Friday 30 August 2019

Keeping All the Balls in the Air

It's been a tiring week ... I don't suppose I'm the only one to say that, given the hottest August Bank Holiday on record.  Sleep has definitely been at a premium and - although they say that the body only ever makes up for two-thirds (or is it three fifths ... something in that order, anyway) of the sleep it loses - I've been yawning my way through most days this week.

Looking back at what I've done, I don't think there was much out of the ordinary; at least, nothing really 'extra-ordinary'.  I visited my cousin as I usually do on bank holidays, but spent the day-and-a-bit indoors, rather than gallivanting about the locality ... at our age it takes very little to dissuade us from any idea of a gallivant!  I couldn't sleep until gone midnight on Monday morning, but drove home in the evening non-stop with neither traffic hold-up nor fatigue.  It seems to have caught up with me once I'd regained home terrain.

Work on Tuesday was exciting, not for variety but because of coordinating help both in the morning and the afternoon.  When there is no help, I'm happy to work alone, but when someone else arrives to share the work, it involves re-arrangement of the work into a 'production line' and the two parts don't of their very nature operate at the same speed, so there is either a hold-up or a build-up, which creates dissatisfaction so far as my mind is concerned.

On Wednesday afternoon I devoted three hours or so to the apparently lengthy task of preparing the items I'd collected last Wednesday, getting them ready for sale.  Although helpful of itself, this underlined to me what a lengthy job that will be ... for someone, but certainly not exclusively for me!

This morning's excitement was the follow-up to the problem with the van that gave me a day off last Friday.  The problem, though identified by the garage, is still not fixed, and new alarm lights meant that our usual routine was curtailed.

Nothing daunted, I'm planning watching another football match tomorrow.  The team I'm becoming used to calling 'mine' (while recognising that 'other teams are available'), Biggleswade FC, are playing their first Saturday home match in the Southern League, and I'm hoping they will repeat their performance of last Saturday when they achieved their second FA Cup win of this year's competition, going into the draw for the First Qualifying round for the first time.

In the meantime, I'm finding light relief catching up on other voluntary commitments ... desk jobs in the political sphere.  With the conference season upon us and Brexit lurking in the background, life is nothing if not exciting!

Friday 23 August 2019

Such Days Make One Week ... or Weak?

Most things don't conveniently end at the end of the week and many's the time when I sit down to write another blog and pick up the threads of what I wrote the week before.  So let's do that.  Monday and Tuesday were quite routine, except that on Tuesday plans were confirmed for the execution on Wednesday of the favour that was the subject of that phone call last Friday afternoon.  A well-known high street company had offered some end-of-line stocks for sale in our local charity shops ... provided we collect them from their head office site.

It was agreed that a van would be hired - of a size fitting to the job - and that I would drive it, accompanied by another volunteer, to collect the goods and bring them to our warehouse.  I may have been right when I surmised that it was in consideration of my background and my abilities that I was asked if I would do the job.  It happens that, in my courier days, I had previously visited the company in question on a number of occasions, and thus knew precisely where I was going ... no fiddling about with an unfamiliar SatNav, or the hassle of transferring my own to the van.

The journey was a piece of cake.  My 'shotgun rider' - someone I'd not met before - proved to be chatty, resourceful and helpful, and the roads presented no hold-ups.  The only minor difficulty was the generosity of the donor.  The amount of goods we were presented with exceeded by 100% the amount specified.  This meant that, instead of bringing back the bins we'd taken, neatly packed with goodies, the van was piled to the roof with 'goodies-plus'.  But we weren't complaining.  It was a most satisfying day and, home once more, I felt justified in doing very little else.  The 'payback' - not that it was intended thus, of course - came yesterday afternoon in a text message telling me thanks for my efforts, and saying that the van I usually help on had to go to the garage today, so I could have a day off!

The other 'big event' of the week has been on the domestic front, where I've had to deal with not one, but two desk-top rebellions.  I replaced the ink in my printer ... a necessary and, one would think, innocuous task.  The printer, however, had other ideas and refused to have anything to do with the new black cartridge I'd installed, despite its being physically identical to the one I'd removed.  In desperation, and thankful that it wasn't quite empty, I replaced the old one and things are OK at the moment.  New ink has been ordered and hopefully will arrive before the old black cartridge finally runs out.

