The working title for this blog was 'A Boring Week'. Every so often you get a week when there is no actual highlight, nothing dramatically out of the ordinary, certainly nothing worth shouting about, and yet, at the end of it, the 'crunch' figure (i.e. estimate of total income for the week) is quite reasonable. So, before finding something more worthwhile to write about, on with the 'nerd' specs, and let's wheel out the stats. Although there were seventeen jobs this week, almost half of the miles were taken up by the five jobs that were more than 60 miles distant, and the average of all the rest was only 36 miles. Two of the best jobs of the week were in the evening - on Wednesday to Daventry, and on Thursday to Birmingham.
My normal weekend routine includes washing (i.e. loading and eventually emptying the washing machine) and ironing. These are usually performed on Saturday or Sunday; this week, however, ironing took place on Friday and was in fact postponed from Thursday. Why do I bore you with this domestic detail? Simply in order to amuse you with the explanation. On Wednesday morning I had a pre-8.0 delivery in Northampton, and crowned this adventure in the time-honoured fashion with the purchase of a bacon-and-egg roll at a convenient mobile hostelry (often called a burger-van). Sadly the invitation to have one's egg hard rather than soft was omitted. This omission not being recognised and resolved, the tragic, but inevitable, outcome was much eggy-dribble on jersey-front. To be brutally frank, there was egg everywhere, and the eating of breakfast was something of a nightmare rather than the anticipated delight that it usually is. Emergency laundry was the only option, with the ensuing disruption to my domestic routine.
There is something else about which I had been intending to write for some while. It concerns a regular route out of town to the south-east, the A507. More accurately, it concerns a single - and solitary - property along this road.
The story has been unfolding gradually for some while, but has now reached a crisis. This particular property stands back slightly from the road, in a broad clearing. To the rear is woodland, to the front a decent expanse of lawn, and alongside is the roadway that leads to a farm just over the hill. From the style I should say it was built in the 1960s or '70s; I'd guess that its accommodation probably includes three or four bedrooms, and there's a built-in garage. The first time I saw it I thought that this house looked smart. There was never a 'For Sale' notice outside, and I'd often reflected that I'm not in a position to take any steps towards identifying the owner, let alone to contemplate buying it. If it comes to that, given its isolated position I'm not sure I'd want to live there. But that doesn't stop it looking, on a sunny morning, in a rather modernist way, a very attractive dwelling.
As I say, the story has unfolded gradually, but I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that, being unoccupied and isolated, this pleasant property soon became the victim of mindless vandalism. Window panes were broken; the panels of the front door were kicked in; the garage door was forced open. Before long, the lace curtains had been ripped from the windows, the garage door became twisted and half out of its frame and graffiti started to appear on the door and the walls. I have to pass this way quite frequently and, as time passed and more and more damage was inflicted, it was as if the poor building was crying out to me to help it. I began to wonder just who might own it, why it was being left to be attacked in this way, with no sign of any protection or remedial action. I fantasised about tracing its owner, evaluating a plan whereby a group of capable young people might be assembled to effect repairs on some community enhancement scheme and put into a state where it might be habitable again.
Eventually, with window frames and garage door now completely removed, even if it were once possible, such an adventurous and far-fetched scheme became unimaginable and, within the last couple of weeks, the poor house has given up the ghost. Its roof has fallen in, and finally someone has decided that it is no longer safe for the casual wanderer or vandal to go inside. A most professional, metal fence has suddenly appeared all around it to discourage the ingress of those intent on further exploration or destruction. I now wonder whether, now that this safety step has been taken, it will be properly demolished and the site either re-used for housing or returned to woodland.
More likely, I fear, it will take advantage of its new enhanced isolation to crumble slowly into a ruin and die a natural death over the next few years.
Friday, 25 October 2013
Sunday, 20 October 2013
Bells are not the Only Clangers!
The week I started on the 'first shift', i.e. I had already been given a job for that morning. However, it began with an 8.30 pick-up locally, so I was able to join my friends at church for breakfast first. These two jobs took me to Langley, near Slough, and up to Henley-on-Thames, where I had fun getting into not one but two narrow drives, each of which proved to be the wrong entrance to my target, which I eventually found to be accessible from another street (Thank you, SatNav - see the repetition of this phenomenon below).
With no other activity on Monday, I was able to go ringing in the evening - something that is becoming an uneconomic, but enjoyable habit - where we practised Oxford Bob Triples. This is a method that has pleasant memories for me because, in 1983, I rang in a quarter peal of it in honour of my father; it took place on the very day when, had he still been alive, his age would have been double my own.
After a barren afternoon on Monday, I prayed for a good job on Tuesday and, step by step, my prayer was answered. At about 9.15, the controller rang to say that, at 10.0 there would be a job ready for collection in Stevenage for Bradford. As I was just leaving home, another call came to ask if I were about to leave; the reply to my affirmative was to ask me to make a call in Letchworth on the way 'for something in the Blackburn area'. This turned out to be a private hospital in Gisburn, only 31 miles over the hills from Bradford. The weather was good, and the journey delightful. When I got there I found that the hospital is in a large park, the entrance to which is guarded by a pair of lodge houses, "of beautiful Gothic architecture, richly ornamented with figures and pinnacles carved with the greatest taste from designs of a former Lord Ribblesdale." (description and picture from the excellent village website.)
