Where the Sun Shines

Writing this on an afternoon when there's no play in the Test Match because of rain, it's hard to focus on the fact that the two best bits of this week have been in glorious sunshine.  The first of these was on Tuesday afternoon, and its recollection completely blotted out - until research revealed them - the details of the previous day-and-a-half.  The week began with a delivery to the Birmingham Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, neatly followed by a collection in nearby Oldbury.  Then three local jobs - the never-to-be-sneezed-at background items that can turn an 'all right' week into a good one - occupied Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.


My great-grandparents, c.1900,
 outside a door now removed

The Tuesday 'special' job was, of itself, just three boxes of labels for a cosmetics firm in Halesworth.  I always like going to Suffolk because of the opportunity to indulge in the nostalgia of my youth.  This particular visit was even better because the bright sunshine encouraged the use of my camera, enabling me to add some shots to my collection that have some resonance with my family history investigations.  One village I visited was Syleham,

'The Cross', Syleham, in 2013

where my grandfather spent his childhood, and where all his siblings were born.  I have yet to establish why he was not, but the accepted explanation is that his father was out of work and had temporarily taken a situation at Easton, some seventeen miles away from home.  In 1881 the families of both my paternal grandparents were living in Syleham.  My grandmother's parents lived at a crossroads, known as 'the Cross', where their house projected into the junction.  The road past their home led down to the village church, and today the junction is marked by a commemorative wooden cross.  Their cottage has been merged with the one next door, and the front door outside which they posed for a picture has now been filled in.

The week progressed with jobs into Essex on Wednesday, visiting Basildon and Chelmsford, and then returning to the same firm in Basildon on Thursday, along with the delivery of an air-conditioning unit to a school in Brookmans Park.  And so to Friday, when my week ended with a financially beneficial, but exhausting, trip to Yeovil, Ilminster and Tiverton.  The A303 is a busy road any weekend, but on the Friday before the bank holiday, even more so, with a delay of up to 71 minutes foretold at one point.  SatNav tried to help me around this, but lost all credibility when it returned me to the main road after a short detour only to find several miles of almost standing traffic yet to negotiate!  I was glad to have the morning's experience to reflect upon.

On Friday morning I'd been allocated a run to the Essex-Suffolk border with some heavy chains for a motor firm based on one of the many reclaimed WWII airfields that pepper the area.  With the two possible 'A-roads' encompassing a broad circle, one to the north, and the other to the south, it made sense to opt for the rural ride straight across the middle, with the saving in mileage almost compensating for the slight delay.  The result was a most delightful meander between the harvest fields, which enabled me to repeat to myself, in my ignorance, wise comments I'd often heard my father make about the progress that was being made in getting the crops harvested.  I drove along twisted and almost deserted roads, into and out of villages that I'd never visited before, often never heard of.  I reflected on a slower, more encompassing, and probably healthier, pace of life in bygone ages, and was almost joyful at being able to imagine just a glimpse of how life might have been lived then.

This afternoon, having recovered from the exhaustion of the night before (when I finally fell into bed at 5.0 am), I'm taking part in another hangover from another age - ringing bells for a local wedding.  I used to occupy myself in this way as one of the regular team, serving all the weddings that the summer presented, but with other interests tugging at my limited leisure time, this has dwindled to those exceptional coincidences when the present regulars are short-handed and I happen to have little else pressing.

Almost According to Plan

"The week began according to plan."  Now that's not a sentence often seen on this page.  But this week I knew in advance what I would be doing on Monday morning.  In fact some of it had spent the weekend sitting in the van, waiting to be delivered to Pinewood Studios.  The other job was collected on the way, and was taken to Corsham in Wiltshire - not, as I'd wrongly recalled from my verbal instruction, to Cosham near Portsmouth.  It's important to get the destination right, as I recall from my earliest days in this work, while still using my car.  I'd been sent on a Friday evening to Sandhurst, to deliver to a Morrisons store.  I arrived in the village about 9.30, but couldn't see the store.  I enquired at the pub, where I learned that there was no Morrisons there.  Only then was the postcode on the parcel examined, and discovered to be RG, and not TN like everything else in the village.  I should have been on the borders of Berkshire, and not in Kent!

