britainswomble

Stand in any town on a Friday night when the pubs and clubs close and watch the muppets with food. I've seen loads of them walk out of the kebab shop or burger bar and literally throw the food they don't want on the ground. Salads are usually scattered everywhere along with surplus wrapping. Half of the tw*ts don't know where their mouths are either judging by the amount they drop when they are eating. They think they are really cool. When I had my workshop in the High Street; Saturday morning usually started by clearing up the mess from the night before and washing away vomit from the alley. What really gets my gander up is discarded nappies in car parks and along the roadside, but the funniest, and not very nice thing I ever saw; was a crow, trying to eat a condom. Eeeeyuk. (Vomiting smiley) \

We still haven't found our lovely little cat yet. She is believed to have been seen in a village two miles away, and we've put up posters with a fifty pound reward, but don't hold out much hope, even though a woman we spoke to is certain she had her looking through her back window a couple of days ago. There have been sightings of a cat answering her description today, but we couldn't find her anywhere.

I haven't seen Trevor for a few weeks and didn't know he was leaving. He said his job was hard work owing to what people were expecting to get for trade ins. I don't know whether he worked on commission only or how he was paid, but he has an ex wife and two little girls to support as well as the rent on the cottage he lives in. I thought he would have been more likely to go back to Haynes rather than the "Opposition". Sales was never an easy job. When I did it; all my work was "Cold Calling" and I had a sales manager who was "On the take" and often undercut me if the customers bypassed me. It didn't help the fact that they moved my area three times in the six years I did it. I used to sell a lot of second hand tractors initially, but my sales manager started selling them to local dealers who took away a lot of my sales. Trevor's brother Mick has commented on how hard things can be, but he has had some good runs in the past. Trouble is that farmers are buying less, contractors are buying bigger and fewer machines and the competition is getting tougher. The companies hiring out new seasonal machines don't make it any easier either. It's hard to make a living doing anything any more, as we all know.

;D ;D :* * Oh well........time for some breakfast, a cup of coffee an' a ***. Doncha just hate it though when they pi** around with the clocks. Roll on winter..........then we can have our extra hour in bed back again.

Never seen nuffink like them before. Who are they made by and what sort of horsepower would they be. They always look deceptively large unless they are parked next to something familiar. The loaders look like fairly standard tractor loaders, as in not that heavy a construction. A few months ago there was an article in one of the tractor mags on a Zetor crawler. It looked quite chunky on its own, a bit smaller with the driver sat on it, and stood next to a modern mid range Massey, it looked more the size of a Ransomes MG2 crawler. Interesting.......

Just remembered, the contractor at Broxmead lane is John? Upton if I remember rightly. Sorry to all our other members if this seems a bit selfish using this post for reminiscing; but there are a few people on here from Sussex, and it gives them a chance to add their few "penneth" if they recognize the names. There are a group of you who know each other well enough to meet up and attend events together, so I hoped that maybe we could do the same around here. Ie meeting up at shows and ploughing matches etc. Maybe then I too might have some friends.

Ok, now you've started me off again. I know Trevor, Mick and Tim. My father worked for Jim Pitts as their Herdsman and Trevors dad, George worked on the same farm as a Tractor driver. This is the bit where it all gets a bit incestuous. I've worked with all of them in our Sussex Tractor days, worked with George on the farm, and ............er...........I'm married to Mick's ex wife. Have been for 16 years this year. My step children are Trev's nieces and nephews. Bu**er boy; the world is a very small place. I've known Trevor all his life, and Mick since he was eight................42 years I have pictures of Mick and Trevor at S.T.'s when they were in Uckfield. Will dig them out from photobucket. This one was taken in about 1991. That was my company car behind him; an H reg turbo diesel Sierra. Micky trucker as he was known, with the biggest rota spreader he'd ever seen. A Fraser 1000T

Picked up a load of heating oil from Coryton in Essex. Left our yard at 2.30 am this morning. Dropped that off in our yard and then went to Theale near Reading for another load. Weather was atrocious. Got back to the yard this afternoon and unloaded by 3.15. Clocked up 539 km today and my dear old Daf's Tacho now shows 224 km; it's just clocked up one million km today. Still on the original engine and hardly uses any oil. I'm a bit knackered now and guess what..............I'm going to Theale again tomorrow for petrol and diesel, starting at 4 am. Six sites to deliver to tomorrow. Where's that yawning smiley.

What are you rowing up there....................looks like dung ol' kiddy. Oh the joys of a (Virtually) cabless tractor on a sunny day.

Sussex Tractors supplied two to BAA at Gatwick for snow plough work. They were fitted with Brockhouse torque converter transmissions and would do the same speed in either direction. About 24 mph :o. I wonder if they are still there. May even have a few hundred hours on the clock by now. As for the price, I would say 4,500 is giving it away. A coat of paint and you'd probably double your money.

Thats a really good piece of work. It's very well made and your work is very neat. I look forward to seeing it when the decals etc are fitted. I hope it fetches good price on E Bay, although I'm sure it will be snapped up by one of our members. Is it based on a real machine, or your version of something similar.

I Quite liked the sound of that. Trouble is, they always play the best racks on the TV advert, and often the rest is crap. Can't afford it at the moment though. \

Spending yet another evening trying to find one of our cats that went missing on Sunday evening. She is a six month old Bengal Siamese cross and looks like a Siamese with a Racoon's tail. She also has the blue eyes of a Siamese. We've put posters up around our estate and searched everywhere in about a mile radius of our house. We've asked people if they've seen her, called her, rattled her dishes and looked under just about every car parked on the road. We found about ten cats on our journey around tonight, but still no sign of ours. :'( We are beginning to think we may never see her again and think she may have been stolen, as there have been cats stolen on our estate before. She is a very distinctive and desirable cat to a cat thief. Her appearance will make her easier to spot, and that is the only consolation. We lost a cat with distinctive markings once before, and I found him purely by chance. He had stopped to flirt with a couple of women and I was driving past having dropped someone off at their home. This was a week after he disappeared and he was about a mile from my house. He escaped from his compound when he was brought here from Devon. You should have seen my stepdaughters face when I handed him to her. She was even more surprised as we'd given up looking for him. Not all of my luck is bad.