Wednesday was something of a replay on a smaller scale, with deliveries in Leicester and Peterborough, and in some ways Thursday was the best day of the working week, reminding me that, though essential to its smooth running, money isn't the only important part of life. Owing to a misunderstanding, my name wasn't added to the list when I got back at about 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon. I was asked if I were available for anything else ... although there was nothing at present. Perhaps my rather cavalier reply was somewhat foolish as it turned out, "If anything comes in, try me." The next morning, the phone was dead, until I called in at lunchtime to see how the land lay. I was reassured that I hadn't 'fallen off the radar', but a couple of hours later the boss called to see whether I was working or not. When I told him I'd been available all day, he was aghast, and not only sent me on a job right then to Colnbrook, but also asked me to collect something on the way to deliver the following morning in Thetford.
Meanwhile I had made intense, if inconclusive, progress trying to distinguish the offspring of the two marriages of a certain great-great-great uncle, as the result of which another early visit is indicated to the record office when a Saturday morning offers itself.
Friday, therefore, began early and my delivery in Thetford was complemented by a freshly-cooked breakfast at the cafe on the industrial estate. From this, I ran on to a local delivery in Sandy, and then back to East Anglia again for a collection at Great Blakenham, just outside Ipswich. I was home again - via the garage to sort out a blocked valve - by about 3.0 pm, and the weekend got off to a good start.
Yesterday was the day when there is activity in both the FA Trophy and the FA Vase. It saw the exit of my 'local favourites', Biggleswade Town, from one competition and of my 'native team', Diss Town, from the other. I missed both possibilities, for it was the ringers' annual autumn outing. We rang at four churches in eastern Hertfordshire, ending at a fifth tower that was just over the border in Essex. This latter proved somewhat elusive, since SatNav took us to the wrong side of a small hill, where we entered a private park thinking the church might be within the grounds. It was fortunate that this was the last visit of the day, since quite some time was lost as we re-traced our steps to the road and thence to the right turning instead of the wrong. This unusual level of activity, combined with a surfeit of fresh air, was quite tiring and I confess to indulging in an armchair snooze in the early evening.
Now, with the prospect of a few more showery days at the start of next week, I can wonder what work holds for me as I consider too which match to go and watch in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup next Saturday.
With no other activity on Monday, I was able to go ringing in the evening - something that is becoming an uneconomic, but enjoyable habit - where we practised Oxford Bob Triples. This is a method that has pleasant memories for me because, in 1983, I rang in a quarter peal of it in honour of my father; it took place on the very day when, had he still been alive, his age would have been double my own.
 |
| Lodge House, Gisburn Park |
Wednesday was something of a replay on a smaller scale, with deliveries in Leicester and Peterborough, and in some ways Thursday was the best day of the working week, reminding me that, though essential to its smooth running, money isn't the only important part of life. Owing to a misunderstanding, my name wasn't added to the list when I got back at about 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon. I was asked if I were available for anything else ... although there was nothing at present. Perhaps my rather cavalier reply was somewhat foolish as it turned out, "If anything comes in, try me." The next morning, the phone was dead, until I called in at lunchtime to see how the land lay. I was reassured that I hadn't 'fallen off the radar', but a couple of hours later the boss called to see whether I was working or not. When I told him I'd been available all day, he was aghast, and not only sent me on a job right then to Colnbrook, but also asked me to collect something on the way to deliver the following morning in Thetford.
Meanwhile I had made intense, if inconclusive, progress trying to distinguish the offspring of the two marriages of a certain great-great-great uncle, as the result of which another early visit is indicated to the record office when a Saturday morning offers itself.
Friday, therefore, began early and my delivery in Thetford was complemented by a freshly-cooked breakfast at the cafe on the industrial estate. From this, I ran on to a local delivery in Sandy, and then back to East Anglia again for a collection at Great Blakenham, just outside Ipswich. I was home again - via the garage to sort out a blocked valve - by about 3.0 pm, and the weekend got off to a good start.
Yesterday was the day when there is activity in both the FA Trophy and the FA Vase. It saw the exit of my 'local favourites', Biggleswade Town, from one competition and of my 'native team', Diss Town, from the other. I missed both possibilities, for it was the ringers' annual autumn outing. We rang at four churches in eastern Hertfordshire, ending at a fifth tower that was just over the border in Essex. This latter proved somewhat elusive, since SatNav took us to the wrong side of a small hill, where we entered a private park thinking the church might be within the grounds. It was fortunate that this was the last visit of the day, since quite some time was lost as we re-traced our steps to the road and thence to the right turning instead of the wrong. This unusual level of activity, combined with a surfeit of fresh air, was quite tiring and I confess to indulging in an armchair snooze in the early evening.
Now, with the prospect of a few more showery days at the start of next week, I can wonder what work holds for me as I consider too which match to go and watch in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup next Saturday.
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
And Another Thing ....
Following last week's mid-week rant about parking, here's another sound-off.
