Girona - Murcia – Malaga.

Yes I know this is taking things out of sequence but it is summer, we are busy and I will forget what to write if I don’t do it now. Having only blogged day 1 of the collection trip so far here I am telling you about another subsequent delivery, never mind I am sure you will forgive me!! So we have had quite a store of boxes since our trip back to the UK at the end of July and the time has finally come to deliver the lot down to Murcia and Malaga. Saturday night we loaded the van with all the goods to go and planned an early night – Gone midnight we hit the sack which blew the 6:00am start and we finally hit the road at around 09:30am (predictable or what?) Another thing we were doing on this trip was testing mobile internet so that hopefully we could update Twitter, Facebook and check email whilst actually on the road and then hopefully this would mean that on a future trip we can test the webcam view through the windscreen. If you are a follower of us on Twitter or Facebook you will know that the internet worked perfectly well so we will be trying the webcam on the next trip. We hit the AP-7 at Lloret de Mar and headed south beyond Valencia before heading inland slightly to our first delivery in Roldan in Murcia.

Everything was going smoothly except for a niggling problem with starting the van in the almost 40 degree heat – Once the engine was cut there was no way on earth it would start again unless left to cool for about 30 minutes. I think a full service is needed, after all it has lived out here for four years now and although plenty of work has been carried out, basic checking for things that may be about to happen has been overlooked and whilst it has never let us down we could do more to make sure that it never does. After unloading at Roldan we carried on south another couple of hours before finally stopping for food at a service station and then making up the bed in the back of the van and opening a bottle of red wine (and drinking a little of course) and reading for a while we crashed out around 11pm for a nights shuteye. 07:00am and we were up again having breakfast and then back on the road to complete the southbound leg of the journey, arriving in Alameda near Antequera at 10:30 to unload, have a cup of tea (thank you Peter) and then turn straight around and head back north to Murcia where we had a hotel waiting for us.

Arriving back up in Murcia at about 3:00pm we checked into the hotel, had showers & got changed ready to go out and view a property we have had an eye on for a while, but more of that later if it all happens. Monday & Tuesday nights were spent in the hotel with a nice relaxing day in between only ruined by shopping in Nueva Condomina which is totally WiFi friendly so if only I had my laptop with me. Wednesday morning was a little more shopping and then we hit the road about 13:30 to head back up to Girona, arriving home at 21:30 giving us time to wind down and relax before going to bed. I must say that on this trip we saw more accidents than usual, a head on incident on the A-7 on the way south at Valencia where a car had obviously spun and been hit by another held us up which was where we first noticed the problem with starting in the heat, then at almost the same point but on the northbound carriageway on the way back home we had a car greasy side up in the central reservation causing delays. Later in the evening at Barcelona there was a car at the side of the road with 4 fire engines, an ambulance and loads of police so it must actually have been more than it looked but I could not actually figure out the problem. This coming weekend we are back down to Murcia again and then next week another local delivery of items collected on the previous UK trip. And you never know, maybe more about that property we went to view!!

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

Quick update

It's been a while since I last tickled the keyboard to update you all with a blog rather than a tweet so I will just say a few words to keep you informed. The load for Oostende is packed into Arnie and tomorrow morning we will hit the road via which ever route takes our fancy and head for Belgium. Plan "A" is to work two drivers on 4.5 hour alternate shifts + an hour each at the end to give us twenty hours on the road hopefully to hit Belgium in one go and then take the mandatory 9 hours rest. We will instead probably work to plan "B", but we don't know what that will be until it happens - You know us too well!! Then hopefully a quick delivery in Oostende followed by a blast down to Calais and a crossing as early as we can because believe it or not we really need to be in Derby by Friday early evening. I believe "Cutting it fine" is the technical term. In Derby we need to pick up some IBM bits and bobs then head for a stopover and a collection in Tamworth the next day. Hopefully our man Frank has pulled everything into storage there so we now only have the one collection instead of two so we can have an early night (Oh look, there's a pig flying past) followed by an early start to hit Dover in time to get us to Calais around 10pm (HGV watershed) so we can have another marathon blast down to Roussillon and some place near Le Boulou and then home on Monday night. No don't laugh, seriously that's the plan. Can't see it, can you? No thought not.

