Shift Changeover

There comes a time in the courier life when, it seems, the Great Courier Above hears the fed-up wails of the mere 'available 24/7' erk that there have been too many early mornings.  GCA certainly heard mine this week.

It all began when I missed the second men's breakfast in three weeks, through the need to be in Royston for a 6.0am pick-up on Monday.  In the damp darkness of early morning, I tried Despatch, only to find it deserted and to be re-directed to Goods-in where, after a long cold wait, I was loaded with two heavy boxes, hastily sealed because they weren't ready before.  Off then to Coventry with these, and although I enjoyed a bacon-and-egg roll on the way off the industrial estate afterwards, my jumper didn't.  There are occasions when one ought to remember to specify 'make the egg hard, please - I want to eat it, not wear it!' ... sadly this wasn't one of the successful ones.  Once I'd returned, the best the rest of the day could offer was a delivery in Ely, described as 'local' because the day had been so slow.  This worked in my favour, though, because on the way back I was diverted to a customer's premises to load for a 10.0 am delivery the next day in Torquay. 

To bed early again, therefore, in order to be about in the wee small hours.  No cold wait on Tuesday, though.  I could set off to Torquay with no delay.  After a stop in Bristol for breakfast, I arrived at the department store promptly on the dot of 10.0, in bright sunshine.  There was then a short delay while the goods I'd brought were the subject of some deliberation.  The unit had been loaded with no packing or protection, and either by the motion of a sliding part during the journey, or as a result of being lifted out of the van, it had incurred slight damage.  Eventually, however, all was resolved and I set off on my homeward journey.  The back of the store where I had delivered is on a one-way street, and to get back onto the main road I found myself having to climb a nominal 20% incline with a tight corner at the top.  I sometimes dream about such experiences, but this has to be one of the first times I've encountered such a steep hill.  A quick look on Google Maps tells me that it must have been Braddons Hill West, but it doesn't look so steep on the screen!

The advantage - if so it be - of starting so early in the morning is that later in the day, before tiredness kicks in once more, there is time to do other things.  Having escaped the challenge issued by a phone call on the way home from Torquay, asking if I would like to go over to Kent to make a collection, I was back to the office by 4.0pm  I realised that this was too early to be allocated a job for the next day, and took advantage of a comfortable sofa in the crew room for a refreshing nap.  An hour or so later, I learned that there would not be an advance assignment for Wednesday, and went home.  I had determined at the beginning of the year that I ought to do something soon about the various small pensions that my past career has accumulated, in readiness for possible retirement, but had done nothing about it as yet.  A recent radio broadcast prompted activity on this matter, and having secured a likely source of help here, I spent my 'time for other things' on Tuesday evening entertaining an Independent Financial Adviser.

I thus awoke on Wednesday morning with my head full of finances, figures, and all the reading, research and decisions that I shall have to deal with over the holiday.  There was no time even to think of such things then for, before breakfast, came a call.  "Are you ready for work?"  'No chance,' I thought, 'it's only 7.30!'  "How soon," went on the controller, "can you pick up at [a nearby customer] for Sheffield?"  Wanting to seem helpful, I offered, "I can pick it up now, and then come back for breakfast ..."  As I had predicted, this was perfectly acceptable and, with breakfast completed, I rang the office to learn that there was nothing else going that way, and left for South Yorkshire.

This was the start of a 'changeover day'.  These are either very busy or the reverse, and effect the change from early mornings to late nights.  This is effected by either a slack day that leads into an afternoon job that takes all evening, or an early start that leads into an over-full day.  In this instance, the latter was the case for, as I returned from Sheffield, I was asked to go straight down to Stevenage and collect something for Basildon.  On the way to Basildon came another call, hinting that I would have time on the way back to call into Hertford and collect something for Chippenham.  I enquired if this were the Chippenham in Wiltshire.  "Yes," came the over-persuasive reply, "we did the same thing last night - it's not far."  Strangely, I didn't feel over-tired, and despite disagreeing with the 'not far' argument, I said I would.

When I collected the job, I recalled an occasion that I wrote about here some months ago.  The address where I was to deliver said 'Cabinet, Bumpers Lane, Chippenham.'  I smiled, and realised gratefully that, as a result of that earlier job, I now knew what was meant by 'Cabinet'.  When I arrived I rang the phone number I'd been given as requested on turning into the lane.  "Great," came the reply, "I'll switch on my hazards so you can see me."  I approached the flashing yellow lights, and pulled up at the side of the road beside the car flashing them.  By the time I had gathered my clipboard, the man had got out of his car and was standing by the door.  "I hope we've got the right thing this time," he said, "I've been here for three nights to get this thing to work."  I took it that he had been home in between these visits.  He was pleased with the two items I'd brought him, however, and gave me a cheery wave as I set off on my way home.  I found that it was by then so late that the Little Chef just down the road had closed, and I had to content myself with a snack from the nearby Shell station.  Once home, I was ready for bed; it was 11.25pm.  'Not far' be blowed!

When I'd got myself more or less onto an even keel on Thursday morning, I rang in about 9.0 to say I was ready for work.  The acknowledgement was quickly followed by an instruction.  "At 10.0, can you go over to [a Hitchin solicitor] to go to Luton.  That's that covered, and you'll be on the list for later."  I tidied up my desk and set off.  After delivering to Luton's Court House, I returned and called in from home.  Not long afterwards I was requested to go to a certain ward at Lister Hospital in Stevenage.  We often get sent there to collect specimens for analysis elsewhere.  What was unusual was the destination in this case, which was an organisation in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  Knowing that this was a 24-hour operation, the controller had no hesitation in getting me to make two deliveries in the Bedford area on my way north, and I arrived there at about 6.30pm.  The specimen was delivered according to the instructions on the (closed) door, and I turned for home, 243 miles away.  The venue for that night's meal was Washington Services, and with all the accumulated podcasts from the recent Test Match series in India to listen to, the journey home was a doddle.  I scarcely noticed the incessant rain outside, as the warm van was filled with sunny thoughts of leather and willow, centuries and leg-breaks.

Yesterday morning found me arriving home with an almost empty fuel tank and calling at the local 24-hour Esso station before settling down for bed about 12.45am.  After breakfast the desk claimed my attention and I caught up on two days' admin, post, e-mails and all the rest before declaring myself ready for work at 10.30.  I was immediately despatched to Houghton Regis to make a collection for a customer in Hitchin.  In keeping with the rest of the week, there was no respite after this, for I was sent once again to 'that' ward at Lister Hospital - this time for a more normal journey to Cambridge - and along with it a pair of drinks deliveries to a pub in St Ives and to a service station along the A1 near Stamford.

Today has seemed a little peculiar.  With one more working day to go before the Christmas break, it seems sensible to delay normal weekend chores until that is past, so in a way today has been the first day of the long holiday.  One or two unusual things have been attacked instead, and soon I will begin to attack the bizarre situation of a magazine arriving earlier this week before I'd even started reading the previous edition!

A Tale of Two Parcels ...

Apologies to the late bi-centenniel Mr Dickens for the heading above, which is a more catchy than accurate title for a week's reminiscenses.  At the end of a somewhat piecemeal week, yesterday's events on the domestic front are more prominent in my thoughts than the week as a whole.

After the now-preferred start to the week, Monday's men's breakfast at St Paul's Church, I returned home to wait for the day's activity to unfold.  Whilst doing so, I began to draw to a close (i.e. print out) my most recent family history exercise, that of presenting my researches in a more visual form using a program called GenoPro.  I've now got almost 2,800 individuals linked together on 118 separate pages.  This program has been on my computer for a number of years now, but I've only recently got to grips with it.  The more I use it, the less relevant it seems to my needs.  It provides a good way of preparing a family tree, but a large proportion of its capabilities and also of its capacity to record personal data seem geared to a wide modern-day community rather than to a family history stretching back several centuries.  <climbs off soapbox>

On the work front, I made enquiries about getting my van serviced and, in view of the mileage, the dreaded expense of having the timing belt replaced.  Just after lunch, I was asked to collect from a local customer, and called at the garage en route.  After a quick visual examination of the engine, the proprietor announced that this particular van has a chain rather than a belt, and therefore the much-feared expense of replacing it will not apply.

Cheered by that news, the paucity of my day's work, to Chesham and to Colnbrook seemed less daunting.  This was just as well, because by the time I'd returned and collected my invoice from the office I'd broken out with a cold that seemed to have been 'brewing' over the weekend.  Predictably, it got worse rather than better, and by Tuesday morning, the only sensible option was to dose myself with cold relief capsules and stay put in the warm.