I've just learned of a friend's accident at what has to be the daftest re-design of a junction on the whole motorway system. It's the north-bound exit slip from the A1(M) at junction 9 - the nearest junction to my home. Picture the scene (as they say in all the best novels) ... It's a basic cross-roads situation so, if you exit the motorway, there are only two ways to go: left or right. OK, you could go straight ahead, but if so, why would you leave the motorway in the first place?
If you want to go left, there is an attractive dedicated left-turn lane, and you notice that this conveniently by-passes the traffic lights that govern entrance to the roundabout above the motorway. There is a sign saying that this is the lane for Letchworth (i.e. left-turning) traffic, and the words 'Keep in Lane'. What could be simpler? If that were it, then all would have been well. There are two flaws in the basic design, and the conflicting effects of these result in a greater accident potential than there ever was before.
I - When this junction was re-designed about three years ago, I think they must have been short of materials, because instead of widening the road towards Letchworth and allowing traffic from the dedicated lane to merge gently with traffic coming off the roundabout, the road width was left as it always had been, and a white line was placed at the head of the dedicated lane, with give-way markings to yield to any traffic emerging from the roundabout. You see the dedicated lane, and think there's a clear run into town, and suddenly have to stop at the top, just as if you'd not had this apparent advantage at all - Nonsense no. 1.
II - As I said above, there are two ways to go: left and right, and I would say that, overall, the traffic is about the same going in either direction, with perhaps more going left into Letchworth during the rush-hour. So why, in their questionable wisdom, did the designers provide two lanes leading up to the roundabout (i.e. for a right turn towards Baldock) in addition to the dedicated left turn lane? - Nonsense no. 2.
Soon after the revised junction opened - within hours, I should think - it became apparent to anyone with a degree of selfish cunning that if there were a long stream of vehicles queued at the give-way line at the head of the dedicated lane, waiting to turn left, you can steal a march on them by going up the middle lane, as if turning right, and once the traffic light turns green, you turn left as if leaving the roundabout, thus cutting across the path of the queue trying to get out of the dedicated lane.
This immediately reduced the value of the dedicated lane to virtually zero. It was quickly realised that there was a likelihood of traffic coming across you from the roundabout not only when the traffic lights you'd by-passed were at red - i.e. to let traffic emerge from the roundabout, having come off the southbound carriageway of the motorway or from Baldock to the east - but also when they were at green - ostensibly to allow east-bound traffic onto the roundabout. So everyone stops at the give-way line to make sure there is nothing coming before they head into no-man's-land and make their way towards Letchworth.
Matters were made worse when, a few weeks later, part of the dedicated lane was hatched out, and coloured red, to indicate that its use was discouraged if not forbidden, thus adding to the encouragement for all traffic to stop at the give-way line.
If you follow the signs, and are neither selfish nor cunning, or simply don't know the junction, you use the dedicated left turn lane and, copying everyone else, stop and check. Despite avoiding the red bit of the road, the angle still isn't a good one for turning the head, so to make sure it's safe to pull out, you virtually have to stop. The trouble is, drivers differ. At one extreme there are those who are by nature cautious, who ignore the fact that their vehicles have wing-mirrors, and/or have sore necks, and need to take time to turn their heads to see onto the roundabout. At the other extreme there are those who, like me, ignore the red zone, sharpen the angle so as to maximise mirror vision, see quickly that the road is clear, and are away. In between are a whole range of different behaviours, each posing a threat to the others, if their attention is on the roundabout instead of - as it should be - on the vehicle in front.
I have complained - and I imagine others have, too, but to no avail. "We'll watch it," is the reply. To my mind the simple solution is to move the traffic lights half-way down the slope (thus reducing the potential advantage to be gained by avoiding the dedicated lane), and to exchange the give-way for a merge, slightly widening the road towards Letchworth as necessary. Until that is done, there will be more accidents.
If I come to the head of the queue and find that I am made to yield to someone who has come off the motorway through the traffic lights, I follow him halfway down the road with my finger on the horn button - a petty and futile gesture, you might think, but at least it gives him something to think about, and it might ... just might ... reduce by one the number of selfish so-and-so's who make life a nightmare for others who try to do things the 'right way'.
If you're reading this in the comfortable confusion of ignorance, and have no interest in the petty squabbles of North Hertfordshire road-users, please don't just ignore it and wait for the next, more interesting (I hope) blog - instead, forward a link to the Highways Authority, in the hope that some good might come of it!
Thank you.
I've just learned of a friend's accident at what has to be the daftest re-design of a junction on the whole motorway system. It's the north-bound exit slip from the A1(M) at junction 9 - the nearest junction to my home. Picture the scene (as they say in all the best novels) ... It's a basic cross-roads situation so, if you exit the motorway, there are only two ways to go: left or right. OK, you could go straight ahead, but if so, why would you leave the motorway in the first place?
If you want to go left, there is an attractive dedicated left-turn lane, and you notice that this conveniently by-passes the traffic lights that govern entrance to the roundabout above the motorway. There is a sign saying that this is the lane for Letchworth (i.e. left-turning) traffic, and the words 'Keep in Lane'. What could be simpler? If that were it, then all would have been well. There are two flaws in the basic design, and the conflicting effects of these result in a greater accident potential than there ever was before.
