Coming and Going

What a busy fortnight it's been.  Work, a holiday, more work.  It seems so straightforward; and yet, two weeks ago with the holiday in prospect, I had no idea what I would be reporting to my readers now.  I had been planning this holiday for several weeks.  A few years ago I had sold my camper-van because I didn't feel I could justify owning a second vehicle that I only used a couple of weeks in a year.  But the idea of a 'home on wheels' hasn't properly left me, and every so often I wish that I had another one. 

Ready to go ...

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to make myself a rudimentary 'bed' that I could assemble in the back of the van I use for work, using some scrap wood from our old office partitions and an unwanted pallet.  I followed up an offer of money-off tokens for tourist attractions, and last Thursday, with all I felt I needed for a long weekend, and a detailed plan of campaign, I set off.

It couldn't have been simpler: go, see, do, and in amongst it eat and sleep.  The first day went swimmingly.  Stoke Bruerne canal museum in the morning, and Althorp, the stately home of the Spencer family, ancestors of Princess Diana, in the afternoon.  That night, on my way to Friday morning's planned venue, the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, I parked in a lay-by to sleep on my make-shift bed.  It was quite exciting.  Although not by far the first time I'd slept in a lay-by, it was the first time in these circumstances.  I had been afraid that I should be cold.  Far from it; I was too hot to sleep.  And the traffic!  I'd clearly not chosen a good place, for the noise and vibration from passing lorries didn't seem to let up all night.


That was really the point when the whole plan began to unravel.  Being used to a pattern of 'drive there, deliver, drive home', I hadn't made due allowance in my plan for the time it would take me to do justice to the place I was visiting.  This was apparent when I got to Dudley and discovered that, far from the conventional museum-in-a-building that I had expected, here were acres of houses, shops,

"... and if you couldn't afford a doctor?"

streets, in fact a whole village to see, peopled by knowledgeable guides in costume of a past era who explained the sort of lives our ancestors had lived.  There was a coal mine to be investigated, and then to round off the experience a canal trip into the tunnels that had originally been dug to exploit the rich limestone deposits of the area.

My plan for the afternoon simply evaporated; even more so when I considered that my intended visit to the town of Ironbridge would itself have demanded a whole day, rather than the mere afternoon I'd allocated.  As I lay down to rest that night - quieter than the night before, I admit - I had no clear idea how to proceed the following morning.  Sleep was no easier, however, and when I got up I found that the bedclothes were distinctly damp.  On inspection I also discovered the van walls to be running with condensation.  I quickly realised what I ought to have anticipated.  This van, with its solid bulkhead, has no ventilation to the goods area, unlike previous vans in which I have slept to meet the demands of long-distance jobs - vans with mesh bulkheads and a free exchange of air throughout.  The unhealthy prospect of more sleepless nights in damp bedclothes, and the effect of this on driving safety, combined with the new uncertainty of my programme, led me to reconsider my plans entirely.

After a Saturday of discovery, enjoyable in itself, which included a visit to the preserved Battlefield Railway, I made my way home. The next day was spent recovering, and I relaxed on the Monday at home with my family history records, before returning to work as arranged on Tuesday.  I had thought that, starting from scratch, it would be a long wait for work, but the first pleasant surprise came at 10.30, when I was asked to collect nearby for Cardiff!  A trouble-free journey there and back, preceded a fairly full Wednesday, and I was glad to be heading home by about 4.30, when a phone call brought the second pleasant surprise of the week.  In ten years on the road, there have been the occasional jobs to Ireland, and two years ago (almost to the day) I spent a delightful Saturday returning by road and ferry from a beautiful village in Holland called Goudriaan; but this was the first time that I'd been asked to take a consignment by air!

Naturally I said 'yes', and the next few hours were spent in frantic planning and preparation, as a result of which I carried a component valued at little more than £5, for the repair of a luxury yacht in Copenhagen.  I met the engineers at the airport, made the delivery, and then had the rest of the day to amuse myself before getting the same flight back as they did, after installing the item I'd brought for them.

Yes, that is Sweden in the haze!

