Since I posted An Unusual Christmas was so well received by the community I thought I would share another story from just a few days earlier.

As a charity / NGO and with Albania on its economic knees at the time we were engaged in a number of micro-projects designed to create employment and opportunity. One such project was the Rreshen Tyre Project. In essence this meant we imported tyres for a local vendor to sell in Rreshen. Prior to the project being set up anybody wanting new tyres would have to travel to a larger city such as Tirana - which if your tyres are shot isn't such a good idea. This is especially true owing to the state of Albanian roads at the time. Tirana, although not too far in terms of distance was more than two and probably more than three hours away (I may post on such a journey one day - but to give you a flavour check out my Journey to Fushe Arrez).

So it was just a few days before Christmas 1995 and as well as some Christmas supplies (letters, parcels and the aforementioned Christmas Puddings and Custard) we took a delivery of a batch of tyres in one truck and a second truck full of aid for a large distribution that we were planning in the village of Tarazh just into the new year. We were also taking delivery of two Land Rovers one of which came on a trailer that was pulled by the second one. All the drivers and their support team planned to be back in England for Christmas and it would mean a quick turn around as they needed to reach Durres to get the ferry back to Italy by a certain time. Driving through Yugoslavia wasn't an option due to the ongoing war, even though Dayton had just been signed (and yes I have a story about that too!).

Then we encountered the wonderful world of the corrupt Albanian customs system where a failure to bribe meant your paperwork perpetually ended up at the bottom of the pile. We refused to subscribe to such corruption. Not only that but we had to clear national customs in Tirana for the aid and the tyres and local customs for the tyres in town called Lezhe (pronounced as leisure - British English pronunciation - how perfect is that for a seaside town!).

Now this is where the logistics get a bit complicated and I am far from sure that I have got this right.

• Tyres cleared national customs in Tirana on 17th December (my birthday by coincidence) but had yet to clear local customs in Lezhe - the truck had been sealed to ensure we couldn't access them. We could move the aid but not the tyres.
• Although four vehicles arrived only the two trucks were going back, but they were taking the trailer back too.

The main problem was that the tyres needed to clear customs in Lezhe on the same day that the ferry left. The ferry was leaving at noon (Italian time!) and customs in Lezhe opened at about 8.00. Being first in the queue was no guarantee given the insidious corruption.

So this is what happened.

The "English convoy" arrived in Rreshen at about 7 in the evening and I spent the latter part of my birthday in absolutely saturating rain (with everyone else!) transferring aid to the warehouse. For some reason we did the unloading opposite the building complex and was having to transfer things some 100 metres or so uphill. I remember doing this once when the truck was too big to get through the gateway but I am not sure why we did it this way this time.

Once the aid was emptied we then put the trailer in the empty truck. This was no easy endeavour as the cargo area of the truck only had a side door and it took some maneuvering to get it in, but some how we managed. Tension was high because it has been hard and exhausting and not helped by the weather and the pressing timeline for catching the ferry only made things more challenging.

We awoke the next morning and everything was awash with bright winter sunshine and we set off for Lezhe in a military looking convoy because we took as many people possible (including the base team) as more hands meant faster work. Included in the convoy was the base's ex military Bedford truck with a canvas cover for transferring the tyres back to Rreshen once they had cleared customs. It was almost exactly the same as the once featured below only its cab was white.

We arrived in Lezhe and to everyone's surprise we were cleared within an hour or so and we transferred the tyres over and literally the second the last tyre was transferred the UK bound convoy was off, without even so much as a goodbye. It must have been getting on for 10 by now and Durres lay about two hours away.

Now that they were gone we could slow down a bit as we had all the time in the world to get back to Rreshen. Then we encountered a problem. There weren't enough spaces in the vehicles for everyone - so what should we do. The solution seemed obvious; put somebody in the back of the Bedford with the tyres. As a non-driver, young male I was the obvious candidate and I thought it would be really comfortable sitting on the tyres and enjoying the fresh air.

How wrong I was!

As we set off I sat on a pile of tyres and as soon as we hit the first bump I implanted myself, rear end first into the hole in the middle of the tyres. It took more than a few seconds to wrestle my way out of tyres and in hindsight I maybe should have stayed put! Next I tried holding on to the metal framework but as the truck bounced and rattled around it felt like my arms were going to be wrenched out of their sockets. So I sat again on the tyres. The non-stop bouncing made this impossible and this was how it was for the whole journey back. I never found a place all the way back and the worst moments was as we bypassed a town called Rubik (yes that is real check it out on Google maps if you don't believe me!) where the road was nothing more than a rutted dirt track. I was shook about to the point that even my guts were rattling. The truck hit one particularly hard bump that I was almost bounced out of the back and after that I was praying for the journey to end.

After an eternal 20 minutes or so more we hit the smoother roads of Rreshen itself and then a few minutes later the base. I climbed out of the back gingerly and saw Derek the driver.

'Oh I'd forgotten you were in the back' was all he said!