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.It may have been noticed that I don’t put many blogs up on the Workshop website now. One of the reasons is that you can read all the interesting technical stuff about the work on the tractors on the engineer’s web site so I only occasionally have relevant stuff to put up.

As can be seen the truck and I both came back in one piece from our trip taking Tracy the TVO tractor back to just this side of the Scottish border. The roads were lousy going across Norfolk (very unusual this), snowy and slippery. I thought of 284 miles of this kind of going and my heart sank.

As I drove along in and out of wooded areas I kept thinking there was something strange about the snowy scene- something which didn’t fit into my memories of snow and finally it twigged that it was the sight of trees in their bright autumn colours  with snow on the ground and I realised that I had never actually seen this combination of orange leaves on the trees with snow covering the ground beneath. Frost, yes, edging the fallen leaves but not an unbroken blanket of snow. Because of course, we don’t usually have snow this early in the year. By the time I’d worked this out I was just this side of King’s Lynn and suddenly there was no more snow! 
I drove all the way to Scotch Corner on the A1 on clear roads where I stopped for the night. The television was full of ‘A1 blocked with snow’ stuff and indeed it was but higher up. However, in the morning I woke up to a muffled silence and found the truck and Tracy under a good five inches of the snow.  We made a slow getaway because as fast as I cleared the windscreen on the outside the inside frosted up again and vice versa. In desperation I wiped both sides with anti-freeze which did the trick.  I set off on an empty road submerged under inches-deep snow. A set of tracks made by an earlier vehicle was just about visible and I followed in these at a very cautious pace- the last thing I wanted was to slide off the road and damage my precious cargo. Occasionally a faster vehicle would eventually come into sight behind me and I would stop where the road widened into a gateway or similar, being very careful to keep the outside wheels still on the hard surface, and let them go by.

Part way along the A66 the traffic on the south side had come to a halt with a five mile tailback with both lanes of the dual carriageway blocked by two forty foot lorries locked together side by side where one had tried to pass the other and had slid sideways. I still wonder how they separated them but I didn’t come back that way so the tailback might have grown to fifteen miles  or more.

It was a new experience driving along a single track on a dual carriageway but the views of snowy road, snowy fields and mountains covered in snow from top to bottom were stunning. I realised that, not being a skiing enthusiast, I had never in my whole life seen mountains totally snow covered! Another first- great!

Tracy’s owner greeted me with , ‘I really didn’t expect to see you today’. I just smiled and patted my faithful, trusty truck.
Tracy, by this time had been on the back of the truck in icy and snowy conditions for over twenty-four hours but it was a credit to Jeff’s work that she still started on the first go!
The grin of pure satisfaction on the owner’s face as she did so was an absolute treat and he looked like a cat with the cream as he drove Tracy around in a circle in the snow. Its so great that Jeff can make people feel like that.

I reluctantly said goodbye to these particularly nice customers and headed back south.

I took the M6 this time and found the surface to be clear of snow and only manageably icy and even when I turned off towards Harrogate it was still clear.

One super thing on the way back was calling, unannounced (because I wasn’t sure I’d make it up narrow Yorkshire Moor roads), on friends whom I hadn’t seen for over fourteen years and getting such a welcome that it warms me now to think of it. With the dark evening and dropping temperatures I didn’t stay long but came away with a promise of a visit from them this coming year-
something lovely to look forward to.

The worst bit of the whole trip was driving 120 miles the next morning with no heater in the truck!  It was bitter!  Its always draughty in the truck and the air temperature was very low. I was saved from being frozen solid by the sunshine on the cab but boy! was I glad when fifty miles from home I suddenly felt a waft of warm air blowing on my frozen (gloved) hands!

On a more personal note I’ve made a decision to remain in my house on the cliff top until the erosion forces me out which I am very happy about. This came during a long meeting with the council officers in charge of trying to clear away the embarrassment of Happisburgh’s ‘houses from hell’ (they have been several times on the programme of that name) at which I was told that there was no way that I could take the £15,000 offered for the three bed-roomed bungalow itself but refuse the money in lieu of keeping the right to build elsewhere nearby. They were understanding about it but I became exasperated by being told that my field is not my garden therefore I cannot, as intended, make a garden there. ‘In that case,’ I snapped,’ You’d better prosecute me now because I’ve got a vegetable garden on it.!’ 
‘Oh, that’s ok,’ they said, ‘You’re allowed to grow vegetables on agricultural land.’
‘So what about companion planting, say, French Marigolds to keep whiteflies away?’
‘Oh that’s ok.’   !!!!!!!

We’ve been waiting for a supplier to send us the con-rod bearings for the Z120 for nearly eight weeks now but we will not have to wait much longer as I received and email from my super niece in the USA saying ‘ Your bearings are in my hand now. Putting them in the post today!
In the meantime the diesel, Bertha, is coming together in the usual controlled and painstaking way.