Wednesday brought a welcome duo to greet my return to activity, taking me to Redditch and Chester, and a nourishing, if filling, meal at Nightowl on the way home again.  Thursday found me sent (as has so often been the case of late, it seems) to King's Lynn, and while something else afterwards would have been economically welcome, the coldness of the air once I'd returned made it less attractive, and I was content to have been asked to make an 8.0 collection the next morning.

And so to a Friday that was filled up, it seems, by three unconnected jobs that afforded little rest between them.  I began with a delivery made in pouring rain in the middle of Canterbury, to a restaurant in a pedestrian street that seemed to be filled with them.  The rain eased as I came nearer home, but there was still a definite unpleasant drizzle as I loaded my next assignment - to deliver a fuel card and a sequence of afternoon deliveries to a wholesale chemist's delivery driver, who had been in danger of becoming stranded with an empty fuel tank in north Essex.  As I told my controller, yet another case of "give Brian the novelty item"!  (That's one reason I like the work.)

I came home to find both doormat and inbox filled with post, and had just made a welcome cup of tea to accompany my dealing with this, when a final call came asking me to take a computer part to a supermarket in Ipswich.  This enabled me to move seamlessly from business to domestic, as I followed the delivery with a meal in their cafe before doing some shopping instead of fighting with a crowded car park at home this morning.

But what, - I hear my reader's gasp of frustration - of the two 'Dickensian' parcels?  These were simply(!) a couple of items I had ordered recently online.  Receiving goods by mail order is difficult. I have found it convenient to arrange for goods to be delivered where possible by Royal Mail, because if there is no one at home they leave a card and I can collect from the sorting office the following morning.  A satisfactory alternative is for goods to be left by the door, inside the inner lobby shared by my myself and my next-door-neighbour, with whom I have a happy reciprocal parcel-receiving understanding.  This does require an intelligent delivery agent, however; the other week I arrived home to find a parcel standing in the hallway, by the foot of the staircase and in full view of the front door!

Because their systems require a signature, drivers for many of the larger delivery chains will not leave goods unattended, or simply posted through the letterbox.   Instead, they hunt around for someone else to sign for the goods, and then pop a note through the letterbox, saying where they have left the goods.   If they find no one, they take the goods back to their depot for another try next day, again leaving a card to say what they've done.  I have learned from bitter experience that they don't allow personal collections from their premises; nor do they entertain the substitution of an alternative delivery address, such as a workplace.

 

In the course of my own work I deliver all kinds of consignments to both business and domestic premises; the conditions under which I operate include that same general requirement for a signature on delivery.   However - if it's a stated necessity of a job, or a relaxation of the normal rules that is requested by the sender - we will happily leave goods unattended or posted through a letterbox. On the other hand, we do not leave them - even if signed for - with anyone else, unless we get the express permission of the sender upon finding that the designated consignee is unavailable or unobtainable.

 

The other week, following up something I'd heard on the radio, I ordered a book from an online source.  When it hadn't arrived ten days after it was allegedly despatched, I e-mailed the provider, only to be told to wait a further week, and then contact them again.  The further week expired on Thursday and, as I thawed out from a chilling day, I repeated my e-mail, expecting that they would take matters up with their carrier.  Yesterday afternoon I found it on my doormat, the carton open, and the book damaged.  Without further ado, I sent a new e-mail to the provider, asking for that of the previous day to be ignored, and attaching a picture of the damage.  Since this was only superficial and didn't detract from my being able to read and enjoy the contents, and it was only a secondhand paperback in the first place, I was content.  I thought only that they might wish to report this to the carrier.

 

Later in the evening, when I returned to my desk, I discovered a prompt reply to my first e-mail, undertaking a full refund, since they weren't in a position to send a replacement for one that they thought - quite reasonably - had been lost.  I have today had a reply to the second e-mail, saying that, now I've received the book after all, they'll make another charge to recover the refund - watch out for news of the credit card company becoming confused!

 

In my idleness on Thursday, I also ordered some ink for my computer printer from a previously reliable source offering free next-day delivery.  I expected this to be lodged on one side or other of my front door when I came home yesterday.  Instead, I found a little slip saying it had been left at the flat upstairs.  A little annoyed, I marched upstairs ... and found that the occupier of the said flat had gone out!  This morning, at what I thought to be a reasonable hour, I recovered my parcel of ink from the gentleman upstairs, disturbing his dogs in the process by my knock on the door, and through the obvious delay of getting him out of bed to answer the door, causing him a second inconvenience (the first being when UPS disturbed him yesterday to leave the parcel with him.)  As I have since told the supplier, in an e-mailed report of the whole saga, it seems a totally disproportionate amount of fuss and cuffuffle for something that could have been popped through the letterbox in the first place!

 

Oh, for a restful Christmas! .......?!?

Apology

It occurs to me that an opinion expressed in my previous posting could have caused offence, and I'm minded to get the apology in before people express their discomfort.  I expressed my attitude to those protesting in Northern Ireland unsympatheticlly - even aggressively - in the words, 'After 90 years, welcome to the real UK!' 

As I indicated recently, the purpose of this blog is to provide an insight into the life of a courier driver.  That life includes periods of what would otherwise be extreme boredom, and these are relieved almost constantly by recorded or live radio broadcasts, including news bulletins.  I consider that my reaction to these is also valid content for the blog.

In my blog I admitted the complexity of Northern Ireland's history.  Although the area was not so designated at the time, I recognise that this complexity dates back to, and perhaps beyond, the early seventeenth century.  It didn't begin in the early twentieth with the desperate attempts of a majority of its citizens to defy plans for Irish home rule, and remain within the United Kingdom.  My words repeated above apparently denied the fact that they were already part of the UK when these events took place.  For this apparent dismissal of their history I apologise.

I have to admit my own nationalist sympathies, which are not based on any personal history, but largely on my shame for the way the English (later British) are reported to have treated the native Irish down the centuries.  Part of that ill-treatment consisted of a social invasion of their territory, ousting them from their ancient homes and with the invaders taking these lands for their own 'plantations.' 

I acknowledge that the present descendants of those 'invaders' cannot bear any blame for the actions of their forbears; I suppose in my imagination I feel sympathy with those who still resent this forced sharing of space in times past.  However, this attitude has no more justification than that of those who are protesting today at the removal of a particular privilege that has meant so much to them down the years, even though it brings them into line with the rest of the country.

It has been suggested that the present Unionist feelings are rooted in insecurity.  I'm afraid I cannot see why they should feel insecure.  Are they threatened by the proximity of the now-independent Republic that shares their island?  Let me call to mind what was perhaps the darkest time in the history of Belfast, 15th April, 1941, when  the city was the victim of heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe.  The following passage on this subject is quoted from Wikipedia:

"Within two hours of the request for assistance,71 firemen with 13 fire tenders from Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, and Dún Laoghaire were on their way to cross the Irish border to assist their Belfast colleagues. In each station volunteers were asked for, as it was beyond their normal duties. In every instance, all volunteered. Taoiseach Éamon de Valera formally protested to Berlin.  He followed up with a speech, made in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, the following Sunday.  'In the past, and probably in the present, too, a number of them did not see eye to eye with us politically, but they are our people – we are one and the same people – and their sorrows in the present instance are also our sorrows; and I want to say to them that any help we can give to them in the present time we will give to them whole-heartedly, believing that were the circumstances reversed they would also give us their help whole-heartedly.' "

I should like to endorse what I heard of Hilary Clinton's comments the other day, that violence has no place in dealing with differences over the present decision about flying a flag.  It's my prayer that peaceful progress toward a multi-cultural democratic community in Northern Ireland will soon resume, and my earnest desire that these few paragraphs of extended apology have not made a bad situation worse.

All in the Mix

It's been a busy week.  I suppose I must admit that's a lot to be thankful for in this economic climate, but from a personal point of view it can be somewhat draining.  In a week of over 2,100 miles, I've been bombarded with news bulletins both early and late, and I'd like first to get off my chest a thought that has re-echoed in my mind in response to one item.

I'd be one of the first to admit that the history of Northern Ireland is far from uncomplicated, and I was thus not surprised to learn of another intricate twist this week.  This came from one of the podcasts that I regularly listen to, RTÉ's 'History Programme' and the presenter described it as 'something that I think not many Irish people know.'  This week saw the ninetieth anniversary of the short time during which all the 32 counties of Ireland were part of the Irish Free State.  On 6th December 1922 the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed a year before to bring to an end the War of Independence, came into effect through the Irish Free State Constitution Act.  The Act created dominion status for the whole island of Ireland, but included provision for the autonomous region of Northern Ireland to opt out of the Free State within a month of its coming into force.  This option was exercised the very next day, and a report of the King's acknowledgement appeared in The Times on 9th December.

