Solid and all Twisted Together

With only three more weeks to go to Christmas, I feel this blog ought to be saying something profound and forward-looking.  But it you want profound and forward-looking, you should be looking at my other blog.  Here is where you read of the often-boring, inconvenient, unpredictable life of a same-day courier.  So, while 'the best is yet to come,' and 'past performance is no guide to future profits,' I'm going to look back at the week and tell it - as best as I can remember - like it was.

As my protests on Friday revealed, it's been a solid week, with little me-time, although not a lot of really profitable job combinations either.  I've started going to an early breakfast at the church on Mondays, which is good for fellowship as each of us is setting out on a new week in our chosen profession.  The gathering ranges from salesmen, advertising executives and office managers to clergymen, me-in-a-van and a couple of interested retirees, each anxious to share the problems and anxieties of the workplace, and gain some blessing on all that troubles us.  Oops ... that's dangerously profound ... sorry.

But it does fit in with what followed: read on.  Monday was a standing start, and began with something of a shock when I rang in to get onto the list for work.  Obviously the weekend controller, usually quite a placid character, had had a bad weekend.  When I announced my simple need, I was greeted with some exasperation, 'I don't know how I'm supposed to get on with any work with all these drivers ringing in.'  Another phone rang in the background.  'And there's another one.'  I politely hung up and left him to his dilemmas.  Scarcely half an hour had elapsed when the boss rang to send me to Peterborough; I was halfway home from this assignment when I was diverted to collect from Haverhill for a customer in Letchworth, and before I'd delivered that, came another call asking me to collect from another customer, just round the corner, for Redhill.  So much for 'flat Monday.'

Back from Redhill around 4.30, I was given a job for Tuesday: a repeat of the 6.0 pick-up of two Tuesdays ago, this time for Cosham and Totton (Portsmouth and Southampton by any other pair of names.)  Tuesday in turn was brought to a close with an afternoon delivery to South Woodham Ferrers, near Chelmsford,  and would I be back by 5.15 to pick up a tender for delivery the next morning at 9.0 in King's Lynn?  I just made it, and looked forward to a third consecutive early bedtime.

The return from King's Lynn was diverted just as had been Monday's from Peterborough - a repeat of that collection from Haverhill.  The interruptions multiplied in this case, though.  There was a collection to be made from a village not quite on the way - a wheelchair mis-delivered to be returned to Stevenage - and as soon as I'd delivered both of these, there was a parcel to be collected in Stevenage to go to Peterborough.  It was fairly predictable, given the recent form, that my return from Peterborough would be interrupted. 

In this case it was both diversion and delay.  I was to meet another driver in Sandy, and collect from him a box to go to King's Lynn, but there was a road closure in Sandy itself for some works to take place, so the Highways Authority, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that it would be a good idea to close one lane of the A1 at the roundabout leading to the road (which was closed off anyway) where the roadworks were taking place.  This added about half an hour to my diversion, as I seethed in an unnecessary queue for a mile down the main road.  By the time I'd collected the box and got about six miles back along the road, it became clear that there would be no one still at the factory in King's Lynn to receive it, so I was told to return home, and take it the following morning.  I had just joined the queue - again! - when another diversion sent me through Sandy, to collect from a customer there a panel to be delivered to RAF Coningsby in the morning, before heading over to King's Lynn.

If you've been counting the days, you'll have realised that we've reached Thursday, and a fourth early start.  The guardroom at Coningsby is being refurbished or something, and the facility has been transferred to a portacabin opposite the car park, and these limited facilities, coupled with my lack of an appropriate phone no. made my delivery there somewhat protracted, but even then I was back home soon after lunch, and able to do two more little jobs during the afternoon.

On Friday I had a 'lay-in' - comparatively so, at least - as I prepared to make a 7.30 collection in Hitchin.  This was going to Ringwood, and thus provided something of a repeat of the adventures of Tuesday morning.  Two local jobs completed the week, but not before I'd been given the opportunity to make a trip to Norfolk, or alternatively two deliveries in south Hertfordshire.  It was already 4.15, and my reaction was to protest that I needed at least one evening that wasn't foreshortened by either being late home or needing an early bedtime in readiness for the morrow.  Unwelcome this may have been, but it allowed me to do my shopping and washing before the day was over.

Catch-up continued yesterday morning, after a welcome lay-in (a real one this time!) and after lunch I took a planned ride to Cambridge to see my 'native' football team, Diss Town play a league match against Cambridge Regional College.  It was a pleasant change to see Diss win a game: they're not having too good a season so far.  And apart from my usual visit to church today, it's included a bit of preparation for a journey tomorrow to Newcastle-upon-Tyne ...

But that I'll carry over until next week.