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.