It was thus with this anniversary in mind that I heard the news of the riots, civil unrest and death threats this week arising from the decision of Belfast City Council to fly the Union Flag from its offices, instead of every day - as has apparently been the case up to now - only on the same 'special days' during the year as the rest of the country.  Since this has been the case for as long as I can remember, I failed to see why there should be any objection to it, let alone such a violent one, in Belfast.  Cynically perhaps, my reaction to this news was along the lines of, 'After 90 years, welcome to the real UK!'

And now, climbing down from my soapbox, as it were, I'll tell you something of the week that has now struggled to an end.  Regular readers will recall that last week's cliffhanger hinted at an early start on Monday for Newcastle.  This turned out to be a long, but quite enjoyable day.  I had been asked to deliver a box of materials to the Marriott Hotel in readiness for a meeting that would take place there later in the day, and then return these to our customer in Stevenage afterwards.  I'm not at all familiar with the city, and in view of the weather I decided that this was not the time to explore.  Instead, I went armed with a variety of interests along with my small computer, and spent the day in the Hotel's lounge.  I was able to catch up on a number of outstanding items of personal admin, and was also on hand when the meeting concluded - as is often the case - an hour or so before the time I was supposed to return.  I therefore had time for a meal on the way and was home at a reasonable time.

Tuesday was delayed first by delivering the Newcastle materials, and then waiting in for a call from BT about my broadband connection, which has never been right since I parted company with Orange in the early autumn.  Finally last weekend I got around to calling their technical support people, and now I'm pleased to say the service is nearer what I was expecting.  Consequently, workwise, I did only three short jobs before collecting two small items for delivery near Chesterfield the next morning.

This expedition had been well planned and I had gone to bed in readiness for an early start; I ought instead to have been paying attention to the latest weather forecast.  As a result, I was stunned to emerge from my door to a heavy downfall of snow.  I was even more annoyed to be held up for an hour in my journey towards the motorway, not by an accident, but simply by queues of traffic trying to enter the opposite carriageway.  Little was lost by the delay, however, and I then discovered that, once they had been processed, these items would need to be brought back again to our customer, thus doubling my income from the same journey ... just as Monday's assignment had done.

Thursday started with a trip to the south coast, delivering in Portslade and Crawley, and to my surprise the afternoon brought me two jobs as well, first to Thetford, and then to a pharmacy on a housing estate on the outskirts of Lowestoft.  I had difficulty finding the depot in Thetford, as a result of copying the address from the faint copy of the paperwork on the box, in the limited light of the back of the van.  It turned out that I'd only got half of the name on my sheet - the half that didn't appear on the building!  And then, as I neared the second destination, I found myself embroiled in arrangements for yesterday's expedition.  One of my colleagues was about to leave London with two passports that had to be delivered in Scotland during Friday.  How was he to get them to me, if I was out in the further parts of Suffolk?  We hit on an arrangement with my next-door neighbour, who would be home earlier than I would, and before my colleague was due to return.  In the event this worked out quite well, allowing me time to collect these from her before settling down for another early night.

Snow-capped hills in the Borders

Unable to sleep for long, I was up soon after midnight, anxious to be on my way.  If I'm going that far, I prefer to leave during the evening, and get to my destination at the beginning of the day, but in this case that wasn't possible.  Nevertheless, after only one stop for sleep, I reached a truck-stop near Scotch Corner by breakfast time, and felt pleased with my achievement.  Compared to my journey to Aberdeen the other week, it was then pleasant to undertake the long stretch from Newcastle to the Scottish border at Coldstream in daylight.  Here I refuelled, and then enjoyed the morning sunshine passing around Edinburgh to my first delivery in Aberdour, on the Forth coast of Fife.

Then came the great bonus, which enabled me to get home last night instead of taking all night with stops, and arriving exhausted during today, as I had anticipated.  Simultaneous phone calls, one from the office to me, and the other between the two people whose passports I was carrying, resulted in my being able to leave them both at that address, since the two were planning to travel together this weekend, and would be meeting at Heathrow for the purpose.  After a lay-in this morning to recover a little, today has been almost normal, and now I can look forward to a much more energetic finish to the weekend than I'd expected.

What twists and turns will next week bring, as the holiday approaches?

Solid and all Twisted Together

With only three more weeks to go to Christmas, I feel this blog ought to be saying something profound and forward-looking.  But it you want profound and forward-looking, you should be looking at my other blog.  Here is where you read of the often-boring, inconvenient, unpredictable life of a same-day courier.  So, while 'the best is yet to come,' and 'past performance is no guide to future profits,' I'm going to look back at the week and tell it - as best as I can remember - like it was.

As my protests on Friday revealed, it's been a solid week, with little me-time, although not a lot of really profitable job combinations either.  I've started going to an early breakfast at the church on Mondays, which is good for fellowship as each of us is setting out on a new week in our chosen profession.  The gathering ranges from salesmen, advertising executives and office managers to clergymen, me-in-a-van and a couple of interested retirees, each anxious to share the problems and anxieties of the workplace, and gain some blessing on all that troubles us.  Oops ... that's dangerously profound ... sorry.

But it does fit in with what followed: read on.  Monday was a standing start, and began with something of a shock when I rang in to get onto the list for work.  Obviously the weekend controller, usually quite a placid character, had had a bad weekend.  When I announced my simple need, I was greeted with some exasperation, 'I don't know how I'm supposed to get on with any work with all these drivers ringing in.'  Another phone rang in the background.  'And there's another one.'  I politely hung up and left him to his dilemmas.  Scarcely half an hour had elapsed when the boss rang to send me to Peterborough; I was halfway home from this assignment when I was diverted to collect from Haverhill for a customer in Letchworth, and before I'd delivered that, came another call asking me to collect from another customer, just round the corner, for Redhill.  So much for 'flat Monday.'

Back from Redhill around 4.30, I was given a job for Tuesday: a repeat of the 6.0 pick-up of two Tuesdays ago, this time for Cosham and Totton (Portsmouth and Southampton by any other pair of names.)  Tuesday in turn was brought to a close with an afternoon delivery to South Woodham Ferrers, near Chelmsford,  and would I be back by 5.15 to pick up a tender for delivery the next morning at 9.0 in King's Lynn?  I just made it, and looked forward to a third consecutive early bedtime.

The return from King's Lynn was diverted just as had been Monday's from Peterborough - a repeat of that collection from Haverhill.  The interruptions multiplied in this case, though.  There was a collection to be made from a village not quite on the way - a wheelchair mis-delivered to be returned to Stevenage - and as soon as I'd delivered both of these, there was a parcel to be collected in Stevenage to go to Peterborough.  It was fairly predictable, given the recent form, that my return from Peterborough would be interrupted. 

In this case it was both diversion and delay.  I was to meet another driver in Sandy, and collect from him a box to go to King's Lynn, but there was a road closure in Sandy itself for some works to take place, so the Highways Authority, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that it would be a good idea to close one lane of the A1 at the roundabout leading to the road (which was closed off anyway) where the roadworks were taking place.  This added about half an hour to my diversion, as I seethed in an unnecessary queue for a mile down the main road.  By the time I'd collected the box and got about six miles back along the road, it became clear that there would be no one still at the factory in King's Lynn to receive it, so I was told to return home, and take it the following morning.  I had just joined the queue - again! - when another diversion sent me through Sandy, to collect from a customer there a panel to be delivered to RAF Coningsby in the morning, before heading over to King's Lynn.

If you've been counting the days, you'll have realised that we've reached Thursday, and a fourth early start.  The guardroom at Coningsby is being refurbished or something, and the facility has been transferred to a portacabin opposite the car park, and these limited facilities, coupled with my lack of an appropriate phone no. made my delivery there somewhat protracted, but even then I was back home soon after lunch, and able to do two more little jobs during the afternoon.

On Friday I had a 'lay-in' - comparatively so, at least - as I prepared to make a 7.30 collection in Hitchin.  This was going to Ringwood, and thus provided something of a repeat of the adventures of Tuesday morning.  Two local jobs completed the week, but not before I'd been given the opportunity to make a trip to Norfolk, or alternatively two deliveries in south Hertfordshire.  It was already 4.15, and my reaction was to protest that I needed at least one evening that wasn't foreshortened by either being late home or needing an early bedtime in readiness for the morrow.  Unwelcome this may have been, but it allowed me to do my shopping and washing before the day was over.

Catch-up continued yesterday morning, after a welcome lay-in (a real one this time!) and after lunch I took a planned ride to Cambridge to see my 'native' football team, Diss Town play a league match against Cambridge Regional College.  It was a pleasant change to see Diss win a game: they're not having too good a season so far.  And apart from my usual visit to church today, it's included a bit of preparation for a journey tomorrow to Newcastle-upon-Tyne ...