Flog It Air Transport.

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.

Spain’s El Bulli voted best restaurant in world again

Reproduced with kind permission of Chris Marshall (almerimarlife.com) due to the fact that the restaurant is fairly local to us. No we have not been to it yet!!

Spanish restaurant El Bulli was named the world’s best restaurant for the fourth year in a row at a ceremony in London Monday, but its head chef dedicated the prize to his British runner-up.
The restaurant in Catalonia came top of the S Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2009 following a poll of more than 800 chefs, restaurant critics and industry insiders for Restaurant Magazine.
Accepting the highly prestigious award, El Bulli head chef Ferran Adria said it had been “a very important night for Spain”, with Spanish restaurants occupying three of the top five spots.
He also praised Heston Blumenthal, the chef at Britain’s The Fat Duck restaurant, who was forced to temporarily close his establishment earlier this year after a health scare and who came second in Monday’s list.
“I dedicate this prize to Heston Blumenthal. He has shown me what honesty means in this business…. This prize is for you,” Adria said.
In third place after The Fat Duck was Denmark’s Noma, followed by Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain, Per Se in the United States, Bras in France, Arzak in Spain, Pierre Gagnaire in France and Alinea in the US.
Blumenthal – whose signature dishes include snail porridge, and egg and bacon ice cream – repaid the complement, referring to Adria as “my teacher”.
He added: “If you had told me 10 or 15 years ago that I would be in the top 200 restaurants in the world I would have been delighted.

A quiet Easter weekend away.

Hi Sarah.

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 (linked from here and our website) 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.

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.

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.

Ready to roll..... Again.

I will keep this short as it is almost midnight and I need my beauty sleep. Tomorrow we set off on our journey to collect Arnie and bring a couple of loads back south to Spain. The map has been updated (www.flog-it.net/move/map.html) and we will try and update as much as we can whilst on the road at http://twitter.com/flog_it which does also duplicate to our Facebook and Blogger page. Hopefully whilst on the road this time we will be sorting a dongle to give us mobile internet in the UK and also getting rid of Gertrude as she does not know her a**e from her elbow and cannot map read to save her life - Her days are numbered. Should you need to contact us then most numbers appear on the right hand side of this blog (assuming you are reading this at http://flog-it.blogspot.com) but we also have a "follow me" number which is +44 (0)7092 207539 and will hopefully work anywhere..... Which is to be proved!!

That's it, I'll do my best to keep you posted.

“Transport”, “eBay” and “Bouncy Tits”.

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….

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.

Where it all began....

Around 1905 my great grandparents moved into Old Church Street in Nottingham where the family then continued to live until almost the turn of the millennium. In the early years they ran a fish and chip shop but by 1921 that had gone as after renting land next to the houses a coal yard had been created and local coal deliveries started with a horse and cart. Of course as we later found out for ourselves, having a vehicle capable of doing other work means you get asked to do that other work as well and so the first seeds of a removals business were sown as local people were helped to move house. By 1930 the horse and cart had given way to a lorry and my great grandfather was "The Man" if anything needed moving from A to B and the lorry was also used in the May Day parades when the Castle Ward Labour Party used to decorate it and use it as one of the floats. Alsatians were kept as guard dogs at the coal yard and my great grandfather even had a monkey and it was usual for his favourite Alsatian or the monkey to accompany him in the cab whilst out working. The first picture shows my great grandfather and his favourite Alsatian looking out of the cab of the lorry, sorry but I do not know the date of the photo. With a vehicle of his own to maintain he became quite an adept mechanic also and began to take on work for other people and the coal yard at the side of the house was used as parking for various vehicles, some awaiting repair, some used as spare parts, and a small van which was home to the monkey.  In fact the repair side of the business was doing so well that by the end of the 1930's an old barn had been rented on the corner of Abbey Bridge & Gregory Street which became Priory Garage and remained a family business until the late 1960's which I can just rememeber, the coal business gradually falling by the wayside. The second photo is of the Priory Garage which was eventually demolished to make way for Red Cross offices which still stands on the site today.