Like many others, I imagine - certainly two users I know have shared their experiences - I suffered severe delays a couple of weeks ago as a result of a mammoth update to Windows 10.  For many years I have been a happy user of a program called Windows Photo Viewer.  I like it because, by simply rolling my mouse-wheel, I can enlarge a picture virtually instantly, instead of engaging a menu, selecting the magnification I require and then probably finding it's not exactly what I want.  This instant magnification facility is very useful when I'm transcribing census documents, which I receive as a .jpg file.

Windows 10 doesn't have, as standard, the choice of using this program to view these files.  It has been replaced by Photos, which doesn't have this capability.  I discovered this with my old computer when I upgraded from Windows 7, and was able to recover its use after an online search for information about the problem and its solution.  Somewhat annoyed that, having been using it on my new laptop for well over a year now, suddenly it was gone, I resorted to the internet once again and, an hour or so later, I am now able to use Windows Photo Viewer once more.  I freely admit I'm not exactly sure what it was that I installed, but I followed the instructions from the screen, and am satisfied.

I realised yesterday evening that, if I download a number of photos at once - as I shall have to when I receive another batch of census pages - they now arrive in a different format from the zip file I'm used to, and the 'compressed file' abilities of Windows Explorer are unable to extract them.  I see more troubles in store as I try to overcome that one in the coming days!

Saturday 17 August 2019

How it's Meant to Be?

There's one very important thing about being a volunteer ... personal power!  I don't mean power in the sense of getting everyone else to do what you tell them - far from it! - but power over your own person.  You get to do the things you want to do and have no responsibility for the things you don't.  At least that's how it seems to me.

Note, I said it's an important thing ... not a good thing.  Someone asked me the other week how I was getting on, did I enjoy what I was doing there?  I think she was a bit surprised by my reply, "I like to see a system working the way it should."  She had to follow up to get the response she sought.  "And what about this system?"  When I told her that in my opinion it worked about 30% of the time, I think she was surprised, but a conversation ensued that, I hope, will ultimately be to the good of the whole enterprise.

As I look back over my life, I see lots of separate strands: jobs that don't necessarily form a 'career path'; friendships and relationships that have been discarded ... few have survived the years; projects left unfinished that have eventually ended in the bin; skills learned, but not taken to a formal qualification or fully utilised. There have been so many ships that have been 'jumped'. In many ways I've been a drifter rather than a sticker.  

To read that summary you would think that my life is a misery but that's not true.  Yes, there has been unhappiness down the years ... whose life hasn't had some?  And there are regrets, things that, with the advantage of hindsight, could have been handled better.  But those strands have twisted together to make me what I am.  I'm independent, strong willed even if the body isn't so strong these days, can be stubborn or willing, selfish or considerate and compassionate according to the attitudes and behaviour of those around me.  For good or ill, I'm my own man.  And now I'm a volunteer.

Yes, I'm a volunteer.  I have quite a wide range of personal skills gained over the years and I'm free to offer them wherever they can be of use.  It's good to be able to sit at a computer for a day, confident in operating a particular system, but able to pack a box, fasten it securely and take it to the despatch area.  It's good to be able to spend a morning on a van, meeting people, moving bags and tubs of 'stuff', loading tidily and securely, unloading carefully and systematically, and able to drive it if required.  It's good to be able to offer a bit of management advice, form design and spreadsheet development skills where they're needed.

But I'm a volunteer.  If there's something I don't want to do, or feel incapable of doing, I can just leave it for someone else.  There's no compulsion to work until the day ends; I can leave when I want, and what's left undone someone else can pick up tomorrow.  And provided I don't breach the requirements of health & safety, endanger or injure someone else, and meet the basic needs of human decency and courtesy, there's no voice of censure.  

The outcome is, as I told the lady, a system that works properly about 30% of the time (my estimate, not a statistical fact).  Because there's no continuity, no enforceable plan, efficiency is sacrificed.  Resources aren't always to hand, but have to be sought, materials have to be conveyed to and from what could be an efficient production line.  Because it's a voluntary workforce, relying on donations rather than commercially procured raw materials, it is de facto inefficient.  