But that I'll carry over until next week.

Two Weeks in One, as it Were!

Monday has for long been the skinniest day of the working week.  This week was no exception, and it generated only a single job.  When I picked it up and rang in for instruction, Dave said, simply, “It’s been so quiet – go and knock it out; I’ll keep you on the list and give you something decent for the morning.”  When I was in the office later, he called me over, and asked me to be in Hertford for 7.30 to collect some printed matter for Leeds University.  Despite this, and a couple of local jobs when I’d got back, Monday’s and Tuesday’s activity together represented only a day and a half.  Wednesday and Thursday fell into a slightly better mould and, although not exciting, did at least break even. 

On Thursday afternoon I’d collected some returns from Chertsey Hospital, and once I’d taken these to our customer, I was home by 4.30 and didn’t have long to wait for instructions for the morning.  Two local jobs were allocated, ‘to get me started,’ and I relaxed for an evening doing uninspiring ‘normal, things.  An hour or so later, came a call from one of the other controllers, offering a swap for those two morning duties.  “How do you fancy a 7.30 delivery in Aberdeen instead?”  I’d only recently finished a first draft of my annual newsletter, wherein I had bemoaned the fact that the number of ‘long jobs’ this year had plummeted, so how could I refuse?  Within only a few minutes I was on my way to Welham Green to collect a parcel of pharmaceuticals for delivery to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary or, as I quickly discovered, Foresterhill Medical Campus, as it’s now less romantically known.

The drive through the night followed the expected pattern.  I stopped just past Peterborough for a meal, and then drove steadily onwards, through heavy rain and vehicle spray until well into Yorkshire.  I was well aware that I’d had no sleep since the morning, and was vigilant for the first signs of drowsiness, but concentration to cope with the road conditions helped to stave these off, and I didn’t need to stop until after I’d left the A1 near Morpeth.  Although not terrifically cold, it wasn’t warm enough to stay asleep for long, and just on midnight I crossed the border and passed down the deserted main street of Coldstream, a place I remembered fondly from my Borders holiday of two years ago.

In fine weather, I passed along vaguely-recalled roads up to the Edinburgh City By-pass, and on to the Forth Bridge.  Then, from Dunfermline, SatNav led me along new routes.  I was taken to Glenrothes and through the kingdom of Fife to cross by the Tay Bridge into Dundee.  That last long stretch of the journey along the A90 is punctuated by the names of teams in the Scottish Football league, Forfar, Arbroath, Brechin and Montrose, and it has few filling stations, but many lay-bys, and in one of these I made my final snooze-stop before finally arriving in Aberdeen around 6.30.

With the delivery made, I set out in daylight for home, taking the more familiar route past Stirling services, and thence remarkably quickly to Glasgow and the M74.  More stops were required for fuel, and a couple more essential short sleeps, and the day was gone all too soon.  I finally returned home at around 8.30pm, some 27 hours after setting out, and with 2 miles short of a thousand more on the clock.

The weekend is a story of itself.  I had already booked a ticket for a concert in Ipswich, and decided to do some research at the record office in Bury St Edmunds ‘on the way past’.  I arrived in Bury at around 11.0, to find the place heaving because of a Christmas Market.  I usually use the council staff car park, since it’s turned over to the public on Saturdays and is right opposite the record office.  Along with the rest of the town, it seems, it was full.  However, a thoughtful attendant, sharing my frustration, pointed out a patch of grass at the front of the building behind an advertising board, where I could leave the van in safety.

It was a good day exploring the registers of the parish of Norton, Suffolk, but before long I came to that inevitable point where one hopes that the next page doesn’t contain any entries to record, because it’s just too much bother.  At this point, it’s time to go, and I made my way to a Little Chef for a light meal before the concert.  As I came away, I discovered that, although I’d turned them on, I had no headlights!   Fortunately, I was armed with both my AA membership card and my mobile, so well within an hour help was at hand.  Although the problem was only a blown bulb, its fellow having ceased to work temporarily in sympathy, it was by then too late to make the start of the concert, and I turned for home.  I wasn’t too disappointed for, if truth be told, I was still somewhat groggy from the rigours of a sleepless night on Thursday.

And today was no less exciting, albeit for totally different reasons.  I knew that there was to be a minor ceremony this morning, to commission the team of which I’m privileged to be a member, who either lead prayers publicly in our worship, or are available afterwards for personal prayer with individuals who have particular needs or concerns. 

I add to this, first, two recent discoveries about ladies who figured in my Norfolk past.  Maggie was a Reader in Diss when I left Norfolk and is now a priest; she featured in the local paper a couple of weeks ago, about to take her first wedding service.  Sue, at that time a successful high school teacher, was the leader of the home group I attended in the 70’s and 80’s.  She too became a Reader a few years ago, and this week I learned that she is now Curate in a group of eight parishes, including the four where I had served as a Reader myself.

I sat, as so often is the case, eating  my breakfast in front of the computer screen this morning, when Twitter announced that one of my online friends was so unwell that she couldn’t decide whether to go to church or not.  Since she is a minister’s wife, I realised what a dilemma this was for her, and therefore how rough she must be feeling.  I sent off a sympathetic response and, as I prepared myself to leave, found myself praying for her.

Before long, I sat in church telling a friend about the excitements of the week just past.  Then one of the officials approached me quietly and explained that the lady who was to lead the prayers in the service that was about to begin ... hadn’t turned up!  He wondered whether I would be prepared to step into the breach.  I gulped but, as the thoughts I’ve outlined above chased each other through my mind, I realised that I had only one response.  I’m not sure how many were aware of the short notice I’d had, or whether it was simply my imagination, but it seemed to me that the whole church was far more silent and responsive than usual at that moment.

An Unusual Post

In addition to an account of some of the more interesting and amusing aspects of the courier life, part of the raison d'être of this blog is to reveal some of the thoughts that also fill my life.  So, after the 'Unusual Week' already described here, I'd like to outline a couple of these from the week just finished. 

In the calm of a post-lay-in Saturday morning, I pondered the week's news from Israel, and found myself thinking about peace - what it means, and what prevents it.

Someone once said that true peace is far more than the absence of war, and it's my contention that the present situation in the middle east is the proof of that statement.  As I see it, the problems stretch back almost a hundred years to the end of the First World War when, with the Central Powers defeated, the world leaders had to decide how to deal with their lands.  While the Versailles Conference dealt with the fates of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the partition of the Ottoman Empire had been largely pre-determined during the war by a series of agreements, mainly involving Britain and France.  The empire was divided into a number of 'chunks' bounded by many straight lines drawn on the map.  It seems that little cognisance was taken of the many nations living there, and the areas in which they lived, such as the Kurds, whose homelands are famously spread across eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and into Iran.  Some parts, like Saudi Arabia, were given independence, while others like Syria and Palestine were occupied and governed under mandate from the League of Nations.

At this point I must stop the 'history lesson', for it's far more complicated than this brief note either can cover, or needs do to make my point.  Rather bizarrely, I compared peace to a chair placed on a carpet.  When sat on, the chair teetered from corner to corner, because the carpet had not been laid on the floor, but on the rubbish that had gathered on the floor before the need for carpet and chair had been determined.  How is this situation to be corrected?  One solution would be to remove the chair and, taking some offcuts of carpet, build up the corner that was too low, so that the chair could be replaced a little more evenly.  Perhaps a better solution would be to remove both chair and carpet, and even the surface of the rubbish before replacing them.

Common sense tells us that the 'proper' solution would be to clear the rubbish out of the way completely and place both carpet and chair on the floor.  However, removing the rubbish reveals a dirt floor that is itself uneven ... and so the analogy goes on.  The underlying question is, 'how far can a problem be stripped back to find and resolve the fundamental difficulty?'  While I'm sure you can see the parallels here with the successors to the Ottoman Empire, equally, I'm sure you would agree that the solution is far from simple.  Indeed, to peel back a century of history, like the carpet, and even out the floor, would be completely impossible - and I for one have no answers to this enigma.

---------------------------

So I wondered about peace.  The other thing I want to share with you is a complete contrast, and I'll begin with a story, which you may have heard before.  It concerns a priest who was very fond of golf.  One sunny Sunday morning, Fr Ryan decided that it was such a lovely day he'd rather play golf than take Mass.  So he phoned a fellow priest, pleaded sickness, arranged for the other priest to take the service, and set off for the golf course.  As he teed up for the second hole, he was spotted from heaven by an alert angel, who reported him to St Peter.

'You'll never guess - I've just spotted Fr Ryan out on the golf course; didn't he call in sick?  What should we do about this?'