Now almost a century later, based on the Costa Brava near the French border we are almost halfway between the UK and the Costa del Sol, perfect for the AP-7 and collections and deliveries all along the Mediterranean coast, much better than Skegness which was holiday destination of choice back then. In fact as another story goes, one day my great grandfather arrived home with an old bus strapped to the back of his lorry. It was a small bus without any wheels and fitted perfectly on the flatbed of the lorry and that summer it was used like a caravan for the family holiday. Later holidays were more conventional after he purchased a static caravan at Ingoldmells.

March trip, coming together slowly.

So, ten days since my last posting, that's not good. People will think I have forgotten about them. Firstly "Hello Cookstown". You know who you are even if I don't. Actually I was trying to pull in a trip across to Ireland on the next run but I don't think it will happen as we will not be in the usual van. Time for the BIG NEWS!! We are expanding our fleet yet again with the addition of a 7500kg truck which should now be adequate for almost anything you can throw at us. While the usual van is good for most things, it does get a bit dodgy sometimes with the load weight and we are restricted when people bring large items of furniture with them. So the next trip is in the big one, I need a name for it now - We already have "Old Faithful" and the "Ice Cream Van" so now this one needs christening... Entries on a post card please. To give you an idea it's a damned great big black thing about three times the size as "Old Faithful".
The upcoming trip has been delayed due to the weather England has been having but I think it is now about sorted. If things stay as they are we should start out in time for the weekend of 7th & 8th March and cover Preston, Inverness (Hi Wendy!!), Tamworth, Nottingham, King's Lynn, Frinton-on-Sea and then across the puddle down to the Limoges area again before coming back home for a few days and then continuing down to Javea. WooHoo, another stay in the Port Denia Hotel!! We may yet be adding pick-ups in Liverpool and Kent to that list but I have a couple of weeks to confirm those still. I will update the map at every chance I get. If you live near the Denia area and are planning a move then please come and join us for the evening and a chat, the drinks are on us.
I have added a link to the webcam from the website and the main blog now ready for when we get the mobile internet up and running. For the time being if you follow it you will either get nothing at all, or if you are really lucky a live feed of our resident Robin trying to get at the fatball hanging in front of my office window.
There are many other things in the pipeline at the moment so rest assured I will keep you informed. Hasta la vista!!

Important website updates.

Just letting you know of another couple of website updates that are designed to keep us in touch with our customers and potential new clients. In an ongoing attempt to make us more easily accessible and the site more interactive we added ourselves to facebook where we can comment and share information with each other and we also added a chat box to our Blogger blog so you can ask questions and we can also post information without the need for a new blog posting. Well now we have added a "Live Chat" link to our main blog site and also to a couple of pages on the website and will be rolling it out further over the coming weeks. Basically what this does when we are online is open up a messenger style window where we can communicate with you in real time, or if we are off-line it sends us an email that we will respond to as soon as we can. Also thanks to Google we have now added a link to a map that shows the route we intend to take on our next trip as we get to know it. The beauty of this is that we can update it en-route (WiFi hotspot permitting) so you always know what is coming next.


View Larger Map

Also as you know we are testing a webcam so that once we get mobile internet you can see videos of us as we go and also (co-driver permitting) chat with us again in real time while we are on the road. I for one am really looking forwards to that one.

See you next posting.....
http://www.flog-it.net/
http://flog-it.blogspot.com/

A quick update FYI.

Tonight we just popped round to see if the council had done anything about the remainders of the fallen branch and "By Jove Missus" it had gone. Nice neat job it was too, no sign that it had ever been there, apart from the huge scar on the offending tree of course.

