Awaiting the plate

The VOSA saga continued all week.  A number of people have sent me possible acronymic alternatives to its long name – The Vehicle Operator and Services Agency.  Some of them are worth mentioning, others are rather rude but all are extremely funny and pertinent.  I liked ‘Very Obedient Servant Always’ and ‘Voluntary Association of Sales Assistants’.  There were a number of Voluntary Associations but most of them were not mentionable before the watershed. As I am trying to keep the real VOSA onside at the moment I’d better not mention any of them. 

My ménage and I are still marooned in a sea of oily mud as the welsh rain lashes the commercial vehicle repair yard in Llay, near Wrexham.  I hope for not much longer, although, like most places on the planet, it has some saving graces which I will mention later.  But those of you desperate to know my lovely lorry’s fate will be pleased to hear that I have now had the wheelchair lift removed which reduced the front axle weight to 2500Kg.  At the same time I found a nice man at VOSA (I am sure not the only one) who has agreed to raise the plate weight on the front axle to 2900Kg, so between the two actions I now have freed up almost half a ton to put my stuff back in the front porch and still be legal.  The only downside has been that I am still waiting for the new plate to arrive.  The lorry has to be taken to the Ewloe Check Point to have the Weight Restriction removed so I will be very relieved to be, once again, fully road legal.  For the curious amongst you, I guess at some point in the past it was a real metal plate with hand engraved numbers that had to be fixed to a lorry in an accessible place.  These days, and probably not for much longer, it is a paper one with a bit of Government issue sticky-backed plastic to prevent anyone changing the numbers.  No doubt in the queue of vehicular paperwork soon to be sacrificed to the great god Pixel. One of the Trinity of Digit, Perfect Pixel and Holy Zero/One. (Sorry, no offense intended)

If I don’t have the new plate when I go to the yard it gives the other VOSA man in my life a wonderful opportunity to make that great vocal idiosyncrasy of the Man of Power, the sharp intake of breath, or the SIB as it is known to those of us who recognise them.  Last time we met at the roadside on my way back from Caernarfon two weeks ago, he made an SIB of factor 8 as he contemplated how impossible he had to make my life.  Well he has, and I don’t want to increase his SIB factor again without the plate firmly and accessibly affixed.

So the doggies and I are imprisoned by the government in this yard in Llay whilst we await the interminable but inevitable pendulum of bureaucracy to churn out the plate which will set us free.  There are though, as I said above, some saving graces. 

The junction of Davy Lane and Miners Road, Llay is, as the names suggest, replete with the aura of history.  The mine at Llay was, at its height, or maybe one should say its depth, the deepest mine in Britain. All the fascinating information about the mine is on http://www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/North/LlayMain.htm

and I had a great conversation with its author, Vic Tyler-Jones, who told me there is a mine museum at the Miners’ Institute, an impressive building just up the road.  I intend to go and visit it as should anyone else passing through the area.  The barman Peter will open it up for you apparently.

Llay Main had the reputation of being a ‘happy pit’.  No ponies were ever used there and the welfare of the miners themselves, over 3000 at its peak, was considered very important.  If you have five minutes, check out the website.  It tells a lovely and fascinating story.

I also had a happy stay here but hopefully soon I shall be moving on, another story to discover, another road to travel.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Losing weight

I spent the day of the Six Nations final undoing rusty bolts and grinding fittings off two large pieces of machinery that sat in the front belly box and made the old wheelchair lift work.  Every time the timbre of the commentary reached try intensity I had to drop everything and come in to watch.  It was in, out, in, out all day.  What a great day of rugby and so close for England.

The wheelchair lift won’t work any more, but I have liberated a new belly box cupboard in the front of the lorry that will be very useful as a store for all my cables.  The two chunky pieces, one a motor or pump and the other a cylinder which may have been a pressurised tank of some kind were very heavy.  I could hardly lift the tank.  Well, to be honest, I couldn’t lift it as a dead lift.  When I think of the years I have driven around with those two huge bits of redundant metal and of the gallons of fuel I have bought for carrying them, in some ways I am grateful to the Jobsworth for making me take it all off.  Of course it means that I can’t now invite wheelchair users to tea in the lorry and I can’t contemplate a time when I might be one myself.  If it does happen I shall have to deal with the issue then.

