inclusive package. At this stage all was well and good, little did we know what was to follow – Nicky has updated our review forum about the hotel and anyone else can review hotels, restaurants etc there if you wish to warn others of impending doom or of great places to go. I will say no more here about H.Top Royal Sun. After lunch we all hopped on the fantastic train link to Calella to take our friends to Jordi’s bar where I have spent many a happy hour over roughly the last 10 years. It was cerrado until 8pm, well we would be back in the hotel by then stuffing our faces again so no hanging about, off to Groucho’s for a pint – Closed!! Sold up to become a local produce shop. All is not going well. A quick trip to Luna (luckily still there) the ethnic shop where I got my didgeridoo, to buy another bird feeder and a couple of other wooden bits. At last someone who remembers who we are and is glad to see us. So we ended up watering ourselves down at Corleone’s, round the corner, friendly staff and not expensive. After that it was back to the hotel (4 star!! What a joke) for dinner and then down to the bar for a fight.. Er I mean drink, sorry. Next day it was absolutely persisting it down so the best we could do was amble around locally and sit outside La Maduixa watching the world go by over a jug of Sangria, boy was it cold!! After lunch the best we could do was retire to our rooms for a siesta and to get ready for dinner followed by another altercation in the bar. Monday on the Costa can only mean one thing… Blanes market!! One of the best in the area and one of only two I have ever been to on my own – Pineda being the other. It always takes a long time to get from one end of the market to the other, especially with all the punctuation stops at various watering holes. One idea was to visit one of our favourite Chinese restaurants for lunch but, guess what? It had closed down. All our old haunts from back living in Lloret when all these places were local are now closed, how things change in just a few years. Most of the damage caused by the winter storms in Blanes has now been repaired just as it has here in Tamariu and also in Tossa de Mar as an afternoon drive over confirmed. We jumped onto the local tourist train there for a trip through the narrow streets to see some places never visited before. No more cafes full of sand or bars with boats through the windows, all was well and looking good. The driver of the “Bimble Train” as Nicky calls it for reasons known only to herself was obviously a dog lover – Every time we drove past one of our four legged friends he dipped into a bag of doggy biscuits and fed one or two to the aforementioned beast, must be to break the boredom of “Bimbling around” all day. Next morning saw us checking out of the hotel, jumping on the train to Barcelona, ambling up and down La Rambla, menu del dia in our favourite Italian (Marzano’s – There’s one in Sitges too if you can’t get to Barcelona) followed by C&A and a train back to the car and an hours drive home. Home about 8:30pm, was that the end of it? Oh no… At around midnight we had friends arriving for a couple of days… The story is far from over yet.

An open & shut case.