St Peter had the answer.  'Leave it to me,' he said.

On the fifth, Fr Ryan astounded himself and scored a hole in one.  The angel was puzzled, and said to St Peter, 'I thought you were going to sort Fr Ryan out.  He's just scored a hole in one!'  Wisdom was revealed in St Peter's reply.

'So, he'll be cock-a-hoop, but ... who's he going to tell?  That'll really pain him!'

And what has this story to do with a courier who has never touched a golf club in his life, and isn't likely to?  Simply this.  I enjoyed a very satisfying Twitter exchange on Friday morning (before being sent to Halesworth), but I can't tell my friends about it, because none of them speaks Welsh  - not that I do either, beyond a very few words.  So I'll get it off my chest by telling you, dear reader.

One of the many broadcasters that I follow on Twitter is the lady who does the morning travel reports on Radio 2, Lynn Bowles ... whom I know to be Welsh.  She had tweeted that, strangely, most of the people she had spoken to that morning were named Bob.  I decided to join in the conversation with the single comment, 'Bob dydd!'  and to my amazement I received a reply - proving, to my mind at least, that broadcasters are human after all - Lynn replied, 'Nice one, Brian.'

(For the benefit of non-Welsh-speaking readers, perhaps I should explain that 'bob dydd' means simply 'good day'.)

Here's hoping for a more normal week next week!

An Unusual Week!

This week has been very strange - not only in the doing but in the recollection of it.  For instance, in conversation this morning the name Halesworth came up, and I commented that I was there only last Tuesday, making a delivery.  I now find that it was actually Friday morning!  It's been a strange week because of a number of unexpected twists and turns, which I'll summarise briefly before moving on.

Monday found me being sent to Essex.  I was called at 8.30 to collect from a customer in Sandy and take to West Thurrock.  When I rang in to ask if there was anything else to go that way, I was told no, but there would be a collection nearby ... at 3.0pm!  Bemused, I set off, and discovered that I was to deliver to a Regional Distribution Centre  (at my age, RDC has a historic local administration meaning!)  These places usually deal with articulated lorries rather than small vans, and when I'd waited my turn, parked my van as directed and reported to the office, I learned that, as a small van, I could have unloaded myself in a more appropriate place an hour ago!  Off then for my collection - some upholstered blocks from a place I'd been to a number of times, where I arrived soon after midday ... and discovered that they were ready already!

Afterwards I was sent to Stevenage to collect for Birmingham, only to be called back half way there when the job got cancelled.  Instead, I was added to a mixed contingent of nearly a dozen small and large vans to collect in Potters Bar at 6.0 the next morning.  I was given deliveries in Uckfield, Bexhill and Totton, which I finished as requested by midday.  I thought that would be Tuesday done and dusted, but not so - upon my return I was soon off again, this time to Leighton Buzzard and Telford.  I eventually found the destination in Telford around 7.0, discovered the gate to be locked, although there were many cars on the car park and several lights on.  As I explored, I was accosted by a voice from an intercom, and eventually gained access, only to be confronted by two standard contract security officers, who won't accept anything they're not expecting, despite a genuine and recognised member of staff being named on the paperwork.  Eventually they contacted the consignee - by then snugly at home in Wales - who phoned a colleague, still at work two floors above, to come down and sign for the goods.  After a meal on the way home, I was eventually into bed about midnight!

After that, Wednesday was a comfortable one-job day, and I collected in the afternoon for an 8.0 delivery on Thursday at a factory in Leicestershire, which ensured a nice truck-stop breakfast on the way home, and only local jobs afterwards.

On Friday I was sent to Halesworth as noted above, and when I was nearly back got diverted to collect in Bedford for a firm in Letchworth.  It was then about 2.0pm, and both the van and I needed refueling!  I then collected something a colleague had picked up in Stevenage, for Swavesey near Cambridge, and thence to St Ives for some export packages to go to DHL in Hayes, Middx.  That would have rounded off the week nicely, but there was yet another twist in the tail, whereby I was diverted to Dunstable to collect three envelopes, which took me to executive dwellings in Beaconsfield, Henley on Thames (both of which I'd been to before) and lastly to a village in Oxfordshire.  Here all the houses have names rather than numbers, and try as I might - even after enquiries in the local pub - the one I sought was not to be found, so after the necessary phone calls I brought the offending envelope back whence it came, and was home for a second time in the week, at around 11.30pm.

- and for tidiness' sake, after such a long 'summary', I'll add what was to have followed in a separate post here.

Back to the Country

It's not everyone's cup of tea but, for me, one of the nice things about this life on four wheels is the freedom of the countryside.  This week has been a good example, taking me to two places I'd never heard of, and to another that I visit only rarely, and that on the way to somewhere else.

After two days of unexciting routine, an early start led me to the village of Moreton-on-Lugg on Wednesday morning, where I was supposed to collect a small piece of machinery that was wanted urgently by our client in Stevenage.  And where is Moreton-on-Lugg? I hear my reader asking - just a little way up the A49 from Hereford.  Once I'd found the particular building, in a factory complex that half-filled a former airfield, I discovered the little chap, strapped to a pallet and all ready to be lifted into my van ... and there was a burger van just down the road for breakfast!

On Thursday afternoon, I took a metre-length of brass rod to a factory right next to the railway line at Overton, in north Hampshire.  Built on a slope, its front door bore an unusual notice - "All deliveries to be made downstairs at the back door."  Unexpected, but straightforward, and with a lovely view over the fields.

Yesterday was a busy day, more like the Fridays of yore.  I was out at 8.45, for a succession of local jobs that fell upon each other, adding wisdom to my decision to switch my computer off rather than leave in on stand-by as I do sometimes when going 'local'.  Then, about lunch time I set off on two 'proper' jobs, one of which carried a story that merits a blog to itself.  The first delivery was to High Wycombe, and I then set forth for Little Kimble, where I was to deliver a small roll of material for the print industry.

Now, Little Kimble is on the far side of Aylesbury (if I were coming from home) but attacking it, as I did yesterday, from High Wycombe it's before Aylesbury.  I don't think I've ever gone to it, and only pass through it if I'm going to one of those places in south Oxfordshire like Didcot, Abingdon or Wallingford, that aren't more easily reached by using a motorway.

I first discovered it when I had a girl-friend who lived in Didcot, back in the days when I was in Norfolk, and not so motorway-aware as I am now.  The only way to get to or from hers was, in my mind, the nearest I could find on the map to a straight line (no wonder the journey took me several hours!)  This led me through Luton, Dunstable, Aston Clinton, Prince's Risborough and Chinnor ... and on the way would come Little Kimble.  Not that I knew its name then - it was just the place where my route zig-zagged under a railway bridge.

So there I was yesterday afternoon, looking for an address, 'Crossways, Little Kimble'.  SatNav took me to the 'homeward' side of that railway bridge, to a small lane that led only to a few cottages; nothing that looked remotely like a printing works.  I turned tail and looked around.  I passed through the bridge, and tried the road that seemed more in the direction of the village than away from it.  As I did so, I spotted a spritely lady of late middle age, making her way towards me on the opposite side of the road.  As she approached, I wound down my window and asked if the firm's name or the address meant anything to her.  They didn't, so I carried on, found myself unproductively passing a few more cottages and at the end of the road - appropriately I thought - the undertaker's!

I turned around and, as I made my way back to that now famous railway bridge, I saw my erstwhile friend coming back.  I prepared to make a gesture indicating 'no luck', but before I could do so, she flagged me down.  She explained that she'd only gone just beyond the bridge to the pillar box, and noticed that the name on the cottage gate just before it was 'Crossways'.  It was worth a try.  I thanked her profusely and back the way I'd come.  Sure enough, on a gate so shabby and overgrown as to be unnoticeable to the casual passer-by, was the name I sought.  I parked by the roadside and approached it.  On the door of the cottage I found an even more encouraging note.  'Deliveries to the back, down the lane.' 

A short way down the lane, I found a gate and walked in, about to go to the rear of the cottage.  As I did so, I passed the door of a small, purpose built structure housing the very business I'd been looking for.  I entered confidently, presented my package, and amused the occupant with my story of how I'd found him.  He was not only impressed by the tale, but also by the apparent speed with which his delivery had been made.  Exchanges like this can be added to the list of good things about the courier life.

And today?  No football this week.  Instead, it's been the bellringers' annual autumn outing, with which I shall not bore my readers.  Suffice to say that, after a day's driving on country lanes, interspersed by several bouts of unaccustomed physical exercise and a pub lunch, energy levels are sadly depleted, and bed will provide welcome relief!

