This patchwork quilt of a week (given the temperatures, not a bad metaphor!) began with a phone call at 7.15 on Saturday morning. It was my son, planning to pay me a visit, but seeking a last minute weather report before setting out. This was the precursor to a rare but profitable day of togetherness, as he knitted together the final loose ends of my protracted transfer from Orange broadband to an integrated broadband-and-landline deal with BT. I was reminded just how long this has taken (to some extent, I have to admit, due to my stubborn reluctance to call Mike in earlier!) when at the conclusion of the day I attempted to show him the project I've recently been working on regarding the Sturgeon families in 19th-century Stanton. One of my files wouldn't open, and we had to restore the back-up copy. Sadly, we discovered that no back-ups had been made of my system since the final days of August!
Apart from the snow outside, Sunday was fairly typical, although with a meeting in the afternoon I was reluctant to turn out a third time for the evening service which would normally have commanded my willing attendance. I also missed out on the Monday breakfast at the church, because I had been given a job which entailed an 8.0 pick-up some distance away. Annoyingly, when I got there, I discovered that the goods were far too big for my van, so after a phone call to the controller, I came home again and spent the morning at the computer. After lunch, I was given a more successful job to Crewe.
Tuesday was even less productive, with a local 'errand' and then a fairly regularly repeated job to Daventry, and back soon after lunch, whereupon I called into the office to sort out my paperwork. Unfortunately, in this visit I didn't get sufficiently noticed to be added to the list, so it wasn't until lunchtime on Wednesday that a cautious caller asked, "are you working today, Brian?" Upon announcing that I was ready and waiting, with nowhere to go, I was despatched to Huntingdon with some computer equipment, and returned again mid-afternoon thinking that another day was over.
About the time work would be allocated for the morrow, the controller called me. "Are you planning anything tonight?" he asked. "Would you be able to do a long job?" I told him "No ... and yes!" and was asked to collect promptly a parcel for Livingston, and then return to make any necessary preparations for the journey. Arriving at our customer, I waited a few minutes for the goods to be packed. "It's amazing," I was told, "in the whole of Scotland they haven't got these drugs; they have to get them from us!" Fortified by this sense of importance, I set forth, having told them that they would be delivered by around 1.0am.
I stopped for a meal at Markham Moor, and then only once more, a comfort stop at Southwaite, before drawing into the yard of the distribution depot just six minutes short of my forecast arrival. By the time I'd attracted someone's attention and got the goods signed for it was ... 1.0! My confidence enhanced by the accuracy of my prediction, and less tired than I had expected, I set off at a modest speed for home. I had encountered neither snow nor ice on my journey: just dry, clear roads, although there was plenty of snow alongside them. I stopped for a chilling doze at Abington and made Carlisle by just after 4.0am, where I could park safely at the truckstop there, and doze in the van with the engine running for warmth. By 7.15 the body-clock kicked in, telling me it was time for activity again, and after a nourishing breakfast I set off again, stopping for a short snooze at coffee time (Scotch Corner) and arriving home around 2.30 pm.
Sympathetic to my endeavours, when the controller rang about 4.0, he began with the announcement that he wasn't sending me out again that afternoon, but would I go to a customer in Letchworth to collect a tender for delivery at 9.0 the following morning. Thus Friday began early. I followed SatNav to a secure building near Bicester, which turned out to be a prison, rather than the barracks I had expected. History, geography and instinct join to suggest that the two were once part of a great wartime airfield. Once, a road ran straight through from one end to the other, which had confused my electronic friend, for now they are totally separate. By lunchtime I had returned home after undertaking another short job on the way, and I waited to see if something else might fill the last remaining corner of the week.
After two hours or so, I was sent to Stevenage to collect a single box of print to take to Cheltenham racecourse. It's a popular conference venue, and I knew just where to go, which was as well, for there were no useful security staff on hand to ask. The task was quickly completed, and I made my way home, stopping for a snack on the way.
The weekend brought little rest, however, and I was up at an unearthly hour in order to get the washing done before setting out for the Suffolk Record Office. Here I attempted to recover some of the data lost by that file corruption last weekend, though of course it wasn't possible to determine just what I might have added in the last four and a half months, and until some day in the future when I enter some snippet that rings a bell as having been 'entered before somewhere', I shan't know how successful the day was.
Now, with the snow gone from everywhere around, and the temperature so obviously much higher, I have to confront the difficulty of re-acclimatising to regular clothing and heating regimes - a task which I have to say is a very welcome one!
Sunday 27 January 2013
Friday 18 January 2013
A Shetland Pony Week
Whence this animal title? I hear you ask. Consider me for a moment a horse dealer (not for the burger market, of course!) I come up to a superb specimen of equus caballus shetlandiae, feel the strength of the beast and comment about it being a good sturdy animal, with lots of powerful muscle and energy potential. That was the sort of analogy that came to mind as I finished this week. Good in quality and potential, but a bit 'Shetland' in size compared to a thoroughbred.
The week began with a recycling exercise. As I put out my rubbish last weekend, I discovered in the shed with the bins a neat little four-drawer storage unit, looking for a home. A day later, after due reflection, I released it from its dark and dingy prison and after cleaning it up and adjusting the way it had been fitted together (which might have been the reason for its rejection), began transferring to it the contents of eleven box-files that have cluttered the top of a bookcase for years, and towered over me as I sat at my desk. No longer. They have now been filtered, two basketfuls being taken to the recycling bin outside, and the remainder occupying the storage unit, the top of which forms a useful annex to the desk.
One minor snag occurred early on in this procedure. After my French holiday some four years ago, I pushed all the leaflets, guides and souvenirs into the box entitled 'overseas', and promptly forgot about them. What I hadn't realised was that the collection from one particular town had been gathered into a plastic bag carrying an important notice the gist of which, in English, was, 'this bag will self-decompose within a year of purchase'. It was as good as its word: no sooner had I touched it to see what it contained, than my hands were full of postcards, while the floor was covered with plastic shards that were the very devil to clear up!
One evening, in conclusion to this episode, a lady came round to collect the now empty box files following my posting of them on freecycle. The working week began fairly tamely, with a run on Monday down to Salisbury, with a stop on the way at a dental studio in Watford. Then came the week's early start, with a 4.0 alarm in order to make a delivery in Runcorn before 9.0 am on Tuesday. Strangely, this consignment was two precision-cut pieces of wood, going to a glass company. Just another of those puzzles that make life interesting. Fortunately, I know a very good cafe on the way out of Runcorn for breakfast, before making my way home.
Wednesday and Thursday, I decided, were 'H-days.' In the course of three jobs in the two days I visited five hospitals, two for delivery and three for collection. And on Wednesday afternoon came one of those 'most unusual jobs' - another 'H'. I don't expect ever again to be told, 'you're picking up from such-and-such address, some boxes ... and a helicopter'. The boxes were quite normal - one big metal-cornered container on wheels such as one sees at musical or theatrical events, and half a dozen simple cardboard jobbies. The helicopter had to be seen to be believed. It was all arms and propellors, and posed the greatest challenge to fit it into the van without undue risk of something falling onto it, or it falling awkwardly and bending something vital. After nearly half-an-hour I was satisfied, and set off with it. Two hours later I was unpacking it - totally intact - for a delighted customer, who then faced a busy evening/night, doing with it whatever he had to, and getting it onto a plane for the next stage of its journey the following morning.
Yesterday's journeys took me to Norwich, where the point of delivery of one job, followed by the banter at the hospital's goods-in department as I collected the next, reminded me of the start of my career, over 40 years ago, at BRS Parcels in Norwich. I still remember some of the drivers, the areas they covered and their route numbers, and travelling those same roads brought back some fond memories of many faces who must by now have departed this life. On the way back I had to contend with frozen screen washers and nearly-dry roads, from which there was a constant spray of dust and slush which froze on the screen, and every few miles I had to stop to spray fresh water onto the screen to clean it. Today, by contrast, with falling snow, the problem was not visibility but the fact that the ice that formed on the wipers limited their cleaning properties, and the frequent stops were for de-icing. Like many thousands of others, I shall be glad when this cold 'snap' is over.
So ends the second week of this new year, like its predecessor, a good mix of what the courier life consists of, but in the normal mould for January, only a small example of the breed. More cross-country explorations next week.
The week began with a recycling exercise. As I put out my rubbish last weekend, I discovered in the shed with the bins a neat little four-drawer storage unit, looking for a home. A day later, after due reflection, I released it from its dark and dingy prison and after cleaning it up and adjusting the way it had been fitted together (which might have been the reason for its rejection), began transferring to it the contents of eleven box-files that have cluttered the top of a bookcase for years, and towered over me as I sat at my desk. No longer. They have now been filtered, two basketfuls being taken to the recycling bin outside, and the remainder occupying the storage unit, the top of which forms a useful annex to the desk.
One minor snag occurred early on in this procedure. After my French holiday some four years ago, I pushed all the leaflets, guides and souvenirs into the box entitled 'overseas', and promptly forgot about them. What I hadn't realised was that the collection from one particular town had been gathered into a plastic bag carrying an important notice the gist of which, in English, was, 'this bag will self-decompose within a year of purchase'. It was as good as its word: no sooner had I touched it to see what it contained, than my hands were full of postcards, while the floor was covered with plastic shards that were the very devil to clear up!
One evening, in conclusion to this episode, a lady came round to collect the now empty box files following my posting of them on freecycle. The working week began fairly tamely, with a run on Monday down to Salisbury, with a stop on the way at a dental studio in Watford. Then came the week's early start, with a 4.0 alarm in order to make a delivery in Runcorn before 9.0 am on Tuesday. Strangely, this consignment was two precision-cut pieces of wood, going to a glass company. Just another of those puzzles that make life interesting. Fortunately, I know a very good cafe on the way out of Runcorn for breakfast, before making my way home.
Wednesday and Thursday, I decided, were 'H-days.' In the course of three jobs in the two days I visited five hospitals, two for delivery and three for collection. And on Wednesday afternoon came one of those 'most unusual jobs' - another 'H'. I don't expect ever again to be told, 'you're picking up from such-and-such address, some boxes ... and a helicopter'. The boxes were quite normal - one big metal-cornered container on wheels such as one sees at musical or theatrical events, and half a dozen simple cardboard jobbies. The helicopter had to be seen to be believed. It was all arms and propellors, and posed the greatest challenge to fit it into the van without undue risk of something falling onto it, or it falling awkwardly and bending something vital. After nearly half-an-hour I was satisfied, and set off with it. Two hours later I was unpacking it - totally intact - for a delighted customer, who then faced a busy evening/night, doing with it whatever he had to, and getting it onto a plane for the next stage of its journey the following morning.
Yesterday's journeys took me to Norwich, where the point of delivery of one job, followed by the banter at the hospital's goods-in department as I collected the next, reminded me of the start of my career, over 40 years ago, at BRS Parcels in Norwich. I still remember some of the drivers, the areas they covered and their route numbers, and travelling those same roads brought back some fond memories of many faces who must by now have departed this life. On the way back I had to contend with frozen screen washers and nearly-dry roads, from which there was a constant spray of dust and slush which froze on the screen, and every few miles I had to stop to spray fresh water onto the screen to clean it. Today, by contrast, with falling snow, the problem was not visibility but the fact that the ice that formed on the wipers limited their cleaning properties, and the frequent stops were for de-icing. Like many thousands of others, I shall be glad when this cold 'snap' is over.
So ends the second week of this new year, like its predecessor, a good mix of what the courier life consists of, but in the normal mould for January, only a small example of the breed. More cross-country explorations next week.
Saturday 12 January 2013
The Year in Microcosm
Well, 2013 is under way. Despite the playing-out of the traditional quiet-season-after-Christmas, my first week of the new year has presented a broad mixture of almost all the elements of a courier year. There have been jobs both local and far afield; both early and late; driving in both rain and sunshine. As well as a cancellation, there were jobs to both strange and familiar destinations, and one of those 'it's not where you told me' events, which happened to share its categorical analysis with that of a 'special price' job. One of the new destinations included sight and smell of an 'I wouldn't want to go in there!' location, and from one of the familiar collection points I emerged thinking, 'how on earth can he work in that atmosphere all day?'So, without breaching any confidentiality, how much can I apply flesh to the bones I've outlined? The week began, as have the majority of the last few, with the renewal of the church breakfasts, where we can join in fellowship and ask for God's blessing on each other, on our own respective concerns, and on the work to which many of us would be returning after the long break. In my case, work consisted of returning home to wait for the phone to ring. Eventually I was asked to take a small parcel to the QEII hospital at Welwyn Garden City - getting me into the routine gently, I decided, since the firm where I collected it usually fill the van with large items. I'd not long left for this one, when I was asked to ring in once I'd delivered so I could be sent down to Southend for a collection, and as soon as I was home from these two, I was given a third local job, taking a computer drive to a college in Luton.
After a day with only local jobs, Tuesday began with an 8.0 collection of computer equipment for an office in Colchester. The only problem with this job was entry to the building. I'd studied the location on Google the previous evening, and it appeared that the only access was at the rear, where there was a private car park, so that was my first target. The car park was secured by a barrier, beside which there was no intercom facility, and as I sat there studying the back of the building I could see no door anyway. I drove round the block (this being a one-way street) and I viewed the front and sides of the building from the dual carriageway that it faced, and saw one door on each elevation. After parking hesitantly, but tidily, on the yellow lines outside, I investigated on foot and found both of these were closed and, like the car park, with no means of alerting anyone inside. I managed to attract someone's attention, however, as a result of which I was redirected ... to the car park. Leaving the van once more at the entrance barrier to the car park I discovered the back door, cunningly hidden from view behind a large shrub and a crane. I certainly had the feeling that this place discouraged visitors of any sort! When I pressed the bell-push, though, I was greeted by a complete contrast to this impression. A very helpful member of staff co-operated to the full in assisting my unloading and unpacking of the goods, and removal of the packaging as I'd been instructed.
Once home I waited but minutes before being sent to Royston to collect for Nottingham, but waited there for almost an hour before it was decided that this job was being cancelled. Instead I was sent to Houghton Regis to collect two mini-laptops for a hotel in Cleckheaton, near Bradford. By then, of course, it was almost dark, and I was very glad of a post-holiday collection of podcasts to listen to, on the long journey north and back, from which I returned something after 11.0pm.
Wednesday was therefore off to a late beginning, and consisted of only one local job, to a destination from which some of our larger vans collect, but to which I hadn't been before. I found the site somewhat baffling to the stranger. Many signs were to be seen, which were apparently helpful, but in the event proved otherwise. One of these I found outside the deserted goods-in office. "When unoccupied, please go to either effuent house or baling shed." The effluent house boasted its presence through the open door opposite, but there was no indication where I might find the baling shed. As I stood in the middle of the roadway, looking puzzled - an attitude often to be found useful in such situations - the appropriate person saw me and received my parcels. He indicated where the baling shed was to be found, should I make a repeat visit on another occasion; as I drove away past it, I saw no unrestricted door, and no sign indicating the actual location of the baling shed.
Thursday was fairly normal, with a metal collection in Biggleswade for Worthing, and an envelope for St Albans, followed by a delivery of pharmaceuticals for the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. After returning from these, I was given details of a 6.0 am pick-up for a local firm the next day. This was for Swindon, and I was forewarned that there would be goods to be collected there for return to our customer although, as a special concession, this return would not be paid for at the usual rate.
Consequently I made sure I was organised well and to bed in good time to be up early on Friday morning. I decided to head for the M25, stop at a convenient filling station just before the motorway and there get breakfast and fill in my paperwork. It was then that I discovered that the only resemblance between the destination and Swindon was the letters of the postcode! I was being sent some 20 miles further on, and once I'd got there I rang the office to make the necessary protest and arrange correction. Even so, I was back in good time to make a lunchtime appointment for a blood test.
 |
| Milford Haven |
Now all I have to do is keep warm until summer comes. In case my week's news makes you shiver like I am, here's a nice warm picture 'brought forward', as it were, from three years ago. It certainly gives me a warm memory, that of wandering around a quayside office block in shirtsleeves at 8.30 am ... on a September morning!
Sunday 6 January 2013
So, it's New Year ... !?!
The New Year has arrived, but in many ways it's same old, same old. And why, everywhere you look, does it have those pretentious capital letters? Does it think it's special? What has it done to deserve them? No one says that it was a good Old Year, now, do they? I suppose it all goes back to schooldays. I mean, which of us doesn't remember coming to the end of an exercise book: writing with a sense of exhaustion rather than achievement on the final pages of a book that is now tatty and looking sorry for itself, after being humped in and out of the desk and carried around in a schoolbag for several terms? We looked forward to the issue of a bright new one to replace it, with a shiny cover, and the clearly marked legend on the front. And all that closely-packed virgin paper inside, with its sharp, just-cut edges; simply begging to be used. How carefully we wrote on that first page!
So now we have a new year. What will we do with it? If you're anything like me that will depend on other people more than on your own efforts. Just as a small example. I've been paid already since January 1st, although I haven't done any work since Christmas Eve. It's because someone was working in the office during the intervening week, processing paperwork and keeping the wheels of commerce turning. At the next level, what I do will depend on whoever has need of stuff being moved from A to B. It will depend on their coming to the firm to get this done, and on my being allocated the job. And then, on a grander scale, there is the contribution of our economy, the very survival and continuation of business itself with all that implies for the many layers of the national workforce. We say we're self-employed but, in reality, we're all very inter-dependent.
True self-employment is what I've been doing this week. Just before Christmas, I responded to a sequence of messages on a family history mailing list concerning the Australian writer's quest to establish the identity of her great-great-great-grandfather, born in Suffolk in the dying years of the eighteenth century. His son Henry Sturgeon, she knew, had been christened in 1822; and she knew too that Henry's father Thomas had been twice married - to wives who were both called Elizabeth. However, the number of people in that tiny part of the world who were called Elizabeth Sturgeon at that time is mind-boggling - a mind-boggle only exceeded by the number of Henry Sturgeons that seem to have shared the village limelight with them! I decided to throw my slight knowledge of the area and its people at the problem to try and help her.
Combining altruism with the search for personal satisfaction, I've spent the last four days almost entirely devoted to solving this problem, shuffling paper on my desk, engaging in incessant clicking from one window to another on my computer, and using a day looking at faded fiches on a record-office screen to get an unwanted headache on top of much-wanted answers to questions. By yesterday afternoon I was convinced that, to do the matter justice would require many more days' work - days that I don't have at present to spend so intensely on it. I'd obtained some clarity of the situation, that I could express in an e-mail to the lady, along with a few precise facts and references. After compiling and sending the e-mail, I then tidied what I had gleaned from all the records, and packaged the whole lot up, ready to take them out when more time allows.
I finished with a 'note to self' as to what (at present) I see as the best way to present the unfolding history over a period of some seventy years, of a dozen apparently un-related families who share the same surname and live in the same village. As one fellow researcher told me a few years ago, "I'm sure they're all connected somewhere along the line, but we may never know just how, where or when!"
Hey Ho! Work tomorrow ..............
So now we have a new year. What will we do with it? If you're anything like me that will depend on other people more than on your own efforts. Just as a small example. I've been paid already since January 1st, although I haven't done any work since Christmas Eve. It's because someone was working in the office during the intervening week, processing paperwork and keeping the wheels of commerce turning. At the next level, what I do will depend on whoever has need of stuff being moved from A to B. It will depend on their coming to the firm to get this done, and on my being allocated the job. And then, on a grander scale, there is the contribution of our economy, the very survival and continuation of business itself with all that implies for the many layers of the national workforce. We say we're self-employed but, in reality, we're all very inter-dependent.
True self-employment is what I've been doing this week. Just before Christmas, I responded to a sequence of messages on a family history mailing list concerning the Australian writer's quest to establish the identity of her great-great-great-grandfather, born in Suffolk in the dying years of the eighteenth century. His son Henry Sturgeon, she knew, had been christened in 1822; and she knew too that Henry's father Thomas had been twice married - to wives who were both called Elizabeth. However, the number of people in that tiny part of the world who were called Elizabeth Sturgeon at that time is mind-boggling - a mind-boggle only exceeded by the number of Henry Sturgeons that seem to have shared the village limelight with them! I decided to throw my slight knowledge of the area and its people at the problem to try and help her.
Combining altruism with the search for personal satisfaction, I've spent the last four days almost entirely devoted to solving this problem, shuffling paper on my desk, engaging in incessant clicking from one window to another on my computer, and using a day looking at faded fiches on a record-office screen to get an unwanted headache on top of much-wanted answers to questions. By yesterday afternoon I was convinced that, to do the matter justice would require many more days' work - days that I don't have at present to spend so intensely on it. I'd obtained some clarity of the situation, that I could express in an e-mail to the lady, along with a few precise facts and references. After compiling and sending the e-mail, I then tidied what I had gleaned from all the records, and packaged the whole lot up, ready to take them out when more time allows.
I finished with a 'note to self' as to what (at present) I see as the best way to present the unfolding history over a period of some seventy years, of a dozen apparently un-related families who share the same surname and live in the same village. As one fellow researcher told me a few years ago, "I'm sure they're all connected somewhere along the line, but we may never know just how, where or when!"
Hey Ho! Work tomorrow ..............
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