We have to ask, is the efficient production line a desirable situation?  Isn't it far better to have a happy, chatty workforce, in a situation where personal needs and wishes can take centre stage.  When a manager can ring me - as she did yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting at home at my computer as usual - to say "I have a favour to ask.  You don't have to do it, feel free to say 'no'."  The situation she faced was explained, along with the part I could play in its resolution, and I gave a willing - nay even excited - 'yes' to her request.  I wondered afterwards whether she had said to her colleague, 'I'll give Brian a call.  He's the chap to help us out.'  In a commercial situation, that would be called being taken for granted, undue pressure or favouritism (according to your standpoint).  In this case, far from it.  I was delighted to be thought of.

But I'm a volunteer!

Friday 9 August 2019

Animal Magic!

Let me begin with the racing results ... I ended last week with the observation that one horse was becalmed mid-course, since I was awaiting the outcome of an offer of help.  The horse fell, and never finished the race.  I had a text exchange with my friend early this week, saying that the quantity of food involved was much more than a car could accommodate and a van had been arranged for the job ... oh, to have turned the clock back a few years!

I also mentioned last week the excitement of using on-line conferencing technology.  When the instructions arrived on Monday, I found them confusing and, being unclear whether I should need to use both laptop and phone, I decided to have a little run-through the link-up process before the event.  It was as well that I did for, although the program was simplicity itself to use, it did require a preliminary set-up to match the software with my laptop and a brief test with a picture of myself on the screen, asking 'what shall I say, then?' and waiting for the echo of my own voice (it never sounds right, does it?).  Once the second sound option had been chosen - I hadn't realised that the laptop has a hidden microphone to complement the webcam - all was well, and I was able to bookmark the configuration ready for the live meeting last evening.

The meeting itself went quite smoothly.  As the 'new kid on the block', I said very little and learned quite a lot, about the organisation itself and the ongoing business that the meeting was held to discuss, but also about some of the people involved.  I imagined the chairman to have been an engineer in his working life; he had done all the thinking and designing and now needed to write the whole thing up so it was in a fit state to make public.  The secretary seemed to take little part in the meeting, but at the end demonstrated her efficiency by being able to reel off a comprehensive action list of what each of us had agreed to undertake before the next meeting.

And the other significant follow-up is the business of changing horses mid-race.  The switch-back to BT will now not be going ahead.  The people at Virgin explained that there is much more involved than simply responding to BT and saying 'yes, please.' not least the fact that their contract requires 30 days notice of termination.  Other factors, too, are involved, including a new contract at a lower price.  A friend has made me a novel piece of furniture out of scrap wood, at the precise dimensions to fit between two bookcases and carry the Virgin hub in a sensible position instead of dangling on the floor like a dog straining to get off its leash.  This little 'dolls'-house table' will not now be suffering immediate redundancy.

The latest snippet of gossip to emerge from my now secured internet connection has taken nearly 136 years to reach me.  In an idle moment - yes, they do still exist - I was making yet another attempt to document the demise of my great-grandfather.  He was present at the census in 1881, ten years later his wife was described as a widow, and in 1892 she re-married.  Search where I might, for the last twenty years I've been unable to find either a death record for him or a record of his burial.  I decided this week to begin a detailed search of the newspapers that are available on line.  Searching for 'Evans' and the name of the village where they lived, 'Syleham', for the 1880s, I again found no trace of great-grandfather, but the first of about 40 results mentioned his son, my grandfather. 

The extract that had appeared in the results simply provided the text immediately surrounding the key words I'd submitted.  I saw "defendant.  Zechariah Evans, labourer, Syleham" and my immediate thought was 'Oh dear, what had grandfather been up to?'  Like you, perhaps, I hadn't spotted the full stop.  When I looked at the article, which actually covered several column-inches of the Ipswich Journal of 24th November 1883, I discovered that the word 'defendant' finished the previous paragraph, which had identified the man's solicitor.  My grandfather, 15 at the time, and his elder brother, 18, had seen the defendant driving two very lame bullocks along the road, and the defendant, a local farmer and dealer was brought before the local Magistrates Court for the non-reporting of a case of foot and mouth disease.  The boys had seen two of the beasts being brought home, essentially from market, and were the first-reported of a number of witnesses in a successful prosecution.