seo_amigo — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:00:07 +0000

It’s been a long time since we got back from the final leg of the previous round trip down to Javea, over a week in fact. I was going to write about the delivery to Wendy & John, “Hi Wendy & John”. I thought about writing about our evening in the Hotel Port Denia and our chat with Norman & John, “Hi Norman & John”. But like I said a lot has happened since then, I have been to England on a plane and that was much more exciting. No problems what so ever on departure for the outbound flight. No problems while over in Derby either, apart from the snow and driving rain on Friday. The hotel was good, breakfast great, food superb, beer…. Well yes I have to admit it was that smooth flow crap and at £3 a pint I think they were pushing their luck. It was once I got to East Midlands Airport and attempted to leave the country that the fun began. Now I know I sometimes push my luck and try to bend a few rules but the procedure to get out of England is such a pain in the derriere, especially as I was carrying exactly the same as for the outward journey. I took off my jacket, like in Spain, and removed my laptop case from my hand luggage bag like it says to do, only one piece of hand luggage per person but you have to split it down into component parts for HM Customs. Once I got to the scanners I had to remove my belt (which I wore through in Spain), then I had to remove my shoes (in Spain they stayed on my feet), then I also had to remove the laptop from its case and place it in its very own plastic bin to go through the scanner, in Spain the laptop stayed in it’s case. Feeling half naked I walked through the body scanner and guess what? I set it off!! I don’t even wear a watch so I cannot for the life of me explain why, but needless to say the one in Spain let me walk straight through, shoes, belt and all. One “frisk” later I was standing getting dressed as I watched my bags come out of the X-Ray machine…. Laptop, laptop case, shoes, jacket, hand luggage. Then the security guard hit the reverse button, back went the hand luggage and stopped whilst a couple more men in black gathered to look. I could see them pointing at something and discussing it. It was an almost square thing with three prongs poking out of it and to me it looked just like a standard UK three pin plug, and there was a good reason for that. My case was marked for search and I had to stand and wait while other cases were searched and once a guard became free it was my turn. Once the case was open there it was in full view for all to see, next to the three pin plug… Oh my God this case is packing a well squeezed tube of toothpaste!! Security alert, it was not allowed through, even though it was less than 100ml unless for the sum of £1 I was to purchase a protective and toothpaste neutralising clear plastic bag. Now I thought that if the bag cost a quid it would need to be lead-lined so I refused and instructed the powers that be to place the offending item in the nearest quarantined receptacle. Of course a case carrying one banned substance could well be carrying another so a more thorough search produced a half empty deodorant spray which with my permission met the same fate as the toothpaste. “Don’t worry Sir, you can buy a replacement once you are through customs.” Said the guard. Then it struck me, what a damned clever idea, here we are in times of crisis and the HM Customs are trying to save the economy and save Boots the chemist from bankruptcy by confiscating unsuspecting toiletries and forcing unsuspecting passengers to buy new and therefore stimulate the economy!! Gordon Brown would be proud of them. “No thank you, I would rather stink!!” The case was closed and re-packed and I was allowed through and once on the other side I sat down in departures and re-opened the case to take out the bottle of vodka which they missed and gave myself a well deserved mouthwash. Nice one Cyril.

Good Old Arnie.

seo_amigo — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:03:31 +0000

At last, almost recovered from the longest journey in history I now have to write this just before departing again southwards for the final leg of this trip. Not that this journey was actually a long one, oh contraire, in fact it was quite short really, just that with the total gross weight of the truck being only 20kg below max when we put it on the weighbridge at Dover it was just slow progress down through the Massif in France. In fact one 200km stretch took us 6 hours to complete and an overnight stop in a Campanile was in order. Now if you are a regular reader you will know I do not rate the Etap hotels, and now I will add Campanile to that list – A double bed & a single in a room the size of a double bed and a single, and the very first time I have been able to stand under a shower without getting wet. Give me an Ibis any day of the week. Looking back over the trip, Friday 13th was uneventful for us although the Premier Inn at Manchester Airport had a rotten day, they got everything we asked mixed up and eventually were throwing food at us as an apology (not literally) yet we just could not eat another thing. The following day the collection of Arnie went smoothly and the drive to Tamworth was uneventful and once we got to load the goods collected from Inverness we realised just how big Arnie was. The goods were like a pimple on an elephants arse. A full LWB van load took up just one small part of Arnie from floor to ceiling. The evening festivities were fantastic, stag & hen nights for some friends who are getting married in Las Vegas next week – The whole ceremony will be internetified so I will be watching it live from my hotel room in Derby next week when I go for training. Today we have unloaded the goods into our faithful Iveco Daily XLWB and it has filled it about three quarters of the way, yet it looked nothing in “Arnold” – I can see this being a good investment. In our spare time we took Gertrude back to Halfords to have her put out of her misery… “Have you updated the software?” said the expert. “Not lately – Since she last dropped me in it I just put her away and ignored her.” “There is an update, please try it out and let me know what happens.” “It’s a bag of crap, I don’t want it.” “Please just try it.” “okay.” Anyway I let him update it, then we drove the rest of the way down to Dover etc and once we got to Calais she… (Gertrude) immediately put us on the wrong road and was once again thrown on the scrap heap. I can honestly say that this Garmin GPS is THE biggest piece of junk I have ever had the misfortune to own, it just cannot map read to save it’s life and I am sure you would do better with a blindfold and a pin. Anyway the drive south was smooth yet slow and Nicky got her chance to re-live her childhood only this time instead of sitting in the passenger seat whilst her Dad drove her around in his lorry, she was in the driving seat herself – We make a good team really when we are not arguing over the “Other Woman” – (Gertrude!!). Once finally back home on Tuesday we got the local deliveries out of the way and then transferred the Inverness load into our good old Daily ready for onward transport down to Javea. Like I keep saying, if you are in the area just give us a shout on one of the Spanish numbers we list and come and join us for a pint or three. Thanks very much to the two Posers David & Jason on board the P&O Ferry Pride of Canterbury, they just could not resist getting in on the photo shoot during the parking of the truck on the ferry so we told them their mugshots would appear on the blog for the whole world to see… So here they are!! A round of applause for David & Jason Ladies and Gentlemen, they do something on the boat to earn a living… Not sure what but it doesn’t look too hard!! Sorry it’s a bit dark lads but your high viz jackets work too well and there was no time for a second shot.

