Friday 27 February 2015

A 'Healthy' Week

I've chosen that title, not because I've been doing a lot of exercise, or visited a health farm, or anything so virtuous.  It's just that my health seems to have been fairly well up in the week's agenda.  This has been the second week of my much trumpeted 'Phased Retirement Plan' (I promise to put the trumpet away soon ... the same tune can get boring!), so once more there are no exciting travels to report.

The week began as usual with the early prayer breakfast for the men's group at the church.  The leader's printer had run out of ink at the weekend, so he 'made do' by very efficiently reading the notes from his mobile phone!  Then came my first health-y act of the week, a visit to the surgery for the annual review of how I'm coping with my mild asthma condition.  This went smoothly and, after praising me for losing some weight and extolling my blood pressure, the nurse asked if I'd ever had my cholesterol level checked. When I said I didn't think so, she printed out a form for me to get an appointment to this end.  Amazingly, this was arranged for the next morning, in the adjoining town.

In odd moments for the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about, and reacting to, an environmental problem posed by my motorhome.  It has nothing to do with polluting the atmosphere, however, but rather with the internal environment.  I'm feeling 'lost' in such a large cab, after spending much of the last twelve years and more driving a car-derived van, and I decided that a suitably modified top fitted to an existing plastic box would both overcome the difficulty of where to put things within reach, but not free to roll all over the floor, and also deal with the absence of anywhere to park a drink while on the move.

Once the idea had formed in my mind, schooldays were recalled, and the skills I'd learned in technical drawing lessons fifty years ago came to the fore.  In less than an hour I'd created plans and elevations, and determined precisely how such a device could be made.  The next weekend found me in a convenient DIY store purchasing materials, and this Tuesday, having returned from providing a blood sample, I was able to complete the final stages of its construction.

Wednesday's endeavours were not for my own health, but for that of the motorhome.  A few weeks ago a friend pointed out some evidence of damp having been a problem in the past.  Although there were no signs that water was still getting in, when I spoke to the dealer, he could see where the problem had been, and said that, to be sure that all was well now, he'd like to re-seal the mounting of the ladder on the back of the vehicle.  This was the purpose of my morning excursion.  Next, I performed the pre-season ritual of filling the fresh-water tank and applying a sterilising agent, in time to empty and refill it before my first 'live' expedition at Eastertime.

Fired with enthusiasm, I decided to clean the toilet, where someone - probably me - had been treading the floor with muddy shoes.  While I did so, it seemed a good idea to open the window for some fresh air.  The catch seemed not to meet exactly and I wondered if the window itself had slid out of alignment with the frame.  A quick attempt at adjusting this sent all thoughts of the interior cleaning from my mind, as I found myself with one hand supporting the weight of the window while the other was trying to refit the top edge into the channel whence it had fallen!  It soon became apparent that the only remedy was another trip to the dealer, to get it done properly ... well, in fact, to get it done at all!  What a relief, I thought, to have taken the wise decision to buy the motorhome from a local dealer.  How would I have coped, I wondered, if the only source of help, instruction and co-operation had been even fifty miles away ... and many of the vehicles I'd considered were being sold at the far end of the country!

Thursday was a bit of an admin day.  It was raining, but I needed some shopping, and I'd also remembered that I needed to call in at the library, so why not put the two together?  Sadly, after walking a few hundred yards in the rain, I discovered that the library was closed!  Home once more, I dried out, and focussed my attention on tidying the desk and catching up on delayed TV programmes that had been queuing up to be watched.

Today, though, it was back to the health itinerary, with an aortic aneurism screening appointment.  They do seem to focus more these days on preventative medicine, which is very reassuring.  I decided to make the trip to the surgery in Hitchin for this appointment on the bus.  It was an absolute delight to sit at the front and as I watched the driver navigate his long vehicle through the traffic, I recalled teenage holidays at Great Yarmouth, when I'd done the same thing.  I used to follow those 'sixties drivers intently, watching how and when they used the pre-selector gearbox - something that is probably quite out of date these days - and I wonder whether the experiences of those times may have kindled my desire to drive a bigger vehicle, an ambition that I'm now able to fulfil with the motorhome.