I - When this junction was re-designed about three years ago, I think they must have been short of materials, because instead of widening the road towards Letchworth and allowing traffic from the dedicated lane to merge gently with traffic coming off the roundabout, the road width was left as it always had been, and a white line was placed at the head of the dedicated lane, with give-way markings to yield to any traffic emerging from the roundabout. You see the dedicated lane, and think there's a clear run into town, and suddenly have to stop at the top, just as if you'd not had this apparent advantage at all - Nonsense no. 1.
II - As I said above, there are two ways to go: left and right, and I would say that, overall, the traffic is about the same going in either direction, with perhaps more going left into Letchworth during the rush-hour. So why, in their questionable wisdom, did the designers provide two lanes leading up to the roundabout (i.e. for a right turn towards Baldock) in addition to the dedicated left turn lane? - Nonsense no. 2.
Soon after the revised junction opened - within hours, I should think - it became apparent to anyone with a degree of selfish cunning that if there were a long stream of vehicles queued at the give-way line at the head of the dedicated lane, waiting to turn left, you can steal a march on them by going up the middle lane, as if turning right, and once the traffic light turns green, you turn left as if leaving the roundabout, thus cutting across the path of the queue trying to get out of the dedicated lane.
This immediately reduced the value of the dedicated lane to virtually zero. It was quickly realised that there was a likelihood of traffic coming across you from the roundabout not only when the traffic lights you'd by-passed were at red - i.e. to let traffic emerge from the roundabout, having come off the southbound carriageway of the motorway or from Baldock to the east - but also when they were at green - ostensibly to allow east-bound traffic onto the roundabout. So everyone stops at the give-way line to make sure there is nothing coming before they head into no-man's-land and make their way towards Letchworth.
Matters were made worse when, a few weeks later, part of the dedicated lane was hatched out, and coloured red, to indicate that its use was discouraged if not forbidden, thus adding to the encouragement for all traffic to stop at the give-way line.
If you follow the signs, and are neither selfish nor cunning, or simply don't know the junction, you use the dedicated left turn lane and, copying everyone else, stop and check. Despite avoiding the red bit of the road, the angle still isn't a good one for turning the head, so to make sure it's safe to pull out, you virtually have to stop. The trouble is, drivers differ. At one extreme there are those who are by nature cautious, who ignore the fact that their vehicles have wing-mirrors, and/or have sore necks, and need to take time to turn their heads to see onto the roundabout. At the other extreme there are those who, like me, ignore the red zone, sharpen the angle so as to maximise mirror vision, see quickly that the road is clear, and are away. In between are a whole range of different behaviours, each posing a threat to the others, if their attention is on the roundabout instead of - as it should be - on the vehicle in front.
I have complained - and I imagine others have, too, but to no avail. "We'll watch it," is the reply. To my mind the simple solution is to move the traffic lights half-way down the slope (thus reducing the potential advantage to be gained by avoiding the dedicated lane), and to exchange the give-way for a merge, slightly widening the road towards Letchworth as necessary. Until that is done, there will be more accidents.
If I come to the head of the queue and find that I am made to yield to someone who has come off the motorway through the traffic lights, I follow him halfway down the road with my finger on the horn button - a petty and futile gesture, you might think, but at least it gives him something to think about, and it might ... just might ... reduce by one the number of selfish so-and-so's who make life a nightmare for others who try to do things the 'right way'.
If you're reading this in the comfortable confusion of ignorance, and have no interest in the petty squabbles of North Hertfordshire road-users, please don't just ignore it and wait for the next, more interesting (I hope) blog - instead, forward a link to the Highways Authority, in the hope that some good might come of it!
Thank you.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Bacon Breakfast Bonanza!
It's nice when one job runs on to the next, with no time wasted in between. That's how this week started. My first delivery had to be in Horsham by 8.0, so I opted out of the church breakfast in order to miss the worst of the traffic build-up, and stand some chance of getting there on time. While this aim was successful, I didn't find anywhere nearby to get any breakfast, so my tummy had to wait for satisfaction until I got to Stevenage, where I knew the search would be successful. The phone went just as I got into the van armed with a bacon roll ... a collection in Letchworth for Doncaster, the start of quite a successful week.
As I waited for my invoice in the afternoon, I was assigned the delivery on Tuesday morning of something that was then being collected from north London, so I went home to await a call from the driver when he had arrived with it. This being done, I was free to join the ringers in the evening, where we practiced a more advanced method, which was in fact new to some, with the promise of a more demanding variation of it to follow this week, if the right people are there.
The second of four 'outside' breakfasts of the week was more assured, for I knew there would be a convenient facility parked outside a public house, just off the M6. Again I was summoned as I drove home, and when I called into the office (this being on the way), I was given details of two jobs that took up the remainder of my day. I'm amazed at the differing ways two minds can assess the same situation. As I collected the second of these, which was going to the village of Enstone in Oxfordshire, I asked whether Lotus F1, the consignee, was a new identity of Renault, to whom I had made many deliveries in Enstone in former times. "Oh no," I was told, "This is down a tiny lane, and when you think there's nothing down here, and you wonder whether you've got the wrong road, all of a sudden it opens up and there's the security gate!" I agreed, then, that this couldn't be the same place, because I recalled the entrance to the Renault site being right beside the road in open countryside. It was, though - the very place to which I had been before, now re-designated, but essentially the same as it ever was!