By the time I'd followed all the security procedures at the military base in Corsham, and delivered the goods, it was afternoon before I set course for home, and after a peaceful afternoon was able to enjoy a good evening's bellringing.  Tuesday brought a 'sensible' day, taking a parcel to a large factory in Loughborough, so I was securely on the list ready for what turned out to be a quiet Wednesday.  I was called about 11.0, to be told that there were still several drivers in front of me, but while I was waiting, would I just take something from one place in Letchworth to another, wait, and bring it back again.  It sounded simple ... until I arrived and spotted the address on the box I collected - Welwyn Garden City!  "Oh," said the young lady, "Does that cause a problem?  The man said it was 'just round the corner.'"  I politely explained that it was fifteen miles down the road, and would she ring the office to explain where I was going.  No doubt her confession caused some amusement to the office staff.

Wednesday was indeed quiet, and a sequence of three more local jobs filled my afternoon, going to Sandy, St Neots and Bedford.  Thursday morning definitely brought the highlight of the week, even though it was still quite local.  I was asked to be at an address in Biggleswade at 8.30am to go to Warmington.  I joked with the controller who rang me with the job that he hadn't added 'on Sea', so it couldn't be for Dad's Army.  In fact, I found that I was to deliver a large granite slab to a small business right opposite the church tower in the charming village of Fotheringhay. 

St Mary & All Saints' Church, Fotheringhay

I spotted the name Warmington on a signpost on the way, some two-and-a-half miles to the south-east.  Fotheringhay is, of course, the site of the castle where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned prior to her execution in 1587.  Less well known is the fact that, some 135 years earlier, Richard III was born there.  For me this job brought back memories of a day two summers ago when I'd taken a diversion there with my camera.

Thursday wasn't over, though, and after a short wait, I was sent to an office in Bedford to exchange a computer with someone living in Midhurst.  It's quite a routine job category for us, since a number of companies nowadays have employees and agents who work from home.  It can, however present the courier with strange experiences, one of which I described a few weeks ago here.  This one was quite different, but equally bizarre.  My journey there was straightforward, and finding the house no problem.  The door was opened by a girl of about six or seven, who was closely followed by dad, and then mum.  It was obvious that I'd brought a laptop, and I explained that I was expecting to take another one back.  This was brought out to me quite devoid of accessories or a carrying case.  "Do you want the bag?" I was asked.  I said that I'd been given no instructions about a bag so the machine to be returned was thrust, naked, into my hand.  "Well, take it as it is, then."  After taking my leave, and placing the laptop in the back of the van, I realised that I needed fuel and after some minutes, as I was trying to persuade SatNav to direct me to an Esso garage on my route home, came a tap to the van door.  It was the man I'd just left, carrying the bag in which I'd just delivered the replacement laptop.  "Here," he said, "You better take the bag as well.  I have no use for it anyway."  As he retreated to his door once more, I walked round the van to place the laptop in the bag for the return journey, thinking about the strange behaviour a courier encounters in a day's work.

This encounter with strangeness continued into Friday morning, too.  Much earlier than I'd expected, I was called to a customer whose delivery had been overlooked, asking me to go straight off with this to our customer's customer in Bishops Stortford.  17 boxes of labels were no problem, and I arrived about a quarter-of-an-hour before the deadline I'd been set.  The person receiving these helped me to unload the first layer of eight boxes onto a trolley.  He then set about checking them, type for type, quantity for quantity, against the delivery sheets.  Each box contained from three to five separate sorts, so this was clearly going to take some time; he was so meticulous that I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd opened a box to count the number of labels on a roll!  I began placing further boxes on top of these as he checked them.  He clearly felt I was rushing him, and a sharp, but courteous verbal exchange was initiated.  This ended with me pointing out the legend on the foot of the delivery sheets that said he had three days in which to raise any discrepancy queries with the supplier, and him stopping his detailed checking to sign my sheets and allow me to depart.

The working week ended with a much more straightforward delivery of a replacement computer part to an office in Nottinghamshire, but there was much more activity to come.  While many were concerned about the opening of the new Premier League football season, a few enthusiasts recognised the fact that the FA Cup also got under way this weekend.  Ten of the extra-preliminary round fixtures had been re-scheduled to Friday evening,

Ready for the kick-off

including the one at Thetford where the local team were hosts to Diss Town.  I had resolved that, work permitting, I would make the effort to go along and support my native side, but my attention did them no favours, for they lost 1-0.

Until I learned of the rearrangement of the cup tie, Saturday had been a toss-up between this and a visit to Suffolk Record Office to harvest another crop of family history data.  With all chance removed, and the opportunity to do both, I set off early on Saturday morning filled with good intentions.  While the visit was far from unsuccessful, few of my original list of tasks were fulfilled, and the day used up.  Now comes the follow-up, as I add the details culled to my personal database and assess the true value of the expedition.