The scan revealed no problems, but when I got home and opened the post, I found the results of the blood test, which revealed a 'raised' cholesterol level. Unexpectedly, and helpfully, this news was accompanied by some welcome notes of what foods would be useful to combat this situation, and which ones I ought to avoid.  I now have a mental list of certain contents of my store-cupboard that 'should be eaten up, and then not replaced'.  I felt encouraged by sentences like 'don't try to change everything at once' and 'a small change can often make a lot of difference'.

Now I'm rather looking forward to the exercise offered by a return to work on Monday!


Saturday 21 February 2015

A Curate's Egg of a Week!

Yes, it's been a right mixture this week.  In particular, good at the edges and bad in the middle.  Monday was definitely a good day.  It began with a 'regular' delivery to Pinewood Studios, after which there was time for coffee before I was sent to pick up two jobs in Stevenage, one to Cambridge, and the other to Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon.  The one to Cambridge was to a laboratory that I hadn't been to for some years, and it brought to mind an amusing exchange on that previous occasion.  As she received the box I had brought her, the young lady mused, "OK, What have we here?"  While she examined the paperwork, I announced that we never know what we are carrying: "It could be anything from eggs to alligators!" After what I think must have been just the right delay, I added, "mmm ... I'm not sure about the eggs, though."  Seeing the bemused and rather puzzled look on her face, I explained that only a few weeks before I had been sent to a shop in Romford to collect 'a box', which was securely tied, had airholes in it, and made noises.  When I delivered it, I asked what it was that I had brought, and was told that it contained two baby alligators!

Talking of humour, rural octogenarians are perhaps one of the richest sources.  It was at Hinchingbrooke that I found myself walking down a corridor behind an elderly gent pushing his wife in a wheelchair.  As I overtook them, I heard the lady ask her beloved, "I'm not too heavy for you to push, am I, John?"  Quick as a flash, John replied, "No, dear, but that's a heavy old chair, though!"

After these amusements, I took a drinks delivery to a small pub in Attleborough, which brought the day's returns up to a most acceptable level, which was as well, for Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with annoyingly local jobs, and are best forgotten.  So, too, is Thursday, although it did begin with an interesting visit to today's equivalent of a stately home, for which the modern term is - according to the board outside - 'classically styled detached villa'.  This was on the outskirts of Maidenhead, where I found the actual building just about complete, and now awaiting a balustrade on the sweeping staircase in the main hall, and all the other interior floorings, fixtures and fittings.  The stone above the portico reads '2015', so it's clearly intended that it will be finished this year, although it looks far from it at present.

By the time I came around the M25 on my return, the rain was just starting, and I was asked if I would do a pick-up in Welwyn Garden City on my way past to go to Dunstable.  Naturally, I said this was OK, but when I got there I began to regret my willingness to co-operate.  'Dunstable' was elaborated as 'Toddington Services', and when I asked, "North- or South-bound?" I was told "both."  I was then loaded with forty cases of soft drinks, duly segregated into two separate deliveries, and sent on my way.  I think that it took about two hours to drive the 22 miles, locate the delivery point, attract someone's attention, unload and transfer the goods to the required location, and then cross the motorway and repeat the whole process again ... in the rain.  By the time I left I was not the 'happy bunny' I prefer to be!  And to crown it all, having returned home about 2.0 pm, there was no further job that afternoon.  The only consolation was the later announcement that I could start Friday with a nice gentle run to Southend-on-Sea.

This was indeed pleasant, and provided a welcome contrast to the foregoing. My load was ten 25-litre containers of 'fluid', being taken to a small shop, with a parking bay right outside, in a street that wasn't too busy.  I have no idea what sort of 'fluid' it was; I was simply thankful that the consignee was willing, with good humour, to carry all ten containers from the pavement into the shop.  There was even a glimpse of the sea as I drove away.