Wednesday's breakfast was the forerunner to a somewhat hectic, and rather aggravating morning. I had two jobs, the first being to deliver some display material to the East Midland Conference Centre on the campus of Nottingham University, within a 30-minute pre-8.0 window. With a bit of target-time-management, the second one ought to have been almost achievable, an 8.0 collection at Bilsthorpe, some 20 miles away. I left in good time, snatched an 'eat-as-you-go' breakfast at an M1 service station, and all went well, until I left the motorway. I'd heard that the Nottingham rush-hour is horrendous; I was aware of roadworks on the A453, so wasn't surprised that SatNav took me up to the next junction to enter via the A52, which was, in fact, a more direct route to my destination. Even so, I was totally unprepared to take over an hour for the last five miles or so of the journey!
The day's disasters had only begun. I arrived 35 minutes late, with four parcels, two of which were beyond my power even to remove from the van (I'd watched two quite young men struggle to get them on board the previous afternoon!) to find that the marquee where the event was to be held was empty, apart from the designated stand frames. There was no one about, apart from another driver, similarly confounded. Luckily he responded to my plea for help, and we carted these items inside. I was relieved of any obligation to reciprocate by the fact that he had a colleague with him, and instead departed into the traffic once more to make my way to the day's second challenge. I was chased by phone calls every few minutes until I arrived at 9.45, to be confronted by the apologetic news that the goods weren't yet ready - they'd be about another hour! I've no idea what had been going on behind the scenes, but I was then told that there had been an exchange of phone calls the previous afternoon to explain that the goods ought be ready by 10.0, and that therefore the courier (me!) should be deferred until that time. Talk about panic for nothing!
I called the office when I left, a little before 11.0, and then quite enjoyed my drive down to north London, interrupted by only one phone call, just as I'd re-fuelled at Colsterworth services. It was a relief to deliver in a pleasant cul-de-sac to builders who had been forewarned of the traumas of my morning, and were understanding of the delays to their consignment.
Thursday was much more relaxed, and more amusing than annoying. As I recall it, I'm reminded of Noel Murphy's song about a hod of bricks. It started with breakfast at home, and a nice convenient pair of jobs, to Sunbury-on-Thames and Basingstoke. As I came home round the M25 I was called to change direction and make for Surrey, where there was a collection for Colnbrook. I'd got about as far as the A30 exit, when another call told me that this job had been cancelled, so would I like to turn round again and head home. No sooner had I got beyond the M40 exit for the second time, than a third phone call apologised profusely, and turned me around once more - the job was back on! It then proceded smoothly, apart from the fact that it was a job on behalf of a customer in Hertfordshire, and their supplier, from whom I was collecting, didn't have the address of their customer, where I had to deliver ... and there was no mobile signal there, so I had to stop just before I got back onto the motorway to call the office for the address!
After all this, Friday seemed quite tame, with an early morning delivery in Huntingdon, followed by three nice easy local runs, one after the other, which took up the rest of the day, until I was assigned a couple of modest jobs for tomorrow, beginning with an 8.30 collection, which will enable me to enjoy breakfast with my fellows at church first.
As I waited for my invoice in the afternoon, I was assigned the delivery on Tuesday morning of something that was then being collected from north London, so I went home to await a call from the driver when he had arrived with it. This being done, I was free to join the ringers in the evening, where we practiced a more advanced method, which was in fact new to some, with the promise of a more demanding variation of it to follow this week, if the right people are there.
The second of four 'outside' breakfasts of the week was more assured, for I knew there would be a convenient facility parked outside a public house, just off the M6. Again I was summoned as I drove home, and when I called into the office (this being on the way), I was given details of two jobs that took up the remainder of my day. I'm amazed at the differing ways two minds can assess the same situation. As I collected the second of these, which was going to the village of Enstone in Oxfordshire, I asked whether Lotus F1, the consignee, was a new identity of Renault, to whom I had made many deliveries in Enstone in former times. "Oh no," I was told, "This is down a tiny lane, and when you think there's nothing down here, and you wonder whether you've got the wrong road, all of a sudden it opens up and there's the security gate!" I agreed, then, that this couldn't be the same place, because I recalled the entrance to the Renault site being right beside the road in open countryside. It was, though - the very place to which I had been before, now re-designated, but essentially the same as it ever was!
Wednesday's breakfast was the forerunner to a somewhat hectic, and rather aggravating morning. I had two jobs, the first being to deliver some display material to the East Midland Conference Centre on the campus of Nottingham University, within a 30-minute pre-8.0 window. With a bit of target-time-management, the second one ought to have been almost achievable, an 8.0 collection at Bilsthorpe, some 20 miles away. I left in good time, snatched an 'eat-as-you-go' breakfast at an M1 service station, and all went well, until I left the motorway. I'd heard that the Nottingham rush-hour is horrendous; I was aware of roadworks on the A453, so wasn't surprised that SatNav took me up to the next junction to enter via the A52, which was, in fact, a more direct route to my destination. Even so, I was totally unprepared to take over an hour for the last five miles or so of the journey!
