{"id":24194,"date":"2026-03-18T22:34:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T21:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=24194"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:05:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:05:02","slug":"at-last-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/at-last-7\/","title":{"rendered":"At last!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s here. My new mini excavator. But not before overcoming yet another problem. The agent I appointed gave me a quote including delivery to my home but I told him that as I intended to pick the machine up myself from Marseille delivery wouldn’t be needed. Then I got the unwelcome news that the vehicle recovery trailer I intended to hire for the purpose was legally too heavy for my Kia to tow so as there was a time limit by which I had to pick up the machine from the logistic company’s warehouse in Marseille before I’d start incurring heavy charges I decided that I probably had no option but to go for delivery.<\/p>\n

That however was on last Friday and although I was cursing that yet again the two day week-end would mean that nothing could be got done, it actually worked in my favour. It had taken me some time and effort to find the original trailer that I’d intended to hire, but I decided to look again as although I wasn’t holding out much hope I had the time to do so. And I was surprised to find two more that were suitable, one located to the north of me in St Astier to the west of P\u00e9rigueux and the other to the south to the west of Agen.<\/p>\n

I originally opted for the former because the trailer’s owner responded quite quickly and provided a price, while I received no reply from the owner of the second one. But that was until after the week-end when the second hirer responded and it was cutting things a bit fine because as my time limit from the warehouse for picking up the machine was Wednesday 19 March, I intended to pick up the trailer and go to Marseille yesterday the 17th and return it today. <\/p>\n

It then it occurred to me that if I had to go to St Astier to pick up the trailer at 08.00 am before heading off to Marseille, should there be any subsequent delays eg traffic en route, I might be hard pressed to make it to Marseille before the warehouse’s stated closing time of 4.00 pm. However, the one to the south was not far off the route I’d be taking to Marseille, so I could pick it up at 08.00 am and make it to Marseille with time in hand. And actually getting to Marseille and getting the machine loaded on time was the absolute priority.<\/p>\n

So that was the decision I made. It meant driving 2 hours each way today to return the trailer but that was a relatively minor consideration compared to knowing that I’d have the excavator safely unloaded in my garden when I did so. And it was on Monday that I realised how fortunate I’d been in finding another trailer and making the necessary arrangements because it was then that I got the news that my agent had been unable to locate any transport company willing to pick up the machine in Marseille and deliver it to Fleurac. If therefore, I’d banked on that happening, I would have ended up in serious trouble with the machine stranded in Marseille and racking up serious storage charges.<\/p>\n

Heading south to pick up the trailer early yesterday morning also worked out in my favour because there was a lot of early morning fog in the Dordogne and it would have inevitably cost me a lot of time to go to St Astier before then heading south, making it highly unlikely that I’d have made Marseille in time to pick up the excavator before the warehouse closed for the day. As it was I got to the hirer’s premises to the west of Agen in plenty of time and in glorious weather as the shots I took as I hitched the trailer to my Kia show. The only downside was that on the way a small female deer leapt in front of my car and gave me no chance to avoid her. Sadly although my old Sportage is highly robust and showed no obvious sign of damage she died, but at least it was a very quick end and it would have been terrible if she’d survived and been left in the road with awful injuries.<\/p>\n

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For some reason I’m having problems with Waze on my new phone. The voice giving driving instructions isn’t as loud as on my old phone and the screen isn’t as clear for some reason. As a result after picking the trailer up I ended up heading for Bordeaux on the payage instead of Toulouse, which immediately cost me half an hour in time and an extra toll. Nevertheless, I entered Marseille at around 2.30 pm and arrived at the warehouse in good time to pick up the crate containing my excavator.<\/p>\n

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The warehouse yard was full of trucks large and small collecting goods imported for onward shipment. I just poked my Kia and trailer in there among them and went into the reception to deal with the formalities. I noticed that the guys driving the forklifts were not actually treating the goods they were loading with a lot of respect. That included my crate which I saw had been dropped quite heavily and dragged across the ground causing damage to its base as well as several of the feet which had been attached in China. The result of this was that after just a short way into the long journey home the base of the crate collapsed some more and it twisted on the bed of the trailer, which would have implications later when I came to unload the machine.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t realise that after I’d been dealt with and had the machine loaded I’d forgotten that I’d left my proof of identity (French driving licence) in the reception and had to return after I’d left after receiving a number of frantic phone calls which luckily I eventually answered despite being in horrendous Marseille rush-hour traffic. In all of this panic Waze also played another trick on me by sending me into an estate of flats with a dead end and no way to turn around. I managed to do so after several minutes of reversing my car and trailer in minimal space next to parked vehicles but it was an experience that I seriously did not need under those circumstances.<\/p>\n

The journey home was somewhat excruciating, taking a full 10 hours with stops for fuel and two brief stops for refreshments. I arrived home at 02.00 am and after a quick shower went straight to bed as I knew I’d have to be up early again today in order to return the trailer at the agreed time. I only had about 6 hours sleep before heading off to Marseille and after a 20 hour day, only had another 5 hours last night before again getting up early to unpack and unload the machine and take the trailer back down south. This was complicated by my not knowing how to get the machine off the trailer and whether or not I’d be able to get it started in order to do so.<\/p>\n

I’d parked the trailer with a hump in my front grass behind it in order to minimise the distance from trailer to ground and minimise the slope of the unloading ramps. After removing the rope which I’d used to secure the crate on the trailer it was time to dismantle the crate to get access to the machine inside.<\/p>\n

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Eventually I’d stripped the crate away and it was time to see how to unload the machine. I didn’t know if there was oil in the engine, fuel in the fuel tank and hydraulic oil in the oil tank as the bucket and small dozer blade both had to be lifted in order to move the machine. But first I had to find out how to start the engine as the machine had come with absolutely no instructions or user manual. <\/p>\n

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When I added fuel to the tank I found at that it did already contain some as it overflowed and made a mess that I had to clean up. I also found the machine’s battery and put a jumper pack on it and eventually got the engine to turn over but could not get it to start, until I found the throttle. Then it jumped into life almost immediately, so all I had to do was drive the machine off the trailer. This was easier said than done, because when the crate shifted on the trailer on the journey home, one of the excavator’s tracks was aimed at the void in the centre of the trailer (remember, the trailer was for vehicle recovery and did not have a full flat bed). <\/p>\n

To solve the problem I had to find out how the machine’s controls worked, jiggle it backwards and forwards as much as I could in order to align it on the trailer and build a wooden bridge over the trailer’s centre void for the excavator to drive over hoping all the time that the bridge would take its weight. It did and I was then able to have the pleasure of driving it across the grass onto my stone drive-in and down to the front of my house.<\/p>\n

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So that was it for today. The forecast for the next few days is for fine spring weather with no rain, so tomorrow I’ll get rid of all the old crate wood, fit the excavator’s canopy and get cracking on finishing it’s garage. And while doing all of that I’ll also need to fit in cutting the grass before it gets too wild and long. It never ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s here. My new mini excavator. But not before overcoming yet another problem. The agent I appointed gave me a quote including delivery to my home but I told him that as I intended to pick the machine up myself from Marseille delivery wouldn’t be needed. Then I got the unwelcome news that the vehicle … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24194"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24213,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24194\/revisions\/24213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}