Our church had decided that, on the Fridays of Lent, our normal monthly practice of a day's prayer and fasting would become a weekly event for those wishing to take part.  It was therefore somewhat ironic, as I drove out of Southend on my way home, that the controller rang and said. "Pull over and have some breakfast ..."  He had a pick up for me at an industrial estate in Basildon, but not for about an hour.  I was pleased, though, to drive to the estate, listen to the end of a play and watch the antics of a robin and two brace of sparrows in the tree opposite.  It proved a relaxing prelude to what was to follow.  Having made my collection I was nearly back to Letchworth with it, when another call asked me to meet another driver, who had a chilled box to be taken on to Newmarket as soon as I had delivered my own consignment.  By the time I had done this, it was about 2.0, and I could see the day ending as had the one before.

Not so.  Within an hour or so, I was given two more jobs that seemed made for each other.  One was from Letchworth to Northolt, the other a pick-up near Potters Bar to go to Twickenham.  As I drove down the A1(M) to make the second collection, I realised that on one screen of my PDA the destination was given as TW11, but on the other it was TN11.  I rang in to have this clarified, and soon afterwards the TN11 was changed to match. However, when I made the collection, I found that it was addressed to a firm in Sevenoaks!  By then it was too late to have any hope of making both deliveries by the required 6.0 pm, whichever sequence I might adopt, so I sought advice from the office.  After a delay of about 40 minutes, another driver met me, and we exchanged the Sevenoaks delivery for a film to be taken to a cinema in Croydon.

I made my delivery in Northolt, and SatNav then decided that the fastest route to Croydon - it was Friday evening, remember - would be an almost straight line on the map.  I can't recall exactly which boroughs I passed through; many of the roads were familiar, many weren't.  Some were the perfect operation of the Repeating Genie, for they were the same that I'd used last Friday morning when going from Pinewood Studios to make further deliveries in Thornton Heath and Wimbledon.  I'm not a particular fan of London: in fact, when I started this work nearly thirteen years ago, I had previously driven only a handful of times anywhere within the M25!  I was very glad in those early days to be stopped by a red traffic light, so I could check on the map which road I needed.  Now with SatNav, however - complain about it though we might - things are totally different.  With no worries at all about where I was going, all I had to think about was the traffic around me, and driving through inner London on a winter's evening was magical!

It was a long day; I didn't get home until about 10.50pm.  But it was different, and in many ways the best ending for a week that would otherwise have been very 'flat.'

Saturday 14 February 2015

Wandering Mind

Have you ever emerged from a pleasant reverie and questioned just what thought sequence had led you down that track?  I hesitate to call it old age, but this was my experience the other morning.  Try as I might, I can't recollect what it was in either St Peter's first Epistle, or my Bible notes, that triggered this diversion, but I found myself thinking of shops in Diss during my childhood, and the fact that the names above the windows rarely matched the people inside.

Take, for example, the one that I wrote about here at some length almost three years ago.  The shop was called W. Bale & Son, and I can just remember seeing the original William Bale, a short man with glasses, and also his son, another William (but always known as Billy), who had already retired when I worked in the shop in my schooldays.  By then it had been sold as a going concern to the firm who ran the wine merchants across the road, John Lovibond & Sons.

Before wine had come along, these premises were part of what I suppose had been a small deparment store, known as 'Bobby's'.  Here was the place to go for quality tailoring, but also for crockery and - I believe - furniture, too. One of the younger generation of the family was only a few years older than me, and I recall being in the store one day when someone came in to see him.  I recall my stifled amusement when the man behind the counter referred to him as 'Mr. James'; so far as I knew the boys at school just called him Jimmy Bobby!