All up One End

My cousin recently observed that her uncle (my father) possessed a skill that neither of us has ever seen anywhere else.  He would stand the loaf on its end, butter the open surface, and then cut off the buttered slice, without changing the orientation of the loaf.  This operation would be repeated, almost mechanically, until the required number of slices had been achieved.  In this same vein, I recall an early attempt, under his tuition, to make a sandwich.  He presented me - aged about five or six - with two of the aforementioned buttered slices, together with a knife and a jar of mum's homemade jam.  After watching my efforts for a minute or so, he seized the knife and, with a mixture of amusement and frustration, commented, "Ya'r got it all up o' one ind, boy!"  And looking, I could see with shame that he was quite right, for at one end of the slice was a thick layer of jam, while at the other there was naked butter, just as it had left his skilled hand a minute earlier.

That's a fair reflection of the last week.  I have often commented that one aspect of the courier life that I enjoy is its unpredictability.  This is nearly always the case.  The exception is when a day comes when nothing happens: the phone is dead.  I commented recently on just such a Tuesday.  This week began with a standing start: after my ferry trip the previous Friday, I rang in on Monday, tongue in cheek, to say I was 'back from Belfast and could I go on the list, please.'  About an hour later, the controller rang to say that, since I was at the bottom of quite a long list, he was giving me a fairly long local job to keep me busy while I waited.  I was sent to the village of Manea, in Cambridgeshire.  More accurately, I was sent to March, but found that my destination was not even in this nearby village, but to somewhere out in the wilds of fenland, that just happened to claim Manea as its postal address.

Once I saw the address, I recalled having gone there once before, so I knew at least the nature of the building I would be visiting, instead of spending - as I had on the earlier occasion - half an hour driving up and down the road looking for an almost invisible name, before driving up to a luxurious modern house, to deliver to the garage conversion in the back garden. I can justify describing this job in some detail, because it proved to be my one job, not just for Monday, nor for Monday and Tuesday, but for the first three days of the week!

On Wednesday afternoon, I was sent soon after lunch to collect a parcel to be taken to Nottingham but, when I was within a mile of our customer, they rang to say that, in their opinion, it would be too late to get it there that day, and could they have a call at 9.0 the next morning, please.  Muttering grimly to myself about their estimate of how long it would have taken me to get to Nottingham, I returned home.

So it was that on Thursday, bright and early, I collected this parcel and sped northwards.  I won't deny my pleasure at being called when just over half-way there to be told that there was another job I could run onto afterwards, and when I called in having made the delivery, I was delighted to learn that this second job involved a cross-country journey to Cannock to collect something for one of our customers in Luton.  I was home early in the afternoon, feeling that this day at least had been quite reasonable.

After catching up on my iPlayer tele-viewing, I was relaxing at bedtime when the phone rang.  "I don't know what sort of week you've had ... ," began the night-controller.  I immediately thought, "You fibber, you know fine well that it's been a very quiet week!" but quietly waited for him to continue.  "How do you fancy going to Swansea ... now?"  I rapidly recalled Wednesday and Tuesday, and told myself there was only one answer.  I dressed once more in my uniform, and set off for this Bedford customer, who had an urgent consignment for DVLA.  Having been up since early the previous morning, I realised soon after passing Ross-on-Wye that if I didn't stop soon for a nap, I might not reach my destination at all, but not much more than an hour later, I resumed my journey, and made the delivery at 4.50 am.

Friday's breakfast was an absolute joy.  I knew there was a café somewhere on the northbound side of the A40 near Monmouth, but wasn't sure exactly where.  In fact there are two, but I stopped at the first one, bearing the unusual name 'High Noon'.  The place has just changed hands; the shop has been modernised and now it's the turn of the restaurant.  Half the eating area has been screened off, and the remainder is partly cluttered with rolled-up carpet, stacked chairs and tables.  However, the food was great, freshly cooked before my eyes, and as I sat by the window in the morning sunshine I could look at the brightly-lit hillside on the opposite side of the road.  I later discovered that this is called the Doward, and beyond it runs the River Wye, which there forms the boundary with Wales.

I returned home at midday, and went straight to bed for as long as my body needed.  Not much more than an hour had passed before I was awake again - daytime sleep is an art I've never acquired - and trying to decide whether I wanted to work again or not.  I think the fact that I was aware that there was a decision to be made was evidence that the answer was 'no'.  This was supported by the fact that, by the time I'd pottered around for a couple of hours I was feeling distinctly more awake, and decided to call the office after all.  I was asked if I would be OK for another job should one come up, to which I replied, 'nothing too far,' which was quite acceptable.  About an hour later, I was asked if I'd like to go and collect a job for delivery yesterday morning in Lancashire, which suited me fine, giving me the rest of Friday to unwind, but at the same time providing further compensation for the 'lost' days earlier in the week.  I'd just returned from this collection when another call invited me to pick up something for delivery on Monday, and gave me further instructions for a job to be collected on Monday morning as well, so next week will at least set off on the right foot.