Oddly Productive

It's definitely been an odd week but, I have to confess, a productive one.  A lot of time, quite a bit of thought and, I admit, even the occasional dream over the last two or three weeks has been devoted to something called GenoPro.  This is a genealogy program that has been lurking on my computer virtually unused, for a number of years.  One of the reasons it has remained unused is because I'd never really taken the trouble to find out just what it is capable of.

Now I have examined it more closely than ever before I can see that, quite apart from the obvious capability of producing family tree 'pictures' (which was the reason I got it in the first place), the latest version is able to build them up in family groups and link them together one by one, so that hundreds of characters can be detailed in just one computer file, and displayed on up to a thousand separate pages.  While it isn't my plan to swap my existing database for this program, I've been working my way through my records making sure that I have entered the basic information for each person I've researched in my family tree.  It's been a revealing exercise in the vagaries of personal discipline, as key data readily available is now revealed as being missing in countless examples - more work for the dark winter evenings!

Alongside this, of course, there has been work to distract me.  Having said that, though, this has been statistically one of the most straightforward weeks I've known.  It's a reflection of the partial nature of the nation's recovery from recession that in three of the last five weeks there has been one day in which I've done no work at all.  This week it was Monday, which enabled me to carry on quite freely with the family history stuff I've noted above.  No work at all, that is, until about 3.30pm, when I was sent to Stevenage to load up lots of heavy boxes of printed matter for a conference that took place in Glasgow later in the week.

Tuesday was therefore a long day, made longer by my inability to sleep.  I woke for the second time at 2.30 and decided that, rather than try once more to resume my slumbers, I might as well dress and get under way.  As a result, my plans for breakfast were adjusted, and I stopped at the Nightowl truck-stop outside Carlisle instead of Markham Moor as I'd originally intended.  Arriving in the narrow street next to the office where I was supposed to deliver, I had to wait for a truck that was blocking the road making a delivery before I could drive round the final corner.  While I did so, a phone call from my office passed on a request for me to take some of the boxes on board to the exhibition centre first.  The overall effect of this delay was that it was an hour later that I finally got away from the city centre, and could enjoy the freedom of an unhurried journey home.

A few months ago I began listening to the weekly podcasts produced by the church at Kirkmuirhill, not far from the M74, midway between Glasgow and Carlisle, and I'd resolved that next time I was passing I would go and take a look at the village for myself.  Despite the fact that the weather wasn't ideal, I did so, but the picture I took was but a pale imitation of the one on their website. 

The rest of the week was uninspiring.  The calendar month finished with a journey to an insurance office in Norwich, delayed by a diversion to the hospital in King's Lynn, and Thursday found me sampling the delights of Hampshire with deliveries in Romsey and Southampton. 

By Friday, I was quite ready for a lazy day, and a journey to one of the farthest corners of Oxfordshire suited my mood nicely.  Whether it was fatigue I couldn't say, but even the normal hitches and frustrations didn't seem to bother me.  First of all it took me quite a while driving up and down the busy High Street of Ware to find the collection point.  Then, to my surprise SatNav asked if I wanted to use a toll road in my journey - an offer for which I could see no justification, so I ignored it.  As I drove along, listening to the radio, it occurred to me that this 'fastest route' that I was following seemed to include a lot of little-used country lanes.  My delivery made, I set course for home and again was offered a route using a toll road.  This time I decided to sample this delight, and very soon found that I had to pay 40p to cross the Thames at Pangbourne.  Soon afterwards I was on the motorway, all thoughts of slow back-lanes far behind me, and the weekend to which to look forward.

Today, though busy, has been relaxing, with a breakfast event to start, followed by a discussion on the theme of 'friendship' and, after shopping, getting the van cleaned and the tyres and tracking checked, I was off to watch a football match.  This week I decided to visit a local team playing in the United Counties League, and watched Potton United lose 3-1 to Oadby Town, despite the visitors' goalkeeper being sent off after only a quarter of an hour!  With so many events clamouring for attention on Saturdays this was my first match since the end of September, but I do intend to watch an FA Vase tie in two weeks' time.  More news here as it happens!

Same old ... same old ... and more!

I've written here many a time and oft about that Repeating Genie, that takes one back again shortly to somewhere not visited for ages.  Last Friday afternoon I delivered to a shopping centre in Gloucester; On Monday, after a couple of local jobs in the morning, I was sent to the Royal Hospital in that same city, which I last visited in August, but my records show that prior to that I last went there in October 2009 - when again it was twice in six days!  On this occasion, I was asked to go on to Hereford, to the home of an engineer whom I have visited twice previously this year, making Monday a very good day.

This was as well, since the next day the phone was completely quiet.

Wednesday found me off to the south coast with two slabs of granite: to Portslade, which my atlas told me was to the west of Brighton.  I stopped on the way for another delivery in Hayes, not far from Heathrow airport.  When I phoned in to announce my return in the afternoon, I was invited to go to the same customer next morning, where I collected one smaller piece of granite to go to Seaford, between Brighton and Eastbourne.  This was accompanied by a canvas bag which I collected in north London on the way, and took to a firm in Crawley.

And that genie wasn't going to let go of me easily.  Friday began with another local job, which in a small way echoed last week's dips into my own history, for I found myself parked to load beside a small industrial silo manufactured by a firm I worked for in the '70s, and my attention was diverted for a few seconds as I reminisced about the differing hole patterns that could be punched in sheets of steel 1220 x 2440 mm, in a variety of nine different thicknesses .... my memory still drifts easily back to the days of the 'three-day week'.

Recovering from that reverie, I was quickly sent off on a sequence of three jobs that finished with a collection from a conference in ... Eastbourne!

In these last few weeks, I have noted that there have been several mentions of the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, and my few personal recollections of that time included my dad tossing the daily paper aside in despair saying, "There could be a war any time!"  Mum remonstrated, "Don't say things like that."  "That's right, though," returned dad, "We could all be blown to smithereens!"

With this conversation ringing in my ears down half a century, I began to wonder this week where that word 'smithereens' came from.  A bit of quick research on the internet this morning confirms my 21st century suspicions that it's of Irish origin, coming from smiodar, the Irish word for fragment.  I now wonder where my father got it from, for this was certainly not the only time I'd heard him use it.  I've been thinking much in recent months - and have mentioned before, here and here - my great uncle George, whom I tracked down after several years' searching, in Ireland.  Curiosity has raised the question of whether he had any contact with the rest of the family after his 'migration', since I never heard any mention of him in my childhood.  This latest recollection suggests that maybe he did, although I have little hope of tracing to what extent.

So, where will next week take me?  Answers after the event!

Paucity and a Piece of Past

Last week was typical.  It was a bit of a 'parson's egg', i.e. good in parts.  It provided some surprises, and brought blessings too.  Monday and Tuesday were both slow, with an empty trip to King's Lynn on Monday to collect some brackets for a building site in St Albans, and the delivery of a tender to Bexhill-on-Sea on Tuesday. 

A couple of weeks ago, I finally made the decision to invest in a Dart-tag, making it easier to pass through the tolls at the QEII Bridge, and bringing with it a small discount on the charge.  This was largely prompted by the increase in the toll fee from £2.00 to £2.50 each way.  With the tag I only pay £2.19.  When the tag arrived, the accompanying instructions said to install it behind the rear-view mirror; this puzzled me a little, since I don't have one in the van.  They went on to refer to a protective coating at the top of the windscreen and, thinking that the black patch at the top of my windscreen (where the mirror would have been) would come into this category, I avoided this and stuck the tag below the sun visor. 

Reflecting upon this decision, I wondered whether this would in fact still be within this 'protected area', and to be on the safe side I called the Dart people to make sure.  I was told, yes, it would be in the protected area, and I ought to have stuck it in the blackened section, because that was not subject to the protective coating, which interferes with the recognition technology.  However, when I answered the question of what van I have, I learned that this might be OK, since the protective coating on Vauxhalls isn't as impenetrable as some other models.

Now, since fitting the tag I hadn't needed to use the crossing so there had been no opportunity to try it out, until the visit to Bexhill on Tuesday.  I chose a pay-lane, and drove cautiously up to the barrier, with money to hand in case it didn't work.  Nothing happened, and I reached the point where payment would have to be made.  My hand reached to the window winder to open it ... and then 'beep', the barrier lifted, and the display changed from 'Van - £2.50' to 'Dart-tag Thank you.'  It had worked after all.  I enjoyed a similar, but a little more confident, experience a couple of hours later when I returned, my delivery made.