Just across Market Hill from this store was a chemist's shop, with a great stone façade.  Carved into this, in the manner of a giant tombstone, was the name 'Gosling & Co.'  The man who ran this business was William Black, a tall man with grey hair.  I believe there was another man before him, a Mr. Fox, but of that I can't be sure.  I think the original proprietor Mr Gosling, died early in the century.  There was another chemist's shop on the opposite side of the block (which is now known for tourism purposes as the Heritage Triangle), called 'Batley & Stratton'.  I remember the front opened on to a narrow pavement, made even narrower by the existence of rails outside the window.  These were very useful for parking one's bicycle! Opposite this ancient store, with its double doors, so narrow that one could scarcely pass through if only one were open, was a rather shabby shopfront that was far from off-putting, in fact very attractive to young boys and girls.

The wider door of this shop opened into a broad room in which was a great table where, stacked in orderly manner, were all kinds of sweets, still in the boxes they had come in from the wholesaler.  On shelves behind were large jars of more sweets, to be pulled down and weighed out by the quarter-pound ... although if our pocket money was tight, it was no trouble to provide just two ounces if we wanted.  On the opposite side of the room was a display of pipes, cigarettes and tobacco, for the sign above the window - not that we ever looked at it, of course! - read 'Tobacconist and Confectioner'.  My memory isn't clear, but I think the name on this sign was Hurren, although the shop was run by a couple named Forsdyke.  Their advert in the parish magazine said 'AF & GB Forsdyke', anyway.  I suspect that the old lady who welcomed us to her sweet emporium may have been the daughter of the original Hurren, for my mother always referred to the shop as Hurren's, and to this lady as 'Miss Hurren', which would imply that at some point she had married a Mr G. Forsdyke.  Mr Forsdyke may have had another job, because he wasn't seen much in the shop.  My recollection of him is of a tall slim man, usually in a formal suit, who had an elegant way of holding his cigarettes from underneath.

Behind Batley & Stratton, was a wholesale grocers, where I was often sent on errands.  It was called Aldrich & Bryant, and just around the corner, beyond the Midland Bank, was the established firm of solicitors, Lyus, Burne and Lyus, always known locally as Lyus & Burne.  I think both Lyuses had long since departed this life, but Dick Burne was still around in those days, a regular communicant at the early service at the parish church, and his wife was a customer at Bales'.

Like Batley & Stratton and Aldrich & Bryant, many of the other shops and businesses in the town probably began as partnerships, such as the ironmongers, Larter & Ford, whose premises ran down to the Mere, a six-acre lake around which the old town grew up.  Then at the apex of the triangle was another clothing business, Aldiss & Hastings.  I'm sure each of these businesses catered for their own sector of society, for there seemed ever to be a sort of 'us and them' distinction into which I grew up.  So, for our clothing needs, my father - and I in his wake - would go to another shop where the name didn't fit the proprietor, Cullens, managed by Mr Alan Bailey, a very helpful man who lived on the same estate as us, and who spoke with a lisp.

And finally to mention a business that I had no dealings with, a partnership that made its fortune from that noisy invention, the motor car.  Mr. Watson and Mr. Smith owned the showroom that eventually became the town's Vauxhall dealer, and - possibly in common with others in the town's history - invested their profits in the erection of houses.  This pair of substantial semi-detached houses were called Cherwell Croft and Willow Brae, and stood only a little way back from that prestigious entrance to the town, Victoria Road.  I have a vague recollection of the two widows, Mrs Smith being a tall lady, and Mrs Watson considerably shorter, and having a mouth always on the go ... by which I don't mean to suggest that she was a gossip, rather that she suffered from a nervous twitch.  By the time I knew her, she had moved to a bungalow next door to the original houses, and it was into a flat in one of these houses - I never knew who had owned which - that I moved with my bride when first married.

