A Different Kind of Rip-off

The front end of this week got ripped off, but - thankfully - looking from here you can hardly notice it.  Monday was lost because of the visit to the garage.  I outlined the detail of that in my last post.  The problem of that valve was simply that it was stuck - whether shut or open I know not, neither do I care.  Suffice to say that the fact that it no longer worked irritated the heck out of the onboard computer, and also caused the whole engine to suffer from indigestion.  I suppose we would feel the same if there were no smooth outlet for our exhaust gases!  Given its inaccessibility, and the uncertainty of simply cleaning it, the best answer was replacement.  When I returned to the garage to see if the job had been done, I observed two people working under the elevated vehicle; I eventually got away with it a little after 6.0, by which time the supervisor had observed that, since one operative was tall and the other short, they had not only been swearing about the awkwardness of replacing the valve, but also about each other!

During its 'holiday' at the garage, the van had been diagnosed as also needing two new tyres.  So, next morning I made sure I was at the tyre specialists soon after they opened.  The prescribed exchange was not only immediately endorsed, but soon extended, because the uneven wear pattern of the remaining tyres indicated that they would soon need replacement too, so I was offered a favourable deal to change all four at once.  By the time I was several hundred pounds poorer, and  actually ready for work, more than a quarter of the week was gone, and I did only two local jobs during the rest of Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I was phoned at breakfast time to be asked to collect two trays of bread from a depot in Stevenage.  These had been either missed off, or produced too late for, their daily shipment for laboratory testing, and had to be taken straight off to Maidenhead.  Halfway back from this, I was diverted to Luton to collect some documents for Southampton Docks, a job that was later complemented by a pallet for an export agent in Feltham.

The O2 breakdown on Wednesday evening worked in my favour.  It meant that, because another driver was out of contact, I was offered an early start the next morning.  The job entailed the  collection in Rainham, Essex, at 7.0 am, of a marquee component found to be missing from an installation at Cheshire Agricultural Showground.  By the time I'd returned, I thought the day would be over, but there was a medicine delivery to a village pharmacy at the far end of Hertfordshire, and I was also assigned a delivery the following morning to Leicestershire County Council.

SatNav can be annoying at times.  In order to stand a chance of passing a burger van for breakfast, I opted to return from Leicester by a 'non-Motorway' route.  Fooled by a message that 'traffic has changed, a faster route is available,' I told it 'yes' but soon realised that I was being re-routed towards the motorway, and had to find my own diversion to the road I wanted to use.  I was just thinking that I would have done better without any electronic assistance at all, when I found myself confronted by a magnificent viaduct the very existence of which had thus far eluded me.  It was definitely a sight that justified the extra miles.

After my return home, I had time to switch the computer on but very little else, before another call set me off on a sequence of jobs that took until bedtime.  The last of these was to a converted barn in a Kent village; it was appropriately named 'Farmyard'.  SatNav redeemed itself by taking me right to the gateway, and I approached the entrance to summon the householder by two not-quite-deafening 'tings' of a real bell suspended outside the door.  Her brusque opening of the portal was accompanied by an almost dimissive, "Oh, courier ..."  The declamation was almost devoid of emphasis, and served only to acknowledge my expected arrival with the envelope that I now handed to her. 

Knowing how distracting I find it trying to hold a conversation while signing my name (I've no idea why this should be), I waited until she had almost finished before complimenting her on the bell, and saying that, as a bellringer - I indicated the vertical motion - it gave me much pleasure to ding it.  The change in her attitude was like that of a theatre curtain being raised.  She smiled broadly, and in response to her comment, "Oh, you're a bellringer?" I spoke briefly of the foundry I had once visited in Brittany where such bells as hers were made, before taking my leave and being wished a good weekend.

The disadvantage of an evening trip to Kent is the lack of somewhere suitable to stop for an evening meal, especially considering that most of the route is motorway.  Although it was late, I decided to get a kebab from the shop in Letchworth home, and sat in my own armchair to munch it before going to bed.  This meant that I was up late this morning, but the day has unfolded very much the same as any other Saturday, but this afternoon somehow included the discovery of Lynn Bowles' programme of music and chat on BBC Radio Wales, which I was able to hear live via the internet.

I'm looking forward to a more balanced time next week, but ....