The day's disasters had only begun. I arrived 35 minutes late, with four parcels, two of which were beyond my power even to remove from the van (I'd watched two quite young men struggle to get them on board the previous afternoon!) to find that the marquee where the event was to be held was empty, apart from the designated stand frames. There was no one about, apart from another driver, similarly confounded. Luckily he responded to my plea for help, and we carted these items inside. I was relieved of any obligation to reciprocate by the fact that he had a colleague with him, and instead departed into the traffic once more to make my way to the day's second challenge. I was chased by phone calls every few minutes until I arrived at 9.45, to be confronted by the apologetic news that the goods weren't yet ready - they'd be about another hour! I've no idea what had been going on behind the scenes, but I was then told that there had been an exchange of phone calls the previous afternoon to explain that the goods ought be ready by 10.0, and that therefore the courier (me!) should be deferred until that time. Talk about panic for nothing!
I called the office when I left, a little before 11.0, and then quite enjoyed my drive down to north London, interrupted by only one phone call, just as I'd re-fuelled at Colsterworth services. It was a relief to deliver in a pleasant cul-de-sac to builders who had been forewarned of the traumas of my morning, and were understanding of the delays to their consignment.
Thursday was much more relaxed, and more amusing than annoying. As I recall it, I'm reminded of Noel Murphy's song about a hod of bricks. It started with breakfast at home, and a nice convenient pair of jobs, to Sunbury-on-Thames and Basingstoke. As I came home round the M25 I was called to change direction and make for Surrey, where there was a collection for Colnbrook. I'd got about as far as the A30 exit, when another call told me that this job had been cancelled, so would I like to turn round again and head home. No sooner had I got beyond the M40 exit for the second time, than a third phone call apologised profusely, and turned me around once more - the job was back on! It then proceded smoothly, apart from the fact that it was a job on behalf of a customer in Hertfordshire, and their supplier, from whom I was collecting, didn't have the address of their customer, where I had to deliver ... and there was no mobile signal there, so I had to stop just before I got back onto the motorway to call the office for the address!
After all this, Friday seemed quite tame, with an early morning delivery in Huntingdon, followed by three nice easy local runs, one after the other, which took up the rest of the day, until I was assigned a couple of modest jobs for tomorrow, beginning with an 8.30 collection, which will enable me to enjoy breakfast with my fellows at church first.
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Time for a Rant!
Twice lately I've nearly been rammed by a car leaving a parking space. I'd just filled up at a service station, and in order to re-join the carriageway I had to pass a stationery 7.5-tonne lorry. As I drew level with the cab I was confronted by the fast-approaching rear end of a BMW saloon. This was the first time I'd used this particular filling station, and I was unaware that, just beyond the place chosen by the lorry-driver to leave his vehicle, there was a row of parking spaces, one of which had been occupied by the BMW.
Only days later, I left home early in the morning and was forced to use my horn out of hours when a car reversed out of a gate in front of me as I drove down the next street. It's time to return to a theme I first voiced soon after I began this blog - Reverse Parking. I suppose it's partly due to the speed of life these days that probably 4 out of 5 motorists drive straight into a parking space, get out of their vehicle - hopefully locking it - and dash off to execute the business for which they parked. There's also an element of selfishness, too, for few if any of these folks will have considered the effect that their behaviour will later have on the convenience or safety of other people - or their own, come to that!
The design of the motor vehicle is not readily compatible with the act of driving out of a parking space, once the driver has driven forwards into it - especially as this is often done without making any adjustment to either the position of the vehicle or the angle of the driving wheels once the end of the bonnet has reached the far end of the space. The fact that the steering bit is at the front means that the process of reversing out is hampered by not being able to manoeuvre the vehicle until it's almost entirely out of the space.
Usually a degree of shunting is necessary to get either into or out of a parking space so, I ask, why not carry this out in the most favourable and most beneficial way? Earlier this year, while on holiday, I saw someone go round and out of a car park because there wasn't room to drive forwards into the only empty space; I followed him, and reversed my larger saloon into the space at the first attempt.
Apart from the matter of steering, the benefits of reverse parking are many. Take first the question of safety. When you approach the parking space, you are already aware of the surrounding traffic situation: you know which other vehicles are moving, and where they're going. Advantage can be taken of this information in order to reverse safely into a space. If you drive straight in, your later attempt to leave will necessarily make you more vulnerable. It will be conducted when you have to assess the behaviour of other vehicles either before you get into the car, by which time the situation may well have changed; or from a driving position where your vision is restricted by adjacent cars, and where the possibility of eye-contact with other drivers is almost non-existent.
There's also the matter of fuel economy - an all-important consideration when prices are constantly increasing! Manoeuvres carried out with a warm engine will use less fuel than the same tasks carried out with a cold one.
Planners don't help in coping with this dilemma. At the filling station where I encountered the BMW the spaces are laid out at an angle - so-called 'echelon parking', which is necessary where there is less space between a wall or pavement and the flow of passing traffic - but the usual direction of this angle means that you have to park in the direction of travel, and reverse out into the flow of traffic. The same system was adopted when the centre of my home town was re-designed a short while ago. As a van driver, I find these spaces virtually unusable for, in addition to the foregoing considerations, my rear vision is severely restricted, and the only way to emerge is simply to 'hope and go', relying on the alertness, consideration and generosity of other drivers - which is by no means a universal commodity!