Together these pieces I have removed must weigh in at almost 100 kilos.  I can just about lift a person of my own body weight (although maybe not with the pounds I have accumulated over the last few months). The front axle of the lorry was overweight by 256 kilos. So say this will now be lighter by 56 kilos, as the weight I took off was towards the front.  There is still quite a big chunk of metal making up the steps, the lift itself and a big hydraulic ram that sits across the width of the lorry. I guess this did the actual push and pull/lift  job.  These will be more difficult to remove and I think I will leave them to the experts here.  Paul, my commercial vehicle engineer, the guy who has kindly let me stay in his yard, says he will do it on Monday.  I am very curious to know how much these bits weigh as that part of the working is almost all on the front axle.  I am not convinced they will weigh 200 kilos though.  However I did hear from one of the people I spoke to at VOSA (a much more approachable and customer-focussed guy called Simon at the Wrexham VOSA place) that they would allow a vehicle to be 5% over the plate weight without issuing a Weight Prohibition ticket.  Whether the Jobsworth would take the Weight Prohibition off with that leeway is debatable though. 5% of 2570 kilos is 128.5 kilos so maybe if the remaining bits weigh another 100 kilos, all might yet be well and I won’t have to have it re-plated with all that involves in time and money.  Time will tell and watch this space.

I wish taking my personal weight down was as easy as grinding off a few bolts.  My belly box is still crammed with too much easy living (perhaps a consequence of being an old-age pensioner) and yesterday I made a final apple crumble (one of the few Alexander culinary specialities).  I already had the Bramleys and they couldn’t have gone to waste now could they?  I will ration the crumble to one portion a day.  As you may have noticed yoga has been rather neglected of late.  It’s just been too cold in the garage yoga space I made to do it in and there’s just not enough room in the lorry.  That has been my excuse anyway.

So a new personal regime emerges with all the changes.  The chocolate has gone and the cream has almost gone.  Maybe one or two last portions with today’s crumble.  Phase myself out slowly, that’s the ticket.  I bet the adrenalin of all these latest challenges has taken off a few pounds.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Weight prohibition

I took everything possible out of the front of the lorry to reduce the front axle weight, which you will remember was caught out by the roadside VOSA inspection I was subject to on my way back to my yard the other week.  I then took the vehicle to my commercial engineers and they did some expensive things to it for the MOT and took it to be MOTd.  It passed fine but the front axle was still too heavy.  It is weighed as part of the brake test. It is strange that a vehicle can weigh heavy at the MOT and yet still pass the test. The nightmare continues.

I believe it always has been front heavy. Even in its young days in 1985 when it was born as an NHS health vehicle screening for something.  So for 30 years it has travelled round, front a bit heavy, through quite a few MOTs with several owners until last week when the Jobsworth put on the Weight Prohibition and I had to have a police escort back to my yard. It wasn’t a good day. And it all became worse today.

The MOT station didn't know how to remove a weight prohibition. A weight prohibition has to be removed. There was no information on the paperwork as to how it can be removed. Eventually a phone call to VOSA confirmed that it needed a specific appointment at the Check Point where it had been weighed.  I will spend a couple of days taking out the wheelchair lift that is still in the front porch/workshop and which I have never used. I am unlikely to need it in the future (am always avoiding ambulances). This will reduce the front axle weight a little and maybe enough.  If it is still too heavy after that I will have to have the plate changed from a 6 ton to a 7.5 ton plate which will certainly be expensive in time and money.  Probably new larger tyres and maybe new front springs.  Credit Card job, just when I thought I was going to be alright. It also meant that I couldn’t drive back to my yard until it’s all done as if I take it on the road with the Weight Prohibition is still on it then it’s a £5000 fine.  Great.

