Where does Work end?

There are, I believe, many things in nature that perform in the way this week has done.  It staggered along for a couple of days, well below par, then lurched energetically as if regaining its prowess ... and then collapsed completely.  Even when resuscitated, it still couldn't manage complete normality.  If that sounds a rather dismal summary, you may prefer to wait for the follow-up next week, which will undoubtedly be better.  However, for those faithfully interested in the detail ...

Monday started quite optimistically, with a print delivery in Aylesbury that had been counted as a back-end, or local, job.  Then after a short wait, I was sent to collect in Stevenage for Stamford.  Unfortunately, this didn't follow the pattern of a Stamford job a few weeks ago that became transmogrified into Motherwell.  I was back in time for bell ringing practice, and had collected an envelope from a firm opposite my home to be delivered to Pinewood Studios in the morning.  Later on Tuesday I took some small machines from a firm in Stevenage for exchange at two places in Cambridge.  One was in a special box on wheels, for a university building in a quiet side street, and  the disabled access from the street made it a doddle.  The other, sadly, was just boxed, and needed to be carried to the heart of the hospital - no mean feat for an asthmatic - and needed a number of rests!

So ended the first two days, having generated between them little more than one day's income.  By contrast Wednesday started well, and got better, with a concatenation of three jobs.  The first was a delivery in Crawley, from which I went on to a collection in Ashford.  With the bad weather, this involved a diversion off the motorway because of Operation Stack.  I'd never seen this in action before, and the sight is quite amazing.  It's hard to imagine where all those lorries are going - and equally the frustration that must build up in the drivers who are unable to proceed, whether to make their delivery or to get home if they've already delivered in Britain.  While I was still on the M20, the office called to ask me to re-route my return to make another collection in Hadlow, just outside Tonbridge.  This proved to be one of those 'SatNav got it wrong' moments, which I just missed avoiding.

I could see that I was being turned off the road to the right, and could also see clearly a right-turn lane in front of me.  Not unnaturally, I put the two together, and turned in; as I did so, I noticed that on the SatNav screen the vehicle icon had made a sharper turning about 200 yards earlier.  With my attention then diverted to the correcting manoeuvre, it wasn't until I'd made a three-point turn and pulled out onto the main road, that I noticed my destination by the side of the road I was then leaving.  I followed SatNav's erroneous instruction, and entered a narrow lane between two snow-laden hedges.  Eventually I was able to turn around again, retrace my steps and make my collection.

On Thursday, nothing happpened.  Well, this isn't strictly true, of course, and about 2.0 pm I broke off from the family history project I'd been working on all day and called the office to see if I'd 'fallen off the radar'.  I was assured that it was simply a very quiet day, and a couple of hours later came a return call to instruct a collection in Leigh-on-Sea the next morning.  This is the sort of job I like, because, with the overnight warning, I can plan at leisure what time I'll need to leave, therefore what time I'll have to get up to avoid being in a rush, and where will be the best place to stop for breakfast.  This particular job involved a delivery in Ware, to a converted warehouse that I'd had great difficulty in locating the first time I'd been there a few months ago.  This time I turned boldly into the lane, holding up the traffic in the High Street as I adjusted my angle of approach to enter the narrow archway.

The records in the office had not been updated to show that I was doing this job, and the controller called me just as I was entering the town.  The conversation that ensued was a real-life copy of a stage sketch.  "Where are you, Brian?" "Ware." "Yes, where are you?" "Ware!" "Where?" "I'm in Ware!" "Oh, Ware.  I didn't realise you'd got that job - OK."  Soon after I'd got back, Ware from? <sorry - it becomes whering, no, Ware...  no, wearing after a while!>  I was sent off to Corby with some display materials to be finished at a factory there, and the day was rounded off by a job that was collected in Luton for a store on a retail park in Peterborough.  I just got there before they closed at 5.15, where I learned that, on two previous attempts to provide them with these goods, they had arrived broken, and I suddenly remembered the same cautious welcome somewhere the last time I'd done a job for this particular customer.  Maybe one day they'll learn that if they want a safe and secure delivery they must engage a professional courier, and not trust the cheap nationwide volume carriers! (end of promotional interlude).

My comparatively early return on Friday evening meant that the weekend's chores were soon in advance of schedule, and I could apply my attentions once more to the project that has been ongoing for some months now, attempting to separate a Suffolk village's confusing web of large families with the same name, but no obvious connection otherwise. 

Perhaps the best part of the working week has been this morning, Sunday.  During my 'day off' on Thursday, a friend asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed in church today on the subject of prayer in relation to my work.  Having agreed to do this, my thoughts drifted to that topic over the last couple of days, and by this morning I'd got fairly clear in my mind what I was going to say.  Instead, her questions were more specific, and led down a route that neither of us had prepared, the outcome of which was the revelation that I had on one occasion entered behind the hallowed black door of no. 10 Downing Street, before she returned once again to the role of prayer.

While I have no actual regrets about the way this week has turned out, it would be nice if next week is a little more normal, if for no other reason than at the end of it comes the annual bellringing 'away weekend', news of which will appear here sometime, with pictures if possible.