For the reasons I have outlined, it would have been better if the echelon parking had been laid out in the opposite direction, so that drivers reverse in and drive out, but planners are hardly going to consider safety and fuel economy when the majority of the driving population are set in their habits of 'drive in, stop and run away', and give no thought to the essential aftermath.
I was heartened, the day after the second of the two events with which I began this post, to make a delivery at an establishment where the car park was plastered with notices saying "This is a reverse parking only car park". The car park was almost full, and not a single boot could be seen, only radiator grilles. IT CAN BE DONE!
A friend of mine watched me parking recently and commented, "That's something I've never been able to do!" To him, and any readers who feel the same, I would say, "Just practise!" Borrow some traffic cones, stick a post into an old plastic bucket, or bribe some friends who can jump and shout. Find a deserted space, believe that you can do it, and just practise. See just which bit of your car you have to get lined up with the corner of the adjacent vehicle, or of the parking space, and practise!
Only days later, I left home early in the morning and was forced to use my horn out of hours when a car reversed out of a gate in front of me as I drove down the next street. It's time to return to a theme I first voiced soon after I began this blog - Reverse Parking. I suppose it's partly due to the speed of life these days that probably 4 out of 5 motorists drive straight into a parking space, get out of their vehicle - hopefully locking it - and dash off to execute the business for which they parked. There's also an element of selfishness, too, for few if any of these folks will have considered the effect that their behaviour will later have on the convenience or safety of other people - or their own, come to that!
The design of the motor vehicle is not readily compatible with the act of driving out of a parking space, once the driver has driven forwards into it - especially as this is often done without making any adjustment to either the position of the vehicle or the angle of the driving wheels once the end of the bonnet has reached the far end of the space. The fact that the steering bit is at the front means that the process of reversing out is hampered by not being able to manoeuvre the vehicle until it's almost entirely out of the space.
Usually a degree of shunting is necessary to get either into or out of a parking space so, I ask, why not carry this out in the most favourable and most beneficial way? Earlier this year, while on holiday, I saw someone go round and out of a car park because there wasn't room to drive forwards into the only empty space; I followed him, and reversed my larger saloon into the space at the first attempt.
Apart from the matter of steering, the benefits of reverse parking are many. Take first the question of safety. When you approach the parking space, you are already aware of the surrounding traffic situation: you know which other vehicles are moving, and where they're going. Advantage can be taken of this information in order to reverse safely into a space. If you drive straight in, your later attempt to leave will necessarily make you more vulnerable. It will be conducted when you have to assess the behaviour of other vehicles either before you get into the car, by which time the situation may well have changed; or from a driving position where your vision is restricted by adjacent cars, and where the possibility of eye-contact with other drivers is almost non-existent.
There's also the matter of fuel economy - an all-important consideration when prices are constantly increasing! Manoeuvres carried out with a warm engine will use less fuel than the same tasks carried out with a cold one.
Planners don't help in coping with this dilemma. At the filling station where I encountered the BMW the spaces are laid out at an angle - so-called 'echelon parking', which is necessary where there is less space between a wall or pavement and the flow of passing traffic - but the usual direction of this angle means that you have to park in the direction of travel, and reverse out into the flow of traffic. The same system was adopted when the centre of my home town was re-designed a short while ago. As a van driver, I find these spaces virtually unusable for, in addition to the foregoing considerations, my rear vision is severely restricted, and the only way to emerge is simply to 'hope and go', relying on the alertness, consideration and generosity of other drivers - which is by no means a universal commodity!
For the reasons I have outlined, it would have been better if the echelon parking had been laid out in the opposite direction, so that drivers reverse in and drive out, but planners are hardly going to consider safety and fuel economy when the majority of the driving population are set in their habits of 'drive in, stop and run away', and give no thought to the essential aftermath.
I was heartened, the day after the second of the two events with which I began this post, to make a delivery at an establishment where the car park was plastered with notices saying "This is a reverse parking only car park". The car park was almost full, and not a single boot could be seen, only radiator grilles. IT CAN BE DONE!
A friend of mine watched me parking recently and commented, "That's something I've never been able to do!" To him, and any readers who feel the same, I would say, "Just practise!" Borrow some traffic cones, stick a post into an old plastic bucket, or bribe some friends who can jump and shout. Find a deserted space, believe that you can do it, and just practise. See just which bit of your car you have to get lined up with the corner of the adjacent vehicle, or of the parking space, and practise!
Saturday, 5 October 2013
So, What is Normal?
After the much-trumpeted sequence of three day weeks, life got back to (sort of) normal with a bump when, on Monday morning, the phone rang at about 10.0. "Are you OK to do a 'screamer' to the QEII?" QEII is shorthand for the Queen Elizabeth II hospital at nearby Welwyn Garden City; as to 'screamer' ... the next sentence informed me that someone was undergoing an operation there as we spoke. I left all on my desk just as it was and departed, to collect whatever was in the red box I was given by our customer - as he too emphasised the urgency - and then to lose no time in getting to the hospital. As I commented to a friend later, I hadn't realised that my van would actually do 97mph! Needless to say, the return journey was far slower!
