The Long and the Short of it

On Thursday morning I was given a lesson in humility.  "What have you done so far today?" I was asked.  I replied, with cold accuracy and not a little bitterness, "I've got up, and had my breakfast," thinking as I did so that the people in the office didn't have a clue what was going on.  "I didn't get in until 2.15!"  By then it was about 10.40 am, and I'd just rung in to announce my availability for work.  After ending the call, I calmed down and realised that while there's only one of me in my little world, there are over fifty drivers in their world, and several controllers looking after them, so it wasn't unreasonable that, at that hour of the morning, the one who answered my call should assume that I'd already been out, and had just returned home.

But to start at the beginning of a week that has returned my highest mileage total since Christmas (1,974) ...

Monday this week bore several resemblances to Monday of last week.  On each occasion, as I left church after the early breakfast, I told my friends that, no, I didn't know where I'd be going, because I'd been out late on Friday, so would have to ring in and start from scratch.  On each occasion, I discovered that I'd been left on the list when given a late job on Friday, so would soon be going out.  And on each occasion, I had been sent to Swindon.  There the two diverge for, while last week found me walking around in the city centre sunshine, this week's Swindon was another of those 'postal town vagaries', and turned out to be Royal Wootton Bassett.  There was nothing special about the job itself, but the Monday similarity continued afterwards.  Just like last week, I was given another job when I called in to the office with my paperwork.  The timing was different however.  Whereas last week I'd been sent on a comparatively local run to Northampton, and later enjoyed an evening's ringing, this time it was nearer closing time, and I was asked if I'd like to go to Liverpool (notice how the phrasing changes as evening approaches!)

Not one to turn down work without good reason, I said OK, and was soon off with a couple of items for a national newspaper firm.  Knowing that they operated on a 24-hour basis, I stopped briefly at the truck-stop for a meal on the way, arrived around 10.30, and was home by 4.0 am. 

I rang in after breakfast on Tuesday to find that - by then - the list was a short one, and I was soon called back with two jobs, one to nearby Milton Keynes, the other nominally to Chester, which I discovered on collection was actually to an aircraft factory just over the border into north Wales.  My arrival there had been hampered by an accident just outside Chester, and I had no desire to get held up a second time so, after a quick check on the map, I decided to make a pleasure out of necessity and take a different route home.  Passing through Wrexham, I headed for Telford thinking that, if nothing caught my eye in the meantime, there would be something to eat at the motorway services there.  Passing round the Shrewsbury ring road, I spotted a sign for 'services', rejected the possibilities of Starbucks and Burger King, and found myself in a pleasant eatery called the 'Two Henrys'.  Named after the two protagonists, King Henry IV, and Henry Percy ('Harry Hotspur'), it is on or near the site of the 1403 Battle of Shrewsbury.  Fed in both body and mind, I then made my way home, and was pleased to be home far earlier than the previous day, albeit still 11.0!

Wednesday promised to be another late start, but when I rang in around 8.30, I was almost immediately given a job, on the basis that it was one that I'd done several times before, and would therefore know where I was going.  This was a collection at West Suffolk Hospital, for a laboratory in Royston - the reverse of the job referred to briefly here only a couple of weeks ago, when I visited four hospitals in one day.  This visit, too, was part of a 'multi-hospital, day since only a half-hour or so after my return I was despatched to Hexham General with some equipment required for surgery the following day.  It was a pleasant day spent in the company of commentary on the first day of the Ashes Test Match and, with my delivery made by 7.0, I retraced my steps just a few miles for my second consecutive pub meal, this time at the Wellington Hotel, Riding Mill.  As previously declared, this third late night ended at a time nicely between the previous two, at 2.15.

After the 'lesson in humility' mentioned at the top of this piece, my only job on Thursday was prolonged by adding a second accident to this week's total.  This severely delayed my journey round the M25, to deliver some artwork to a café being refurbished in Esher.  The collection had already been hampered by roadworks, but after the foregoing days, I was so much in 'relax mode' that my only thought was gratitude that the job wasn't an urgent one.  Given that I couldn't focus my attention on either the computer screen or the book I tried to read instead, I think I can be forgiven for indulging in an early night.  It did me little good, however, and I was awake by 5.0 am and soon ready to leave for the next assignment - the first of two enjoyable journeys into Suffolk.

With breakfast on the way, I made it to Halesworth comfortably early, and was on my way to our customer in Luton with the goods I'd collected by the planned 10.0.  A comfortable coffee break at home, listening to the Test Match was followed by the second trip to the 'old country': this time to deliver some paint to Haverhill.  In these two days, I've earned only about a day's income, but after the exhaustion of days one to three, I feel unperturbed, even though I'm faced with a day off on Monday.  This is because the van's exhaust gas recirculation valve is playing up, and since the van is almost due for another service anyway, it seems good economic strategy to arrange for both jobs to be done together.

After release from a third trip to Suffolk because the job was too big for my van, I'm also free of the consequent delivery in Stoke-upon-Trent tomorrow morning, so instead I can look forward to a lazy weekend: - I can't decide whether to dream up something exciting to do, or simply relax.