Starting work at 2.30 this morning, and planning a nice easy and rewarding mornings work for myself on my return from Essex. As usual I didn't do anything I'd planned. After loading the tankers off my trailer, I found that the interlock valve had stuck. (Load safety control on a tanker) The brakes wouldn't come off, so I had to sort that out. Next the PTO shaft snapped the coupling on the tanker we use for loading, so I had to make a new one out of a shaft I had Wombled. (Recycled to those not familiar with the term). I also had to shorten the delivery hose and repair the delivery gun. I get under my trailer and find that it needs a new interlock valve, the brakes need adjusting, and one of the tyres has lost some of its tread. Finally I spent an hour doing what I'd planned for the morning, but was by that time; too tired to get interested in it, so I went home. Typical day at United Petroleum.

I'm off to Theale tomorrow morning at 4am for 25,000 litres of petrol and 15,000 litres of diesel, and shall we say I'm a little anxious about the weather. Getting there is probably going to be the most dangerous part as I expect there will be ice on the roads. The Daf I'm driving has mid lift which is better than my unit in snow, if you can keep it on the road. By the time I'm loaded it will be getting light so things should have improved by then, as the temperature rises as soon as daylight comes. No doubt on Tuesday we will be flooded out with orders for heating oil from people who have run out over the weekend. As soon as the frosts started last week; our orders went up by about 20,000 litres a day. I really feel sorry for people with oil fired central heating, especially with kero at around 50p a litre. A lot of our customers are saying that they are now using their heating only when it is really cold, because it is so expensive to run. No doubt the gas companies will soon follow suit, as they always do. Such is life as they say. I would be surprised to see it ever come down any where near the price it was four years ago when I started in this business. I can remember Linda in our office apologizing to customers about the price because it was between 26 to 28p a litre. Still; remember this, we are better under Labour as we are told. Like f**** we are.

That looks really good. Have they been done especially for you, as the one in the picture has your web address on it. If so. how many are being manufactured as they will no doubt become very valuable as time passes. How well do you expect the plating to last? I like the UH Power Major in brushed silver, but worry about it's life expectancy and whether it will fade, discolour or flake off after a few years.

Snowed in East Sussex until about 10 and now it's raining an' chuffin cold. I worked outside repairing trucks yesterday, so I'm glad it wasn't like that as I was doing welding. Mig welders don't work too well in wind as it blows the gas away and welds look awful.

That's the problem with a job like yours. Any construction job of the scale you are involved with; has to keep going because of time limits and it's probably easier to keep going rather than trying to restart and motivate people after a break. I suppose too that Easter may not be celebrated in Azerbaijan (Is that right?). It's a wonder we still celebrate it here, for fear of offending some people or infringing their rights. Bl**dy country!!!!! Hope someone sent you an Easter Egg though. I expect they did but it was probably blown up at an airport somewhere in case it was a "Terrorist device" or eaten in the name of "Forensic examination" by Customs and Excise.

I just love the foldaway front side lamps with the half and half lenses. I last saw some of those on a cabbed 1080 that my uncle had. It was a very early one.

Is the Ford Dealer Harris's. Used to do trips to Harris's, Manns of Saxham, Reco's and Sanderson Forklifts in my Sussex T's days.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii21/murray_2008/Picture178-1.jpg Should have gone to Specsavers. The poor old dear looks like an old lady with gleaming new white false teeth. Still........at least she'll be able to see where she's going now. Aaaah bless. :D

That is brilliant. It's very well made, very professional quality and I particularly like the mesh on the push off. That is an excellent scratch build. Love the tines too. Best make a few dozen and put them up for sale

Lovely looking trailer and a really strong looking body. (The real one) As for your models............well............. they do look really good. I personally prefer the wooden floor for looks, and on the real thing; because the bales don't slide around on side slopes, like they do on a steel floor. I reckon you should make a few dozen of those and put them up for sale at a price comparable to Siku's trailers. I would have thought there would be a very good market for them.

Ok Anders; you've created the ultimate remote controlled tractor and a superb plough; now all you need to do, is make it with a couple of miniature CCTV cameras inside the cab, connected to a monitor on your remote control. The ultimate in reality models. You would be able to get the same view of the work as the real thing. Next step would be to manufacture it for sale to the general public, and wait for the orders to come pouring in, as they undoubtedly would. No doubt then; the next request would be from a certain Mr Ferguson to make him one based on an MF 1150? the one with the Perkins V8 in it. Oh and what about engine sounds. Do you know anyone clever enough to work that side of things out. Ie speed, and or gear. related sound It wouldn't matter if they were expensive to buy. If anyone bought a tractor like this they wouldn't want to buy anything else after it.

Today and yesterday. Apparently one of the local tree surgeons died in a accident with a chain saw while he was cutting limbs off a tree. I just think how sad that is; that someones life can end so abruptly, the shock it would be to his workmates and his family. No doubt they would have been looking forward to spending the weekend doing things with him, and in a flash he's gone and his families lives will never be the same again. I didn't know him or who he works for but it still makes me sad, as does hearing about the poor victims of road accidents such as those we heard of on the M25 yesterday. Maybe I shouldn't think so much about others sadness and losses, but I really value life and care deeply about those around me, and would hate for any of them to suffer such a loss. Maybe I just think too much. \