My journey to Heywood was not without incident.  I'd been given a 9.0 - noon delivery window, and set off soon after 6.0, thinking to get some breakfast at the Markham Moor truck-stop on the way.  To my surprise, this was closed, and as I'd already noted, there were no roadside burger vans operating either.  I had spotted one café open on the southbound carriageway, and had almost resigned myself to making my delivery first and having 'brunch' there on my return, when a flag-flying burger van loomed into view at Barnsdale Bar.  Thus sustained, apart from SatNav's route not quite coinciding with what I had researched the previous evening, there were no further snags until the final crossroads, when I almost collided with a car coming at right angles to me to the junction.  Fortunately, there was no impact, no screeching of brakes, and no damage apart from to my nerves.

On my return I followed up a brown tourist sign I'd spotted as I entered the town, marked East Lancs Railway.  This proved to be a viable preserved railway, offering a public service as well as a tourist/enthusiast attraction.  Had it not been for a darkly clouded sky and a desire to catch up with things on the home front, I might well have stayed longer, and taken a £13.50 return trip to the other end of the line.  It was as well that I'd also decided against a detour to watch a football match (the new season started yesterday for most leagues), for there were road problems to contend with too.  I diverted from the A1 in order to avoid one significant delay, but a road closure on the alternative route sent me on a wild trek through the Nottinghamshire lanes before eventually regaining my route after a longer delay than I'd tried to avoid. 

I was glad to return to my weekend domesticity, and I'm now wondering whether the next week will be quite so lop-sided!

Phew!

Love, a child, is ever crying:

Please him and he straight is flying,

Give him, he the more is craving,

Never satisfied with having.

I'm fairly sure that my mum never read these lines by Lady Mary Wroth (c.1586-1652), but my memory tells me that she might have done, for she would often say to me, "Son, you're never satisfied!"  Things haven't changed.  After chuntering for weeks about the paucity of work, and being unaware of any regular lull at this time of year, this has unquestionably been a 'good' week.  But it's been too hot, and quite frankly, after 2,441 miles ... I'm exhausted!

The details are simple. Monday, Basildon; Tuesday, Glasgow; Wednesday, Woodchurch; Thursday, Haverhill, and then Wakefield; Friday, Belfast.  Just seven jobs (there were two to Basildon) and no, I didn't know where Woodchurch is, either, but I do now - it's part of Upton, plonk in the middle of the Wirral, behind Birkenhead.

Amongst it all there have been human stories, too.  First of all, I'd got halfway down the A1(M) on Monday afternoon with a box of shopfittings, when a phone call bade me return because another job had come in for Basildon.  'We're getting it collected for you - you can meet up with the other driver in Stevenage to pick it up.'  This sounded straightforward, but after I'd waited for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, I realised that it would have been quicker to go all the way to Letchworth and collect the goods myself.  I'll know who not to trust another time!  However, the end result was two jobs only a couple of miles apart, so it was a reasonable start to my week.

I had already been given a job for Tuesday, which I collected at Stansted airport on my way home.  This was the transfer of some archives for morning delivery at a place of secure storage on the outskirts of Glasgow.  I decided that there would be adequate time for a 'normal' Monday evening, so I snatched an hour's sleep before going to bellringing practice, and then left from there for my delivery.  I had planned to stop at the truck-stop outside Carlisle for a few hours' more rest and then breakfast, confident that there would still be time to get to my destination by the required 9.0.  However, I didn't bargain for the A66 to be closed for road-works.  Instead of a comfortable sleep followed by a civilised breakfast, I found myself heading cross-country from north Yorkshire to Glasgow, where I arrived embarrassingly early.  I did find a café open on the estate for breakfast though, and when the office staff turned up to receive my delivery, they were very helpful.  By then, of course, the A66 was open again so, after a hot day driving into the sun, I was back in time to hand in my week's paperwork before our office closed.

