A Big Little Week

While true, that heading may seem bizarre, but I'll delay the explanation until I've shared something of the holiday with my readers.  Though some might say it's tame, or unadventurous, a week in Weston-Super-Mare was rewarding and relaxing.  It was rewarding in that I got to drive a great virtually new car - a VW Jetta with less than 8,000 miles on the clock.  It was rewarding in that my 'sister-cousin'* and I shared a holiday experience for the first time in nearly 50 years!  And it was rewarding to make the acquaintance of some new and interesting people.



SS Peter & Paul, Bleadon,
where I rang on Tuesday evening

Weston-Super-Mare esplanade

We met the two brothers who run the hotel where we stayed.  One had been ill, and they had had to cancel some bookings to cut down the workload; he explained to me the additional pressure that this placed upon him by way of reduced income, and the constant reminder of it in the empty bedrooms around them. 
We met a timid and reluctant school-leaver recruited at short notice to help out, and we met a guest whose holiday had been extended through ill fortune, in that his wife had suffered a stroke there during the previous week, and was being cared for in a local hospital.  When the young girl couldn't make it one morning, he served breakfast to us all in the most genial manner - and we all agreed that, in more comfortable circumstances, he'd make an excellent guest-house host.

two colourful inmates of
Brean Tropical Bird Sanctuary

Believe it or not, this is the first chance I've had since unloading my camera last weekend to examine these pictures.  It has been a really  busy week, although I'm hard pressed to quote chapter and verse of precisely why.  Workwise, I've recorded the lowest 'miles-per-job' statistic since November.  In a week in which I've done 19 jobs - another remarkable number, unparalleled since before last April - the furthest I've been is Sleaford, with only two other jobs exceeding 100 miles.  In keeping with its strange outcome, the week began with probably one of the most unusual jobs I've had. 

I spent almost an hour waiting in relative silence while three feet away sat a woman frantically wishing a computer would work a bit faster.  I had come on behalf of her former employer to collect the company laptop following her redundancy at the weekend, and she was anxious to transfer from it all her personal files.  She'd underestimated how long this would take, however, and when my knock sounded on the door she was far from ready for my arrival.  My day then took a busy turn, taking a box of mobile phones to a distribution centre on the A1 near Newark, and some documents to the council offices in Sleaford.

I won't bore readers with the other 16 jobs in detail, simply mentioning that Thursday was special in that it included visits to no less than four hospitals, and to describe the 'repeating genie' performance of the week.  On Wednesday afternoon, I was sent on a routine journey from Sandy to Haverhill, one done many times before.  This time, however, it was coupled with the delivery of a couple of cans of paint from a company near Royston to the fenlands of west Norfolk.  I had been given precise delivery instructions.  SatNav would guide me to the drive of a big house; I should ignore this, and head for the green building clearly visible behind it.  Unfortunately, the post code on the delivery paperwork was in error: 0BU should have read 0BE.  As a result I was directed not only to the wrong farm, but in the wrong village.  Intuition, reprogramming SatNav to look for the village by name, and a phone call to the sender for more precise directions, all yielded nothing.  By then it was gone 6.0pm, and I reckoned - correctly - that the man would be at home: the invoice address on the documentation.  Within minutes I had turned into his driveway and, smiling and bemoaning his supplier's inefficiency, he welcomed delivery of the paint.

When I thought the week had staggered to a conclusion at teatime on Friday, I had a call to deliver some wine and soft drinks to a pub near Wisbech.  As I found my turning from the A10, I thought the road looked familiar: it was the same road I'd taken two days before as my misguided SatNav led me to Nordelph.  This time it stopped me at the right place, the Lamb and Flag at Welney.  The delivery rounded off the week in excellent manner for, once the van was empty and parked up, I re-entered the pub for what has to be the tastiest meal I've enjoyed this year!

* - a genealogical contradiction but, we agree, justifiably descriptive.