We did take a load of photos apart from this one and once we are back from Javea we will put the whole lot up on Picasa and link it from here so you can take a butchers.

“Transport”, “eBay” & “Bouncy Tits”.

seo_amigo — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:18:12 +0000

For the technical amongst you, I spent a couple of hours today going over the analytics for our website to see what I can change to bring in more traffic. We are already bringing in around 1000 hits a week which for a small business like us is not bad but there is always room for improvement (we still have banner exchange space available if you are interested). I have gone over everything Yahoo, Microsoft & Google say to make sure I get good positions in the search results but I have concentrated on Google to get a good position in their rankings. When I search on Yahoo, there we are on page 1 of the results but in position 8. When I search on Live Search, wow we are at number 2 in the hit parade. As for Google, no where to be seen, on page 1 anyway. Looking deeper into it I had a look at what keywords were actually being successful and which ones are useless and it turns out that our best keywords are “Transport” which I can well understand and “eBay” which I agree we also use. However I have to admit that I am totally baffled as to where they get “Bouncy Tits” from but hey, who’s complaining!! Obviously more work is needed in Google to improve our results. Of course I now expect to get many more hits on this blog as I have now used those fantastic keywords “Transport”, “eBay” and “Bouncy Tits” three times!! So now the search is on for more high quality keywords, I think for starters I’ll try “Great Tits” and “Blue Tits”. What do you think?

The trouble with staff….

seo_amigo — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:23:00 +0000

Now our trip to go and fetch Arnie (more in a future post – Call

that a cliff hanger) in a couple of weeks is going to be a bit tight for time so we thought it best we get our newly arranged UK based van to go and do the Inverness collection for us and bring the goods down to storage for us to collect later. As this is a famil

y business of course, the UK operation is run by Nicky’s brother so no matter which van arrives on your doorstep it will most likely be manned by a man & wife team so that the men can work while the women stand and talk about it. (That one’ll get me into trouble, pound to a penny). So Saturday afternoon our Frank set off up to the land of

Single Malt and Plaid in the direction of Inverness so that Sunday the collection could be effected during the hours of daylight and a good start made back doon hame again. Didn’t know I could speak Scottish did you? As for the trouble with staff, as you can see from the photos somebody got to pay a visit to a highland pub. Somebody got to visit the Beatrix Potter Garden. Somebody got to see Loch Ness. AND IT

WASN’T US!!! Well at least he didn’t get to see the Wee Beastie or their would’ve been trouble. Anyway, according to the customer everything went perfectly well, which was to be expected, collection done and the journey back south completed by 02:30am and the following morning the van unloaded into the storage.

Just the one thing, as a social in the public eye, under the spotlight, internet based removals company that relies on word of mouth and customers loving being the stars of our blogs and photo albums…. Working for Flog It means not only being a driver, but also a photographer, copywriter and comedian. Now I need to update the map and in two weeks time (Friday 13th to be exact) we jump on Ryanair and go and collect Arnie ready to load him up and bring everything including the kitchen sink (seriously) back down to sunny Spain.