When I discovered the distance and cost of getting into the city, I decided to stay in and around the airport.  However, this was far from boring.  In the morning I walked up to the motorway that leads over a toll-bridge into Sweden and took some pictures, and when it was raining in the afternoon I was content to sit reading or people-watching in the terminal building.  Apart from the prices, which seemed considerably higher than at home, the other thing that struck me was the fact that all the signs were bi-lingual, with the second language being English!  Presumably the similarity between Danish and the other nearby languages renders signs using these unnecessary.

After that excitement, the routine job yesterday of taking five cases of Coca Cola to a hotel in Norwich seemed quite mundane.  Life is good, but now it's back to normal again!

Torpedoed amidships

It's a bit melodramatic, I grant you, but that's how I was feeling yesterday lunchtime.  After yet another back-heavy week, I'd fallen into bed Friday night, upon my return from it's last demands, full of tiredness and good weekend intentions.  But that's the ending; let me go back and start in the middle.

The first decent job of the week came on Friday morning, when I took four computer servers down to an industrial estate just outside Newport - that's neither of the two in Scotland nor of the two in Ireland, nor any of the many in England; and not just Newport, Wales, of which there are two (according to my atlas, at any rate.)  No, it's the one with the half-decent football team, in Gwent.  To avoid the dreaded toll at Pay-to-get-into-Wales-by-the-water (goodness knows what that might be in Welsh!) I chose the long way round, which is actually only 17 miles further but takes about three-quarters of an hour more. 

Having picked up the goods in Letchworth just after 7.0 am, I was there about 11.30, and back to the depot by 3.0, thinking that the week had probably come to a natural end by that point.  In expectation of this, I had gone armed with my shopping list, reckoning that this could be executed on the way home, and the weekend's duties would be well under way by the time I left to watch Biggleswade United play in the FA Cup's extra-preliminary round.  Instead, I was detailed to collect a job for Monday morning, and then take two consignments of booze to west Norfolk.  After fish and chips eaten watching the waves from a seat on the seafront at Hunstanton, I returned home as aforementioned. (Sorry it was too misty by 8.0pm to get you a decent seaside picture.)

When I got up, I found that my phone wasn't working.  The battery was flat, which wasn't surprising really, because (I then recalled) I hadn't charged it on Thursday evening, and had been listening to a lot on the mp3 player.  So I left it plugged in and went off to the shops.  By the time I returned, the washing was finished, and I was emptying the machine when suddenly I wondered whether the phone were charged.  It was one of those moments when you have no real reason to expect something, but there is a prompt to discover it all the same.

The phone sprang into life at my touch and told me it was about 80% charged, and I was about to put it down again, when I noticed that there was a text message.  This was to tell me that I had a voice mail.  It was from the weekend controller, and when I rang him back he offered me a choice - would I like to deliver the goods I'd collected for Monday, NOW; or would I like him to arrange for someone else to collect them from me and take them instead.  Reluctant to turn work away like that, what else could I do but say 'yes'?  So, instead of fulfilling my plans and watching a football match in Bedfordshire, I found myself battling with the not insubstantial traffic on the M25 to visit the ground of Brighton and Hove Albion, where there was no match, to deliver to a gang of folks working on the structure of their sparkling new stadium at Valley Way.

By now, with work done, and another night slept away, I've calmed down.  But it does just show how easily well-made plans can go awry.  This morning I successfully carried out another well-honed plan, as I led the intercessions (the prayers of the people) at the church service.  After all that's been going on, I felt moved to include a prayer for the families of all those who had appeared in the news this week because they had been killed, whether soldiers in Afghanistan, three brothers and their friend in a head-on collision in Ireland the other night, or a little girl murdered in south London ... and I'm sure those present could think of many other examples.

How small my little upheaval seems in contrast to these lives ... torpedoed amidships!

Wotta Week!

About Thursday lunchtime I was wondering what I would write about this week.  According to my standard measure of the week's activity (aka likely income), I'd achieved less than three days, and it was already half way through day four.  I was feeling fed-up, and to crown it all I'd just done a local 'filler', delivering to Biggleswade about eight miles up the road, had got back home and within minutes was asked to return to Biggleswade to collect something for another customer.  What was that 'law' about falling bread always landing butter-side down?  As to possible blog content, I felt there had been little activity, let alone anything spectacular, or even note-worthy.