In the meantime I’ve been staying with friends in Ruthin.  They have a very beautiful house overlooking the Clwyd Vale.  They also have a weighing machine in the bathroom.  They are the only people I know with one of those. Mind you I don’t know many people enough to spend a long time in their bathrooms. So I’m sure you’ve guessed it, yes I’m overweight too.  My front axle needs to lose about a stone if I’m to leap around again as usual this summer.  No more cream or chocolate.  At least from tomorrow when I have eaten the last of my current stash.

My Ruthin friends have also just dropped a bombshell on me that I can’t stay there again because they don’t like my dogs in their house.  So another prohibition. Why didn’t they say so before?  I’ve stayed there maybe three times.  I keep a very close eye on Mimi and Blue while we’re there and always have them washed and groomed before we go because they live in an immaculate house.  I scrupulously clean their feet if they go outside and I’m on their case the whole time we are there because these people don’t have dogs and some people don't like dogs. The thing is though that they offered originally to put us up at their house while the lorry is being fixed.  Sod it.  Love me, love Mimi and Blue, I say.  The guy who services the lorry has kindly said I can live in the corner of his yard while the problem is sorted.

And all this on Eclipse Day.  Very inauspicious changes.  Ah well it’s one of those things.  Another reason why I have the growing feeling that it may be time to move on.

Does all this get to me?  Not yet but I have this feeling it will.  Living in the car on coffee and adrenalin, rushing round making calls and talking to people about the lorry. Back to the commercial vehicle yard tonight.  I’ve taken the generator over there with my small trailer so I shall have the tv and electric light.

And Six Nations tomorrow. It could be worse.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Two magpies

Sometimes waking up in my lorry home after a long night’s sleep I spend a few minutes reckoning the advantages to my life.  I’ve been an atheist for many years but sometimes I am overwhelmed with a huge joy about being alive.  In my childhood I might have thanked God, but now I just blog about it. Maybe I’m a bit bipolar as I often also feel the complete opposite, and only last week was down in the slough but this morning it was definitely joy, an almost elated feeling of happiness and challenge.  Not that the morning is particularly auspicious.  It’s just started raining but the sound of the rain ‘on a tin roof’ is poignant and evocative.  Every time I move around in the lorry, my chandelier (renewed this year with a lovely present from good friends) with glass rather than the previous acrylic one, makes tiny tinkling sounds which seem this morning to add a treble line to the percussion of the rain on the roof.  The pigeons are in full song and the squirrels are drumming their strange and eerie calls around the trees in the yard.  Every so often one makes an intrepid tightrope foray along a twenty metre telephone cable across the road.  How extraordinary it must be to be a squirrel, with all that flexibility of balance and movement.  And I speak with some experience of the business of both. 

One of the great things about living in a lorry is the simplicity it offers.  In a way it’s both a requirement and a pleasure.  A requirement because of the inevitable weight issues involved with deciding what I can live with and a pleasure because I enjoy that sort of challenge. 

Last week on my way back from Anglesey and the final day of filming I was pulled up by VOSA.  What happens is that a VOSA van at the side of the road pulls out in front and a flashing sign tells you to follow them.  I’m a sitting target for such things with my vintage lorry and painted sides. At the roadside checkpoint they weigh the lorry and trailer and it turns out that my front axle is slightly overweight.  The inspector was a Jobsworth of epic proportions and obviously didn’t like me or my lifestyle.  The problem (I discovered afterwards) was that because the trailer was not loaded in quite the way it is usually it was transferring some weight to the lorry and the result was the overweight front axle reading.  I tried to adjust the load but because I was annoyed I wasn’t thinking properly about the reason so couldn’t achieve the required reduction in axle weight. The Jobsworth insisted that it was an offence, a fine and he would not let me out of the check area unless it was fixed.  That’s when I started to become annoyed with his attitude and said that staying there would be alright as I lived in the lorry anyway and staying in his checkpoint would be OK with me.  That really annoyed him as it was Friday afternoon and obviously he was not going to be able to lock the place up with a squatter and two dogs living on the site.  Impasse.