All this goes to show what an uninteresting week it has been, work-wise. Although not particularly unproductive, the only day that was really full nose-to-tail was yesterday, which brought four of the week's thirteen jobs. The other days tended to stagger to a close - rather than end - mid-afternoon, and Thursday began late, because I had to resort to the van-doctor when I was threatened by that most sinister of icons in the modern vehicle, the picture of the car partly obliterated by a giant spanner!  In this case the diagnosis was straightforward - replacement of glow-plugs required, but it does disrupt the flow of the week.

Saturday 7 February 2015

One a day, and Sussex by the Sea!

After a week off, whether holiday (as some might have thought) or the start of phased retirement (as indeed was the case), it's always a slow build-up back to normal levels of activity, and this was no different.  The situation is complicated by the usual slow build-up of 'normal activity' after the new year anyway.  But there was at least some highlight to each day, above a background of what I call 'bread and butter', local work.

Monday found me utilising my Dart-charge account for the first time in nearly two months, as I went to Swanscombe for a customer in Ashwell, whose goods were delivered to a delightful modern office building, aptly named 'The Observatory', for it offered excellent views in every direction.

The next day was a definite 'damp squib' work-wise, because the highlight was being stuck - along with thousands of others - on the M1 for several hours owing to an accident not very far from home, at junction 13.  It was feared that there had been a fatality, but the TV news bulletin that evening suggested that there were two serious injuries only.  It seems that a lorry had crossed the central reservation and taken out a car.  I wondered later whether the lorry might have come from the Bedford direction, and perhaps the driver had been confused by the new layout of the junction.  It's certainly esoteric - I don't know of another like it - with lots of subordinate junctions on either side of the motorway, quite apart from those that actually interact with it.

Wednesday began with a straightforward collection from a distribution centre along the A14 at Thrapston.  As I approached the gate, I recalled the confusion that I had had to overcome on my one previous visit.  When the security official had booked me in, and told me where I should go to make a collection - as he'd done on that other occasion - I explained that I had then found I needed to be 'over there' ... and I pointed in the opposite direction. Adopting a welcome relaxed and co-operative attitude, the official said he wasn't really bothered where I went: it was my choice.  Since it was nearer the gate, I went where I had gone before and began my 'I hope I'm in the right place ...' script.  It worked, in within minutes I was back on the road.

The week's fourth highlight, like the second, was not to my advantage, although unlike that accident, this one was predictable.  I was called on my way back from a delivery in Reading by another depot, who suggested - quite logically - that I might like to do a pick-up in St Albans for a destination in Stevenage on the way.  Unfortunately this was a collection of samples from the renal unit at the hospital.  Not surprisingly, these require special secure carriage and, although I have received the necessary training, the little box I'm provided with for this purpose wouldn't have accommodated even one of these large containers ... and there were at least ten!  There was no alternative but to ring in and get another driver, suitably equipped, to make the collection.

Friday was more like a 'normal day'.  It started with the collection of some bespoke export packaging in Letchworth.  As I was leaving the town, bound for Berkshire, the controller rang: how much room did I have?  There was one small box to be collected in Tring, for the south coast.  This was the 'first overlap'.  I collected the box, and then made my way to a private estate - automatic gates at every entrance - near Slough to deliver the empty boxes. The men there had anticipated a much larger vehicle; I had brought them four boxes, they were expecting about fifty.  They explained that this house had been sold for £10 million (!) and that the new owners had just arrived. There seemed to be no real anxiety, however, and as I left one said to the other, "we'll have an easier day with just four boxes to fill!"

Then came the 'second overlap' for, as I drove around the M25, making for Rustington, near Littlehampton, with my box from Tring, I had a call from the Guildford office.  They had spotted me heading in their general direction, and wondered if I would be interested in a collection in Guildford going to St Leonards-on-Sea.  I told them I couldn't see why not, and after collecting a small box there I had the treat of a cross-country journey to the seaside.  The sunshine was almost summer-like (if you didn't look at the dashboard thermometer!) and I learned just how long is 'Good old Sussex by the Sea'.  It was a very pleasant journey indeed, ending with another Dartford crossing, after which I was home about 6.40pm.