The one job on Monday took me to the near end of Kent, and three on Tuesday represented an 'East Anglian tour': Cambridge, Woodbridge and Norwich.  OK, that was productive in itself, but hardly exciting.  And then Wednesday had taken me to Bristol.  The M4 is always a boring road, but it's fast, and you can't play the 'interesting' card when things have to get there in a decent time.  I did come back the shorter way across country, however, and this time I didn't listen to SatNav's prompting about a 'faster route', having learnt the hard way that this really means 'let me get you back onto the motorway'!

Thursday afternoon did little to relieve my despondency when I was sent to Gravesend.  I remember muttering, 'three tunnels there, four tunnels back, and you have to pay for the privilege!'  On the way home, I was called to arrange a 7.30 collection the following morning ... just to Cambridge.  An hour or so later I was almost home, by which time the night controller had taken over.  He called to ask if I would be able to take some medical equipment to Durham University Hospital that evening.  I pointed out the complication of this early local I'd been given for the following morning and, sensing the obvious balance of finding someone else for a long run that evening, or finding someone to do a local job in the morning, he said, "leave it with me for a few minutes."

I had heard nothing by the time my own alternative routes diverged, so I decided to try forcing his hand, and headed for the office rather than home.  I was almost there when he rang me to say he'd found someone else to take on the local job, so I pressed on, collected the goods and, at around 6.30 pm, set course for Durham.  I stopped for fuel and a snack and was there by about 11.0 only to find one last hurdle to cross.  When I located the main entrance, I found a notice saying that between 10pm and 6am access to the hospital was via A&E.  Just a few yards further on, though not easily seen at night, I found the ambulance bay, and took my parcels into triage reception.  Here the staff couldn't have been more helpful.  I was quickly directed to the operating theatre and, remembering my embarrassment the other week at Aintree (which I wrote about at the time), I rang the bell and waited.  Within minutes, I had made the delivery and was on my way south again, making plans for somewhere suitable to stop for a snooze.

After a cooked breakfast near Peterborough, I headed home for a refreshing bath.  Although I'd had only three and a half hours' sleep, I find I can't sleep once the new day has begun, so rang in for work, hoping for nothing too demanding.  Before too long, I was sent down to Kent again, this time to Tonbridge, where a couple of engineers were waiting beside their hole-in-the-road for some items that had been missed from the equipment they were there to install.  Feeling that the week had come to its natural end, I phoned in when I got home, and when asked if I wanted to do anything else, I said no, but would they put me onto Monday's list.  I began the usual weekend chores and thought of an early night.  Then the boss rang to ask if I'd like an early collection in Stevenage yesterday morning (i.e. Saturday) going to Bradford.  I decided it was worth the inconvenience, told him I could make that, and promptly compiled my shopping list.

I'd got as far as settling into the van ready to go to the supermarket when the phone went again.  'What now?' I wondered.  "If you go to <such-and-such> in Baldock," he said, "they'll give you something to deliver in Melbourne on your way tomorrow."  I went, and they did.  It was only a tiny box, for a place I'd been to before, which is always pleasing.  I visited a different supermarket from the one I'd planned, and returned to complete my foreshortened evening.

Unwin Sports Ground - home of Ely City

Apart from turning out to be a village near Huddersfield instead of Bradford, the second delivery yesterday was hassle free.  I stopped for a meal in Barnsley on the way back, and the timing proved perfect for me to fulfil my original plan for yesterday afternoon, to mark the first day of the new football season by watching Ely City play Kirkley & Pakefield in the premier division of the Eastern Counties League.  In the ten ECL matches played yesterday, there were three home wins, one away win, and no less than six draws, of which this was one.  Nevertheless, it was an exciting game with four goals, and I found myself asking at one point, 'does life get any better than this?'  I had just had an enjoyable drive, listening to the test match commentary, after eating a filling meal, was now sitting in the sun watching live football ... and would be paid for the overall experience!

What a contrast from the start of the week to its end.  These lopsided weeks seem to have become the norm, and it occurs to me that nothing seems evenly spread, whether it's work through the week, wealth across the world, or gold medals in the Olympic Games. 

So ... am I right to be thinking how I'll spend another flat Monday tomorrow?