Eventually the police arrived.  He had obviously phoned them about the issue and the Police officer was good at his job.  He sorted the issue and offered to escort me back to my yard which apparently pacified the Jobsworth.  Result I get back OK and the Jobsworth could go home feeling vindicated.

So the upshot is that I have to have the weight Prohibition lifted (probably another cost), pay the fine and maybe have some weight taken off the front of the lorry in case it happens again.  Not a real problem as the front of the lorry has a built in wheelchair lift (a legacy of its NHS days) and that must weigh quite a lot so I’m planning to have it removed which will relieve the problem.  The new trailer axles are now rated at 2.75 tons so I can put some items that I usually carry in the front of the lorry in there instead. It will mean a new driving test (a trailer test) as currently I can only have a train weight of 8.25 tons with my current one and I’m near that limit (so the Jobsworth had told me gloating). So I have applied for a medical which has to proceed a new provisional license, will book some trailer lessons and sit a trailer test.  The vehicle and trailer in which I have to pass this new test is half the size of the lorry and stage trailer. Bureaucracy. Anyway it will all be done for May and then once again I will be completely road legal for the season. 

So yes a real strength of positive vibe this morning. Onward and upward.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Schools, black paint and varnish

Once again I kick off the blog with apologies for the long gap since the last one.  As the title suggests my weeks have been filled with the school tour with Cat’s Paw Theatre and the weekends with painting and varnishing the theatre.  Both in their way as necessary as each other to Mr Alexander’s on-going survival.

The schools work, along with my newly acquired pension, has meant that for the first time ever, in all my life, it really looks as though I shall survive through the winter without going into overdraft.  You don’t know how pleased I am about that.  Winters have been a horrible financial struggle, especially the last few.  I think I have become more of a worrier as I have aged so perhaps it’s just that I am more aware of such things now than I was in my youth and middle age.  I certainly check my bank account now more often than I have ever done and I now have several spreadsheets all with income and expenditure details on them. I know, saddo. I would never have done that as a young man.  But this excellent news, along with not having to use my credit card for everyday stuff, means a much more well-tempered Mr A than in previous years. Bookings have been creeping in and despite the fact that there are probably too many one day stands then I would like (it’s a tiring business setting up and pulling down and doing three shows in a day) the 2015 diary page of the website (www.mralexander.co.uk) is looking healthier than a month ago.  As I am not going into the season desperate for cash it also means I can be just a little choosier about the gigs I do accept.  One of the advantages to being a showman pensioner.  Sorry I wont mention it again.

The Cat’s Paw work has also been most engaging.  More than ever teachers tell us that the subject of sexual consent and issues surrounding it are real problems for our young people.  Parents think the schools should be doing it and schools think the same about the parents and the result is that many young people are growing up without the clarity that only straight information, taught sympathetically, can give.  And that’s what we do.  Two hours of engaging theatre and facts about the issue, lots of active engagement in discussion and lively debate and exciting electronic interaction with our new clicker/voting pads.  It’s exciting and ‘state-of-the-art’ and I’m very proud to be part of it.  If ever you’d like to see it live, do let me know.  We welcome visitors and it is fascinating, even though I would say that, wouldn’t I?  The new presentation for 16+ on the same issue which we have been doing for sixth forms and colleges is still being worked in but should be equally strong before too long.  Later this month we will hear whether the Welsh Government is to sponsor the project for another year, and the signals are positive, but of course it is government funding and we are a theatre company so there’s nothing very sure in that combination.

The DVD develops apace.  The final edit is booked for the week after next and I am almost finished with the design of the insert and the cover. I am very pleased with progress.  It should all be ready for the end of April and our launch and World Premiere on April 25th at the Corn Exchange Theatre in Wallingford.  (www.cornexchange.org.uk/whats-on) It would be great to see you there but tickets are beginning to sell so if you want a good seat book now.

And the rest is black paint and varnish.  Which in its way is therapeutic and relaxing.  I can listen to Radio 4 and think about all manner of things as I review the state of each one of thousands of items; flats, props and fittings which make up the stage and my performance life.  Each piece has its story to tell and if I listen it can keep me fascinated for hours.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander