Uluru?!

I've long since stopped being surprised at the amazing twists and turns that this job involves.  I was looking round for something that would describe this week, and thought of Ayers Rock: something sticking up into the sky in the middle of nowhere.  Then I remembered that it's been renamed - or named back, depending on your point of view - with its Aboriginal name; when I looked this up, I found a picture revealing that it isn't the best illustration of what I had in mind in the first place.

But having found it, I'm using it - this has been a (sort of) Uluru week.

So, what's this geographical gibberish trying to say?  Let me try and answer that with some statistics.  From my ten jobs this week, I estimate I shall have earned roughly the same as the average of the last four weeks.  In each of those four weeks there was one job significantly greater than all the rest, representing from 19 to 40% of that week's earnings; in the four weeks overall, those four bigger jobs contributed over 32% of my income.  This week, however, has topped the charts!  It's been the surprise to beat surprises.  Over half my income will have come from one job, a job that has taken almost 54% of my total mileage in the week.  So, to the detail, before I bore everyone.

On Monday I left the men's breakfast saying, as usual, that I had no idea where I would be going.  I had plans of pottering about at home for much of a quiet day.  Not to be.  About 8.30, I was sent to collect two identical items, each about the size of a roll of Christmas wrapping paper.  One was to be taken to a store in Oxford, the other to a similar store in Bristol.  Oxford and Bristol would normally be a nice combination, but for a multiple job for the same customer the remuneration is far less, so I returned home thinking, 'it's only Monday, the week may improve.' and I went off to bellringing practice for the first time for a while.

Knowing I was already on the list, I settled down on Tuesday morning in much the same vein.  With predictable similarity, I was called around 9.0 to take something from Letchworth to Hertford.  I returned and waited, and waited ... and waited.  In many ways I was glad to be able to make some more progress on my background project on the Sturgeons of Stanton, but even that had paled in interest when at 4.0 the controller rang to send me round the corner to collect four boxes of plastic mouldings to go to a firm just outside Oxford the following morning. Day over - and I returned to my warm lounge and the computer with renewed vigour.

The trip to Oxford - actually it was nearer Abingdon - went hitch-free.  I rewarded myself with a bacon-and-egg baguette from the stall on the A40 on the way home, and rang in when I was back.  "I'm sure they'll be getting you out again soon," replied the office manager.  Sure enough, I hadn't waited long before the phone went, with two local jobs to keep me from being idle.  About two hours later, as I came back from the second of these, the same young controller was on the line again, with a familiar form of words, "are you all right for a long job tonight?"  This was a 'holding mechanism', and I recognised it as such;  It meant that my name had risen to the top of the list, or nearly so, and a good job was coming up which they'd rather give to me than to someone else, but it wasn't ready yet so they wouldn't tell me the details until it was confirmed.

Forewarned, then, I came home and assembled a few essentials, but got sent out on another local job before eventually collecting a box of metalwork for a firm of industrial services people.  My guess is that they are doing a job for a client in the offshore oil/gas industry, because I was to deliver the box to the premises of a shipping company on the Aberdeen quayside for onward transmission to the northern isles.

After a leisurely meal at Markham Moor Truckstop, it was just a straightforward case of 'drive till tired, sleep till cold, and repeat' throughout the night.  I remember stopping at the place in Carlisle where I'd slept on the way back from Motherwell last week, because I popped into the 'pay-at-the-pump' Asda across the road for some fuel, but I can't recall how many other breaks there were.  What should have been an eight-and-a-half-to-nine hours' drive filled thirteen to fourteen hours.  I just let SatNav have its way and followed where it led.  Arriving at about 6.45, I decided to have a wander round to get my bearings, see whether there were any sign of life that early, and then get back into the warm van to wait until whenever someone might turn up.  I discovered that it was a much larger depot than the place where I'd parked indicated - I must have been at the end of the building.

As I turned to walk back to the van, someone parked beside me and asked if I were looking for something.  I explained that I was making a delivery, and on learning what firm it was for was told they wouldn't be there until 8.0, but what had I got?  When he learned that it was a box I was able to carry, my new friend told me to drive round to the pedestrian gate beyond where I'd parked, and he would accept it there.  Sure enough, in the time it took me to return to my van and drive the 50 yards further, he had opened up and walked through the premises.  By 7.0 I had made my delivery and was on my way out of the quayside area, with my eye open for a BP Connect I'd passed earlier, where I could get something warm to eat and drink!

The return journey was much more enjoyable, although too cold to hang around sightseeing.  I decided to take the shortest 'decent' route, and began by exploring the 'Coastal Trail' A92 as an alternative to the main A90 route that I'd used every time I've been to Aberdeen as yet.  Seen in bright daylight, unhindered by driving into the sun, it was often quite charming, starting at Stonehaven and going through Montrose, Arbroath and into Dundee from the east.  In fact, I followed A92 across the Tay Bridge and through Fife to Cowdenbeath, joining the A90 in time to cross the Forth Bridge and find the Edinburgh Bypass.  I then picked up the A7, and passed some of the places I'd visited on my Borders holiday three years ago, before arriving in late afternoon at the same junction on the A6 where I'd visited the Asda fuel station eighteen hours before.

By then tiredness had begun to kick in again, and I was pleased to stop at Wetherby on the A1 for a decent break before hitting the last leg home.  When I finally returned home at 10.20, the only thing on my mind was bed, and I slept almost solidly until about 8.0 on Friday morning.  There was the admin to attend to, but when I rang in to get added to the list - hoping for a light day - I was told they were very busy, would I wait while they checked whether there was something I could get on to straight away.  There was, of course, and so began a normal busy Friday, involving trips to an unexpected office on a Reading housing estate, and then Stansted airport before finishing with a local delivery of some printed matter to a private house in rural Bedfordshire.

Now, with chores done, and admin too, I'm looking forward to a leisurely weekend ... oh dear, it's almost over!