I'm now looking for more idle moments that I can use to dig even further into this rich resource.

Friday 2 August 2019

'Racehorse Fits Car into Diary' Problem ... or Similar

There are weeks when the many strands of life resemble those racehorse games that used to be seen at the fairground.  Those of you of a 'certain age' may well remember them.  Each position along the front of the stall was assigned a horse on the big board at the back, and you propelled your horse toward the finishing post by means of scoring points as a result of rolling balls into holes in front of you.  Sometimes your horse would appear to have lost its legs completely, so long did it remain in one place; then all of a sudden it would shoot forward several yards, as the mechanism beneath jerked it into life.

Fairgrounds apart, there are days when I return home after hours away and say to an empty doormat, "Right, that's the post dealt with; what's next?"  After a sequence of such days, yesterday was definitely not one of them.  I returned home at lunchtime to find three white envelopes waiting for me.

Following the anniversary of my little sports car being written off, and the subsequent acquisition of a new replacement, the said replacement has just had its first annual service, and is resplendent in the afterglow of a professional clean courtesy of the local Volkswagen showroom.  As part of the anniversary celebrations, I had renewed the VW insurance policy, and the first envelope I opened contained all the confirmatory documents ... and the all-important Certificate of Insurance.

The second one was a leaflet from the National Health Service, distributed by my GP's office, offering a free general health check for an age range that includes me.  This seemed a very worthwhile service, so I rang the surgery immediately to make an appointment.  It's actually two appointments, because they do a blood test first and then chat to you after they've seen the results.  Coming only two days after I responded to an earlier letter about an annual Asthma Check, they would appear to have commandeered my diary for the coming month.

They don't get it all their own way, though.  A little over a year ago, I decided to change my broadband provider after being told by a nice young lady at Virgin that, when my introductory discount was about to expire, I could call their customer service number and arrange a new discounted deal to replace it.  Fool that I was, I believed her and, a week or two before the expiry date, I rang the number only to be told that nothing could be done, because my existing contract was still in force.  Though I pleaded my cause, I got nowhere and now that the full price has kicked in, they have e-mailed me to say that this will be increased even further from from September.

So, when I opened my third letter this morning and found an attractive offer from BT, I looked for the almost-hidden important phrase 'will revert to' and, having found it, did some comparisons.  The outcome is that I have now arranged to return to BT as a new customer and enjoy a discount for 18 months for their latest variety of high-speed broadband, before moving to a new price within a pound or so of what I would be paying Virgin next month.  And with BT there are a lot of hidden extras and good service, too ... the only reason I left them was the attraction of discount ... and a pretty voice!  Another appointment has been entered to my diary, this time not a go-out, but a stay-in event, just in case the engineer can't do all he has to from outside the flat.

The excitement isn't all over yet, however, for this evening I received a long-awaited e-mail from another committee I was invited to join a few weeks ago, inviting me to fill out a doodle-poll to say when I would be available for the first meeting to involve me.  This will shortly lead to another filled slot in the August diary.  This one will have the added excitement in that the other committee members are in Edinburgh, Bristol and a host of other locations I've yet to  memorise and the meeting will take place on line, using technology hitherto beyond my horizons.  Very much a case of 'watch this space'!

Of course, there is one horse in the race for my time that is presently becalmed mid-course.  Some months ago I attended a meeting in the town, where it was decided to produce cooked meals during the summer holidays for some of the less well-off families in the community.  Cooking is not my strong point - far from it! - but I decided I would be willing to help behind the scenes.  The other week I responded to an appeal to collect food being donated by two local supermarkets.  Last weekend, I was shifting chairs in church alongside a friend who is helping with the same venture, but wasn't the one who had sent out the appeal.  To my surprise it was this friend who apologised for not getting back to me with the details of what I shall be required to do.  It seems that, in that committee, the one who sends out appeals isn't the one who actually deals with responses!

No doubt there'll be more diary excitement next week.