The words of the Bob Hope song came to mind as I thought about the past week. It's nice to be home again in the world of unpredictability, where things aren't what they seem, and where the Repeating Genie is alive and kicking. In an even week of three jobs per day, in addition to my 'home' counties of Herts., Beds. and Cambs., I've visited Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire.
It seemed like a repeat when the first job on Monday sent me to Basingstoke and Petersfield, not much more than a day after my homeward journey up the M3 from my holiday. I say Petersfield, but that was just the first of a number of 'approximate' destinations this week, and I went in fact to the village of Froxfield about four miles away, and on the opposite side of the A3. I quite enjoyed the journey through the countryside and discovered that, although I hadn't been driving on Guernsey, the gentler pace of life had come back with me, for I found myself driving a little slower than usual for a day or two.
On Tuesday morning I was sent to Haddenham, and SatNav took me 'the long way', sticking, as is its wont, to the motorways, and approaching it from the west. I came home more directly, and was intrigued the next day, when I went to Ludgershall - only ten miles away, and further west - SatNav's first 'guess' was back along the same roads I'd used to come home only a day before.
Tuesday afternoon found me collecting a tiny package from a customer in Welwyn Garden City "for Swindon". Well, at least it had a Swindon post code. When I called the office to tell them that it was actually Devizes, the controller popped the post code in as we spoke and said, "... and it's not actually Devizes either ... somewhere called Bromham!" I just made it by 6.0, as the last member of staff was about to leave, and rounded off the day with a meal at an 18th century coaching inn on the A4, something I haven't done for quite a while.
Thursday morning found me back in Wiltshire on a building site on the edge of Corsham, and on the way back I was asked to divert to Enfield. On the odd occasion over the last twelve years I have suffered van problems along the way, and have had to call out emergency services and sometimes the help of another driver as well, to deliver the goods I've been carrying. This was 'pay-back' time, and I had to rendezvous with another driver on the busy A10, where he was causing a traffic queue after his clutch had failed. I had been asked to relieve him of a consignment for 'Cambridge' which turned out to be one of those South Cambridgeshire villages just outside Royston; in fact along the same road in Shingay as the office where I last worked before taking to the road!
After the storms of Thursday night/Friday morning, I was up early to be in Burton on Trent for 9.0. Once more, this wasn't exactly the destination, which was in fact the Nestlé factory at Hatton, and after a frustrating wait for a fork truck to unload me, I was pleased to go only a mile or so along the A511 to the excellent Salt Box Café for a late but welcome breakfast.
The week's final approximation came in the afternoon, when I was required to take some presentation materials to 'two addresses in Leicester'. In the event, with the rapid evaporation of the working week, this was condensed to just one, a business park I'd visited before on the edge of Enderby, where the goods were welcomed at about 5.40 pm. On my way home after a meal-break, I was faced by the biggest traffic delay SatNav had ever reported to me: 95 minutes! As one might expect, this gradually reduced, but it was still 9.0 by the time I crossed the threshold.
"It's nice to go travelling," but ...
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