Wednesday brought a 'blast from the past'.  I was sent to a firm just by the A1 at Huntingdon with some electronic equipment.  It's a job I've done several times before and I knew that, despite the high level of security, it's a doddle.  This time, however, there were two additional items that had to be taken to their sister operation near Eye, Suffolk.  The last time I was at that particular site was some 24 years ago when, as a wannabe spreadsheet consultant, I'd secured a six-week assignment to stand in for an ex-employee to help in the completion of their annual budget.  It had been my first introduction to the wonders of the Lotus Symphony program.

But that wasn't to be my only dip into the past that day.  After a delivery in the centre of Norwich, I was sent to the outskirts of the city to collect some 'dead' computer equipment.  When I arrived, I realised that the property was adjacent to a factory where I had had a job interview in 1985!  On that occasion I didn't get the job, but last week I did get the computers - thirteen boxes and a few bits and pieces, that filled my van, and stayed there until the next morning when I could deliver them to a recycling operation quite close to our office.

Being so close, and with a magazine overdue to be read, I decided to spend Thursday's waiting time at the office, instead of coming home again.  It was an eye-opening reminder of how blessed I am under this new régime to spend such a good time at home.  My family history work has progressed remarkably over the summer months, at the cost of keeping up to date with reading matter.  I was also reminded how boring it was waiting at the office; there are only so many pages that can be read at a sitting, and the mind seeks other diversions.  I was very glad at 11.30 to be sent out on a job.  In fact, it was not one job, but two, and went a great way towards balancing out the shortage of work earlier in the week.  I left home turf with two small boxes, one for the centre of Birmingham, the other for a dentist in Warrington, and was home about 9.30pm.

Friday was similarly balanced.  I wasn't called until 2.30pm, but the job was far better than I'd expected so late in the day, and necessitated taking a box of components to a shopping centre in the middle of Gloucester.  By the time I'd beaten the traffic, the site staff had all gone home, but a phone call had advised me to leave the goods with the security staff, who readily accepted them.  I was glad not to be too late home, because I knew I had an early start the following morning.

My plan for Saturday was to visit the Suffolk Family History Fair at Needham Market, and it began quite successfully.  I arrived about ten minutes before opening time, but this didn't hinder my access for, along with a number of other early-birds, I was allowed to move freely around the stalls from the off.  There were talks in an adjacent room, too.  The first speaker had written the story of her Suffolk family, and prepared it as an illustrated book to give to her present day family, many of whom live far from this area, and to whom it would all be a 'different place'.  The second 'talk' was, in fact, a dramatic performance of a number of Suffolk tales and legends, some of which have parallels in many other places.  It was both interesting and amusing, and received much well-deserved applause at the end.

After lunch, my week took a different course from my plans.  In order to see round the rest of the Fair and make some purchases, I had skipped the Society's AGM, which was being held in the same room where the talks had taken place.  When I arrived once more for the afternoon talk, the only empty seat was one by the door, with a poor view of the screen.  This made little difference, however, because the speaker was one I'd heard before, and his delivery quite uninspiring.  I found myself nodding off, realised that there were better uses for my time, and prepared to leave, glad that I was seated near the door.  As I packed up my things as quietly as possible, I noticed that I had awoken the lady next to me!

Thus it was that, after the journey home, there was time to fulfil a number of essential chores before bedtime, and leave Sunday that oasis of tranquility that it's supposed to be and, thankfully for me, usually is.  Now to execute what that complacency has left behind!

A Family Affair, but ...

Last Monday evening, upon my arrival at bellringing practice, I announced that I was there only as a result of the financial crisis in the health service - I like being melodramatic on occasions.  Asked how this was, I explained that I ought by then to have been driving north to catch the 0400 ferry from Cairnryan to deliver something medical (I knew not what) at Queen's Hospital, Belfast in the morning.  However, when I left the office the job had yet to be confirmed, and I later had a call to say that it wouldn't be happening - their budget wouldn't extend to a courier delivery, however urgent it might be.  I later discovered that I'd got the name wrong anyway - it's actually the Royal Victoria Hospital, but that's irrelevant to my tale.

This is only the latest of a number of recent episodes that are in keeping with an interest I've developed over the last half dozen years or so in all things Irish.  Last weekend saw the return for the winter months to the airwaves of RTÉ Radio 1 of The History Show.  One of the features of the first programme in the series, which I listened to as a podcast during the week, focussed on the Famine of the 1840s and included a graphic description of the sort of hovels in which the poorest people of rural Ireland were living at the time.  There was also a mention of various centenaries that will be marked in coming years, and of the recent centenary celebrations in Belfast of the signing in September 1912 of the Ulster Covenant.  These included a surprisingly peaceful march through Belfast by about 30,000 Unionists, to the accompaniment of several marching bands.  That event even made the national news bulletins on the day.

As I'd tracked my father's family through the 19th century, I had noted the absence of my great-uncle George from among them.  For many years I had assumed that he had died and that I simply hadn't picked up his death in the records.  Last year I discovered what had happened him.  In one last push to try to settle the mystery, I found that he'd joined the army, and had been discharged because of injury in 1876, to settle in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.  In recent months I've been tracing the lives of some of his nine children, although this is difficult without easy access to the General Record Office of Northern Ireland (GRONI) in Belfast.  Last weekend I discovered that two of his sons (my father's cousins) had died in World War I, one on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the other in northern France some thirteen months previously.

In one of my earliest blogs (you can re-read it here), I wrote about a perceived unfairness regarding Northern Ireland and its being part of the United Kingdom.  Perhaps one of the most public expressions of this - and it's my guess one of the least recognised - was seen this summer in connection with the Olympic Games.  What was 'our' team called? 'Team GB'.  And what do those letters stand for? Great Britain, which is the name of the larger of these two islands off the north-west coast of Europe.  The other is Lesser Britain, or more commonly Ireland.  The country being represented by Team GB is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  So why wasn't it called Team UK?

Going back to the Ulster Covenant ... how many UK citizens are aware of it, I wonder.  And yet, only just beyond living memory, this was one of the key events in a schism that has shaped our country as it is today, and gave birth to one of the few countries of Europe that has known continuous peace for almost ninety years.  I don't propose to turn this blog into a history lesson - let those readers who are interested research it for themselves.  Suffice to say that it's a wonder to me why the Unionist majority in Northern Ireland remain so steadfast about being part of the UK, when those this side of the North Channel seem consistently to ignore them, rarely include their affairs in our news bulletins, and I suspect that if truth were told, would rather they just weren't there to embarrass us.

As I've researched what I must call the 'Irish branch' of my family, I've found myself wondering about their feelings, their attitudes to what was going on around them.  How Irish were they?  What did they reckon to the possibility of being governed by a parliament in Dublin? I've now discovered that at least two followed their father into the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (although when he was under arms it was still known as the 27th Regiment of Foot).  Their mother was born in Fermanagh (probably in Enniskillen) only years after the worst of the famine, and all the children were born in Enniskillen.  But still I ask, how Irish were they?  Three of the four eldest girls married men who had been born in England, one in Battersea, one in Liverpool (although of an Irish family), and one a soldier born in Hampshire. 

My great-aunt died in 1906, and when I couldn't find her husband in the 1911 census, I concluded that he and at least the two younger children might have travelled to England and become lost in the hundreds of Evanses recorded here.  As I wondered how to segregate these individuals from the host, I now find that the records for the two sons killed in the war show that - on enlistment, at least - their father was still living in Enniskillen.  There are clearly many questions still to be answered, and as many if not more that will never be answered, but that won't stop me wondering!

Beginnings and Endings

The other weekend I took myself off to Great Yarmouth, firstly to do some research and take some pictures in connection with the family history project I mentioned a few weeks ago, and secondly to watch a football match, the local FA Vase derby match between Yarmouth and Gorleston.  The football ground is quite close to the seafront, and an attraction built during that 'other' depression in the 1930s to give the unemployed something to occupy their time and talents, the Venetian Waterways.  After the match, I took time out to wander down memory lane and get some photos of this tourist feature that, I realised, had played a significant part in my childhood.

It seemed that, every time I've been to Yarmouth in recent years, my wanderings have taken me past the Waterways.  This, though, was the first time I'd actually set foot inside the gate for several decades.  I felt a sense of peace and happiness there, thinking of the boats that had carried holidaymakers around the site, and the illuminated figures that once adorned the banks.  It was fun to cruise past these in the dark evenings, watching with some excitement another boatload going down the opposite stretch of the layout, which consists of a sort of double figure-8.  On each island between these canals was a neat shelter, within which adults took their ease, courting couples delighted in each other's company, and children could scamper to their delight and to the annoyance of everyone else.
The shelters are still there, and seem to be well cared for.  It was with a tinge of sadness, however, that I noted that there were no signs of either the boats or the bank-side figures.  When I got home, I found that there is a facebook page for the Waterways, and that it is still an operating feature of the resort - it just happened to be closed that afternoon.  The people running it now have even restored boats to the waters, too!