On a more social side, Flog It now has its own place on Facebook where you can get to know us, our customers, friends and unfortunately our kids. Any of you who want to give your business a quick plug can sign up and be friends if you wish, I expect the page to start to get steadily increasing hits through from the websites and blogs which are currently getting much busier week by week. I think you can find us here http://www.facebook.com/people/Flog-It-Transport/1253470971

I have been playing with setting up the webcam so you can get a view through the windscreen of the van whilst we are travelling, with limited success. It works great on the Desktop computer but I get bugger all when trying it on the laptops. The problem being the private IP addresses on the LAN this side of the fire walled router keeping us safe from the outside WAN so unless I stick the server on the dash of the VAN (Vehicular Area Network?) I'm stuck for now. More as I sort it out.

Her indoors has asked me to point out that she is now an agent for ukshoppinginspain.com. You southerners will probably know all about that but up near north of Valencia it's virtually a mystery. Basically you visit http://www.ukshoppinginspain.com/ to read all about, go shopping online at your favourite UK website or the Argos catalogue and the give your order to ukshopp..etc dot com and quote NS/home/2201 and Robert is your Mothers Brother!! You can find that on our Facebook too!!

Hopefully we have some really big news coming up in the next week, stay tuned.

Tree trouble.

We were asked to clear up a garden after the storms by owners that had seen the news about the area and were due to arrive this weekend for a short stay and did not really want to spend their time clearing up the mess. The two photos here show part of what we found on arrival.

As you can see a massive branch had ripped from a tree just outside the garden fence and had fallen inside almost bringing down the telephone cables and telegraph pole with it. The pole was in fact leaning quite badly toward the house and there was a crack in the concrete where it was standing as the wires seemed to be stretched almost to breaking point. Now I am no expert lumberjack but to me the best idea seemed to be to at least relieve the pressure from the cables and then get the local council in to finish the job because the ground is very steep and I didn't want to risk cutting too much and having the branch then twist downhill and take the whole local telephone sytem with it. Out came the chainsaw and I cut away all that I could find that was adding weight to the matter but not providing support, then I cut away as much as I dared from just behind the wires, back up towards the trunk and then gently slid the wires upwards until they were no longer under such high tension so hopefully relieving the risk of them pulling down poles. That done, all the rest of the mess was cleared, the owners arrived and were well chuffed and the council have now been called. Wonder how long it will take them to come and finish the job?

The shape of things to come.

This is just to let you know of a few things we are working on for the future of our website and blog pages etc that may be of interest to you - Or not, as the case may be.

In conversation with Charliemac (as this ramble is posted to 4 different blog sites you may or may not know who he is) we are looking at some kind of webcam feed for whilst we are on the road so that you can actually look out of our windscreen and try to put your foot through the floor when you think I am too close to the vehicle in front - I hate backseat drivers!!. This feed will then hopefully be accessed via the website and possibly one or two of the blog sites. I am testing it at the moment by feeding a view of our garden, and it does not work but after working with computers for over 25 years I expect to solve that very soon. It will also feature a chat box so you can interact with us but please don't expect a reply whilst I am driving, though the co-driver may respond if she's not asleep or engrossed in a film.

In conjunction with the above we plan GPS tracking so that you can see exactly where we are just by looking at a map on the net. This is not fully working yet either as all I can get it to do at the moment is show us at home or in Norway. And we are never in Norway!! Well not yet anyway, who knows.

Also, already gone live on the main blog site (www.flog-it.blogspot.com) is another chat box so you can leave messages and we can respond quickly. We added this because we do not have comments enabled on that blog even though it is our main point of contact. Also we can leave little snippets of info whilst on the road without having to write a complete blog posting. Take a look and see what you think.

And finally, as part of our other work, do you need a holiday? Take a look at the picture. This is one of the holiday villas that we manage that still has some early and late season weeks available for booking. It has fantastic views over Tamariu from almost the highest point in the hills so if you want to keep us in work during these hard times then you need to take a holiday. It does actually have a fantastic terrace area and balcony and also a very big swimming pool, just that this photo does not really do justice to the size and situation of the villa.