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!