On my journey home, I gave some thought to the question, just what was it about the Waterways that I found so poignantly personal, and that gave me such happiness?  Eventually I came to some conclusions; we used to come for a week to Yarmouth every summer from my fourth to fourteenth year at least, and probably before and after as well, if truth be told.  And somehow, it's these summer holidays that remind me specially of my father.  As a farm worker, dad worked a 48-hour week in those days; during my earlier years, at certain seasons, I saw little of him at all, because I would be in bed before he got home from work.  When he was at home, he was always busy, usually outside on the garden, where I was forbidden to go for fear of either getting dirty or trampling on the growing vegetables ... or both!

At holiday times, dad was released from both work and garden; like it or not, he was ours, mum's and mine!  I could enjoy his presence, chatter to him about my world, and he seemed to take it all in, and paid attention to me.  Any other time he would be distracted by the day to day 'stuff' that adults always seemed to put first.  But for that one week in the year we were a proper family, and it wasn't until now, looking back, that I realised just how important that was to me.

Turning to the other end of life, I'm hoping not to end my days in the flat - nice though it is - where I'm living now.  I've yet to find the ideal home of my dreams (maybe never will), but I believe it will be in a village or small town.  Today, I delivered in a part of a town not far from here that I'd not seen before, and as I began my return journey, I spotted a row of four bungalows.  If possible, you should read the rest of this with the Welsh accent that suddenly, and inexplicably, came to my mind as I thought these words.  Perhaps it was something of my unknown future echoing my undiscovered heritage!?

"These almshouses are lovely and quiet.  The neighbours are near enough to be handy when you want, and there's a school across the road to give you a bit of young life to look at ... so long as they behave themselves.  There's a nice broad avenue to walk down, and a little shop for your essentials.  It's all very convenient; and there's a chapel down at the end of the road.  Primitive Methodist, it says it is - built in 1910 - not old enough to be falling down, but old enough to have been refurbished: comfortable."

And that last word, quietly satisfied, had four evenly-stressed syllables.

The Old and the New: then and now

Today is Michaelmas Day.  Put liturgically, it's the Feast Day of St Michael and All Angels, but here is not the place to go into that.  In terms of my own recollections and present experience, it's more particularly Old Michaelmas.  That's to distinguish it from New Michaelmas, of course.  Although it's known as 'New', the term is actually 260 years old and, to be fair, is probably not in very common use at all today.  Some of my readers will have already done the maths, realised that 260 years ago was 1752, and made another quick calculation to find out when New Michaelmas is (... or was.)

For the benefit of those less intuitive, let me put you out of your misery and tell you that it's 11th October.  Significantly, that's in twelve days' time, reflecting the fact that, in 1752, the day after 2nd September was 14th September, as Great Britain took a major step in international relations and leapt from the old Julian calendar to join our European neighbours in the Gregorian system that they had been using since Elizabethan times.  However, we British are a stubborn race, and heels were dug in to preserve certain aspects of our national heritage from the effects of that change.  That's why our tax year ends on 5th April.

Until then, New Year's Day was celebrated on 25th March, liturgically the Feast of the Annunciation - supposedly the day on which the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she was going to have a baby, who would be Jesus, the Christ.  So, if 25th March was New Year's Day, the year would have ended on 24th: 24th March 1751 - already known for (confusing) clarification as 1751/2 - had been followed by 25th March 1752.  However, the British (and stubborn) Government, while re-naming the dates to align with the rest of the world, didn't want to lose out on tax revenue, even for one year, so they tacked those twelve 'lost' days onto the end of the year, making their books up to the 5th April.  And if one year ... then all years had to follow suit.  And while we were about it, why not declare that for all other purposes the year would henceforward begin at the beginning, on 1st January, right in the middle of winter - which was when most people were celebrating it anyway, since there was little else to do at that time.

So, what was the significance of Michaelmas - whether old or new?  Simply, it was half-way between one year-end and the next; being just after the harvest, and thus at the end of the farming year, it was also a convenient point for land to change hands, for rents to be calculated and for workers to move from one boss to another.  For financial reasons, workers were often taken on from Michaelmas to the end of harvest.  Since entitlement to welfare payments depended on their being in employment for more than a year with the same employer, it was important to be able to declare that you had been in post for 'a year and a day.'  Hence there were 'hiring fairs' across the country, where men - and sometimes women, too - would gather, carrying symbols of their trade, and farmers could take their pick of the available talent.  Terms would be agreed, and a new year's work begun.

In my own childhood, being the son of a farm worker who, while not directly affected by these affairs, was aware of them through family talk and the culture in which he had grown up, I heard comments and phrases that were part of that culture too.  For instance, as today's date was noticed on the daily paper, my father might comment, 'Old Michaelmas today.'  Occasionally, if I had been helping him in the garden, and had done well what had been asked of me, he might tell me, 'you'll be kept on.'  In other words, going back to those times long past, a good worker would be spared the uncertainty of the hiring fair, and an appreciative employer would promise him in advance the security of another year's engagement.

And what of today?  As I wrote the last paragraph, I realised that in some ways the same practice persists in the matter of professional footballers and the transfer market.  At the end of the season, a contract might be offered to a good player to keep him with the team for whom he had performed well, rather than risk losing him to another club whose manager had noticed his prowess with admiration and envy.  For me, personally, it's also a time of renewal and/or re-engagement, for on 'New Michaelmas' eve' my annual subscription to Find my Past expires, and on the same day the insurance on my van is due for renewal.  I've already had the papers, and this year I'm facing an almost 20% premium increase - Ouch!

More news next week, when I've recovered from the £-shock!

Is this Normality again?

It's been one of those deceptive weeks when things have seemed quite slow, and yet achievement has been made.  After complaining, for example, that the previous Monday had been completely dead, this one was quite full.  It began with only an hour or so's wait before I was sent to Bedford with a load of empty cartons from one of our local firms.  This is a job I've done before - it's always easier second time and following - so I was ready to misread SatNav's instructions to go to a housing estate on the other side of the road!  (Maybe that was one of the errors that TomTom's maps carried over to Apple for their new phone app!)

I'd scarcely got back from that, when I was sent back to Bedford to collect some computer spares for a nationally-known organisation based in Folkestone.  While I was on my way with this, came a call to divert into Stevenage to collect some labels for a firm situated by the Thames, not far from the Dartford Crossing.  I was just back from Kent in time to change and go ringing.  This was as well, for it was an enjoyable practice, with just enough ringers present to make good exercise for all, with one or two to 'stand behind' and guide those still in learning mode.

Tuesday began with a delivery to Northampton with a collection in Wellingborough on the way back, and then came the longest job of the week, collecting in Baldock and then Bishop's Stortford for a delivery in Derbyshire.  This was to a lighting firm, and I arrived just after 6.0 pm., by which time it should have been closed for the night, and would have been apart from their waiting for a delivery (other than the one I'd brought), for which a lorry was being delayed in the yard.  On the way there I had a call giving me details of a job for Wednesday morning; when I arrived in Royston to collect this, at 8.30am, the office called to ask about my delivery last evening in Derbyshire.  They'd just had an e-mail from the idiots (sorry: our esteemed clients) for whom we did the job, saying that they believed the place would be closed - could we please re-schedule delivery for this morning!  After setting things to rights, I went in to collect the next job and carry on as normal.

That afternoon found me in Kent again, and provided another late night.  Thursday started with a tight run to get a tender to King's Lynn by noon, and ended with deliveries in Peterborough and Soham, and Friday fell into what has of late become the pattern for the last day of the working week, with half-a-dozen fairly local jobs fitted into a long day, setting out at 7.0am, taking me to destinations ranging from Northampton to southern Essex, and ending back home at 9.30pm.

I'd put off until this morning the inevitable call to BT about the broadband problem I've mentioned recently, but by now matters had come to something of a head, and on three occasions yesterday I had discovered that there was now no link to the internet at all, which perhaps added urgency to my actions.  The call resulted in extensive tests and investigations, which led eventually to my discovery that there is enough cable to run the broadband hub in the lounge where the computer is, but plugged directly into the main socket in the hall, instead of using an extension cable (probably in excess of ten years old) that had previously served to bridge that gap.  Now, at least, I'm back in the situation I was a week ago, and am awaiting another call back from BT to carry on the investigations.  To be honest, I wouldn't be too disheartened if it were left as it is at present, since the only thing I'm really missing is the use of iPlayer, and in all honesty there have to be better uses for my time and, if I'm desperate for visual entertainment, there's a shelf of DVDs in the bedroom, some of which have yet to be watched for the first time!