Wednesday began much as the preceding two weeks, with the computer and family history.  It was after lunch when I was sent to collect some goods for a hospital on the Wirral, but quite enjoyed the drive up there, wondering where it would be possible to get a meal after my delivery.  It was also an eventful journey, first avoiding one road where there had been an accident, and then another where there is always queuing traffic at that time of day, and all the time seeing my arrival time drift from the initial 5.15 to 6.0, then 6.30.  I finally got to the Arrowe Park Hospital about 6.50.  As I left the motorway, I had called the rep who had arranged the delivery to explain my delay, and from him learned that the equipment was wanted for a hip operation the following morning.  I handed the box over to the theatre staff, who knew it was on its way, and returned to my van to find a lovely text message from the rep, telling me I was 'a legend' and thanking me for my efforts.  It's nice to be appreciated, but more so, and rare, for this to be in writing!

I was consequently up later than normal on Thursday, so I wasn't surprised to be given a local 'filler' job just before lunchtime.  This was a fairly regular collection from Haverhill for one of our customers in Letchworth.  Having noted that the temperature was up to 32.5 degrees at one point on my way back, I would have been quite content to sit in my shady lounge for the rest of the day, but this wasn't to be, and at about 4.15, I was asked to collect a heavy metal tank from a fabrication firm opposite the garage in Letchworth where my van is maintained.  This was to go to an address in Wakefield, where there would be a nightshift ready to receive it.  After a meal on the way north, I arrived at a respectable 9.15 to find SatNav directing me to a neat close of comfortable residential properties!  I searched for a while for the correct location - without success - and then rang the night shift manager who, I had been told, would have to come and open the gates for me.  Not for the first time, both I and the receiving personnel had been misled.  He wasn't expecting a delivery, and when I'd followed the muddy track he described, I found the gates wide open and looking as if they'd been so for quite a while!  I was glad, though, that the apparent need to be admitted had provided me with the phone no.  Once I'd found someone with a fork truck, and the tank was safely in their yard, I made my gentle way south again, looking forward to a well-earned sleep.

The body-clock kicked in and woke me at 6.30, but was overruled, twice, and I eventually got up about 8.30.  My prayers were interrupted by a phone call, which I ignored, but before breakfast I responded to a text message asking me to ring the office, 'because I've got something to ask you.'  I'd expected some query about the previous night's delivery, but this wasn't the case.  A job was being picked up at that very moment, which needed to be in Belfast before the day were out.  It was gratifying to be told that I was the first one to be asked ... whether this were true or not. 

As I assessed my present situation, I recalled my prayer-time on Monday morning.  I'd remembered how tired I'd felt after my journey to Ipswich and Norwich last week, and reflected that I was getting out of the routine of longer journeys.  The announcement only a few hours later of the job to Glasgow had been something of an answer; this offer seemed like more of the same.  I said I could be in the office by 10.30 ... was that good enough?  It was and, while I fed and cleansed my body, and sorted out my equipment, ferry bookings were being made, so that when I arrived at the office, I could collect a small box and set off once more past the familiar surroundings of the A1, heading this time for Scotland, and the new Stena terminal at Loch Ryan.  It made a refreshing change to be travelling north through the hotter parts of the day, accompanied by commentary on the second day of the Test Match.

This was the first time I'd departed for Belfast from here, and at first I mistook the entrance to the Cairnryan P&O/Irish Ferries terminal for the one I wanted.  However, just in time I saw the green road-sign directing me to go further on.  Round a couple of bends there was the one I needed - bright and shining, and with its own roundabout, just like a new Tesco store.  After I'd negotiated the usual dilemma of being a freight vehicle but not HGV, I was checked in and didn't have long to wait before being ushered on board.

My destination, the offices of Belfast Evening Telegraph (and other newspapers), was in the city centre, and only about three miles from the port.  As is often the case, I'd passed the building before spotting a likely entrance, but traffic at 10.0 pm was minimal, so I could easily do a U-turn and leave the van in a 'pay-before-6.30' bay outside so as to explore on foot.  Luckily someone was standing outside the loading bay, and while I returned to collect my parcel from the van, he'd alerted the security man, who recognised the name on it, and signed for it immediately.  I was back at the port in time to join the queue to re-embark on the same boat that had brought me, instead of waiting in boredom for the 3.30 am sailing.  By the time this would have left, I was already making my way across Galloway, using the frequent lay-bys to avoid hindering the seemingly desperate progress of one HGV after another as they negotiated the agonising 100 miles from the port to the nearest motorway.

By Saturday's dawn, my Tuesday morning plans were finally fulfilled, as I settled down on the car park at Carlisle for a welcome sleep before breakfast.  Thereafter, I stopped only for fuel at Scotch Corner and was home just about 1.0 pm.  I made straight for my bed, and after a couple of hours was able to start a new 'day' in weekend mode, albeit in mid-afternoon.

Dare I hope to ask, what will the next week hold?