The worm turns

I thought I'd treat myself to an afternoon out today.  I went to a nearby nature reserve, armed with camera and binoculars, to see what it had to offer.  I didn't find much birdlife, but I did explore an ancient quarry (the safe bits anyway), and I'm sure I derived great physical benefit from the nature trail which went up and down some fairly steep slopes.

The final bit passed over an empty stretch of meadowland, which reminded me of a particular swathe of Norfolk farmland that had been left out of use for a while.  It was nice to be in the countryside with no pressing purpose, just to wander freely in the quiet and solitude.  And perhaps the best bit about it was that the decision to go wasn't even on the table until about fifteen minutes before I left home!

When I first moved to this part of the country, I used to spend most of my Sunday afternoons exploring the nearby villages, and seeing which pubs did the best roast dinners!  I find that, now I've taken up this 'second career' driving all week, my usual aim on Sundays is to get home quickly from church and spend the rest of the day in front of the computer (I don't have a TV), and if I do go out for lunch, it's to the nearest pub and straight back again.  The end result is that a sort of monochrome blanket descends over all weekends: they all fall into the same pattern, and less satisfaction is the result.

Now, I realise that there has to be a certain structure to life, and I for one would be lost without it, but I'm beginning to realise that there can be a bit too much of it sometimes.  A few years ago I developed the habit of working most Saturdays, and a lot of formerly regular interests got squeezed out of life.  I feel it's time to try to nudge the pendulum of life in the opposite direction.  In those days, if I wasn't going to work on Saturday, I felt constrained to explain why.  This week, when I was asked, I considered, said 'no,' and was about to add 'I'm ringing bells for a wedding in the afternoon,' when I thought, 'but what business is it of yours?' and said nothing.

Although we are self-employed, I for one am in the habit of doing what I'm told five days a week; it makes for a good working relationship (see recent 'rough-smooth' blog).  But the sixth one is mine!

The rough with the smooth

There are good weeks - there are occasionally excellent weeks! - but from time to awfully frequent time there are also bad weeks.  You know the sort of thing ... when someone jokes in the silence, "Come on, - it's time to turn the phone back on now." ... when there are so many people stuffed into a small space that there's nowhere to swing a newspaper, and don't even think of getting up to go to the loo or make a drink, because the seat won't be awaiting your return!

This week has been one such week.  By Thursday night I'd managed a tally worth something less than two and a half days' income.  If you take off known expenses and fuel, there would not be enough left over to pay the rent on my flat, let alone find a crust to eat (if one were daft enough to think of a week in total isolation like that, that is!)  It's on days like this that crew-room chat expresses dissatisfaction of some kind.  Sometimes it will be between drivers, alleging some underhand practice that has secured a perceived advantage over others.  On other occasions, like this week, the general undercurrent is 'anti-establishment'.

Some of us have been assigned jobs on a particular contract whose terms involve the return of packaging and rubbish after delivery, and require that this be taken back to the customer whence it came.  The price agreed for the contract is intended to include this additional work.  Because it is more than is done as part of a normal job, some drivers are looking for some clearly additional payment for it and, as an act of defiance, they have started leaving the rubbish outside our office.  When a notice was posted up threatening that they wouldn't get paid for the job unless this aspect is completed as well, some of these recusants simply said that they would refuse these jobs in future.

Since we are all self-employed, that is always our prerogative.  However, it does beg the question of to what extent their services will be used if they are not going to do all is entailed in any particular job.  I found myself engaged in endless discussion with one of these, who simply could not see (or would not!) that the price for each job is fixed, and that we either do or don't do each job - as required by the customer - for the price accorded to it.  The fact that in the vast majority of cases we simply accept what we hear as an instruction, doesn't detract from its contractual status as offer and acceptance of that job on those terms.  He could only see the situation as 'them' getting something for nothing from 'us'.

Today, by contrast to those foregoing, presented me with a different rough and smooth.  It was a full day from beginning to end.  But it started with a pair of jobs that it was impossible to fulfil properly alongside each other, because both were for 9.0 collection and 12 noon delivery.  Unavoidably, I was early to collect one and late for the other, and then late to fulfil that one as well.  And then, on the way home, came a third job that involved difficulty in locating the pick-up point, hidden deep within the uninspiring brick buildings of a former airfield, problems in first assembling and then loading the goods, and then equal trouble in finding the delivery point.   This was partly because there was no company name outside, and partly because, though the name of the building was prominent on the front of the building, it was quite small, and the wall was some distance from the road, on the far side of the car park.

Individually, each of these snags would simply be grist to the mill of daily life, but coming together like this, it's almost as if things are conspiring against me.  I'm just glad that the weekend has arrived, with the chance to rest and recover a little before the next chapter of 'Life on Four Wheels'.

Language

Yesterday was a day of language.  Not the foul sort that sometimes escapes when things go wrong - just the way people speak.

First, there was a conversation with one of my fellow drivers.  For some while now, he's had the notion to emigrate to Thailand, where he sees the possibility of making a living for himself by teaching Thais to speak English.  When he first announced this to us, there was some teasing about his own command of the language, but he took this in good part.  Yesterday, out of nowhere, he entered into deep discussion with me of how he's getting to grips with the technicalities of English, so that he will one day be able to explain it to others from a position of understanding.

Then there was a phone-in on the radio about the new requirement for people moving to this country to have a command of written and spoken English before they come.  Many points of view were expressed, such as how possible it is to learn English in their own land, or whether this might be easier once one was here, and surrounded by the language.  Some disquiet was also expressed about the way that people from the EU face lower demands than others.  There is also the fact that some people are quite content to live and work in 'their own' community, without bothering to learn English at all - which is all right until something goes wrong, such as losing their job, serious illness, and so on.  It was a very thought-provoking programme.

And in the afternoon, as I went off to another job, I flicked the switch to see what the radio might have for me, and I discovered a feature about a Mancunian who had devoted himself to learning Welsh.  He has translated classical Welsh poetry, as well as writing his own, and is now sufficiently competent that he can perform live translation of committee meetings, rendering one sentence into English at the same time as he's listening to the next one in Welsh.  And on top of all that, he's taking part in the Eisteddfod!

I found myself overwhelmed on a hot day, and was glad to retreat to the (English) newspaper, and the (English) crossword!