Courier life, I reflected on Tuesday evening, is a strange mixture of similarities and contrasts. My second job on Monday was for the same customer, this time to a conference centre in the middle of Birmingham. There was a degree of being passed from one gate to another, and from one person to another, in order to establish whether they wanted these goods ... and, if so, whereabouts. Finally, I learned that they weren't actually needed until Friday, and I was asked to put them for now into a shed that was already almost full - presumably the other stuff there had also arrived early for the same event. My final task on Tuesday evening, which prompted these thoughts, was a delivery at a salad firm in rural Hampshire, and the idea of travelling to a food company, along country roads in the dark, called to mind the job I did a couple of weeks ago to Scotland, which fitted the same description, albeit at the other end of the country.
As to the remainder of the week, there was little worthy of remark, either for location or circumstance; however, two details do linger in my mind. On Thursday morning, I was sent to a remote destination in the Fens, between Spalding and Boston, to a food company with a Japanese name I'd never heard of. Although the sign by the gate was made of cast-iron and announced the name "Blacketts Farm", as if it had stepped forward from the 1950s, what lay beyond the gate was an immaculate modern factory building with a separate office suite that looked for all the world like a residential bungalow of c. 2005. As I approached the door, it was opened for me and a courteous, middle-aged receptionist greeted me with a broad smile that boasted both efficiency and welcome.
Fast-forward, then, to the last job of the week, which was sufficiently normal for late on Friday afternoon: a drinks delivery to a public house. This one was to a tavern in an inauspicious area of Peterborough, just outside the city centre. Mine hostess seemed to be in sole command, and was entertaining a trio of regulars, all of whom were surprised at my arrival with three kegs of ale and some assorted spirits. With the welcome assistance of one of the drinkers, these were ushered through the front door and, far quicker than I had anticipated, I was on my way. As I neared the end of the road, my gaze fastened upon the house at the junction.
It was built of the same grey-white bricks that characterise the area, but stood apart from the terraces on either side. With its tall bay, stretching from pavement to eaves and embracing both upper and lower lace-clad windows, and its neat black-painted woodwork, it seemed to live up to its name 'May Villa'. This appeared above the date '1896' on a stone tablet on the wall, and was echoed on a glass plate suspended by two chains above the front door. It brought to mind a street in a seaside town, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a 'Vacancies' sign in the downstairs window. For a few minutes, in the fading evening sun, my thoughts drifted from the KFC meal I was about to enjoy in the (noisy) service station just off the motorway, to the pleasant seaside holidays of my early teens.
Today was, for many reasons, my first free Saturday for some while, and this morning I paid an overdue visit to my local tyre specialist, where I was greeted by the shock news that my van was in need of a new set of tyres. To my amazement, the ones now replaced have seen me through 49,274 miles since early February, and for this deserve my grateful praise! This afternoon I tracked down one of the FA Trophy Preliminary Round ties, and watched a fast-moving, but none-to-friendly conflict between Royston Town and Three Bridges. I left early, put off as much as anything by the anti-referee shouting from the crowd, with the home team losing by three goals to one.
Courier life, I reflected on Tuesday evening, is a strange mixture of similarities and contrasts. My second job on Monday was for the same customer, this time to a conference centre in the middle of Birmingham. There was a degree of being passed from one gate to another, and from one person to another, in order to establish whether they wanted these goods ... and, if so, whereabouts. Finally, I learned that they weren't actually needed until Friday, and I was asked to put them for now into a shed that was already almost full - presumably the other stuff there had also arrived early for the same event. My final task on Tuesday evening, which prompted these thoughts, was a delivery at a salad firm in rural Hampshire, and the idea of travelling to a food company, along country roads in the dark, called to mind the job I did a couple of weeks ago to Scotland, which fitted the same description, albeit at the other end of the country.
As to the remainder of the week, there was little worthy of remark, either for location or circumstance; however, two details do linger in my mind. On Thursday morning, I was sent to a remote destination in the Fens, between Spalding and Boston, to a food company with a Japanese name I'd never heard of. Although the sign by the gate was made of cast-iron and announced the name "Blacketts Farm", as if it had stepped forward from the 1950s, what lay beyond the gate was an immaculate modern factory building with a separate office suite that looked for all the world like a residential bungalow of c. 2005. As I approached the door, it was opened for me and a courteous, middle-aged receptionist greeted me with a broad smile that boasted both efficiency and welcome.
Fast-forward, then, to the last job of the week, which was sufficiently normal for late on Friday afternoon: a drinks delivery to a public house. This one was to a tavern in an inauspicious area of Peterborough, just outside the city centre. Mine hostess seemed to be in sole command, and was entertaining a trio of regulars, all of whom were surprised at my arrival with three kegs of ale and some assorted spirits. With the welcome assistance of one of the drinkers, these were ushered through the front door and, far quicker than I had anticipated, I was on my way. As I neared the end of the road, my gaze fastened upon the house at the junction.
It was built of the same grey-white bricks that characterise the area, but stood apart from the terraces on either side. With its tall bay, stretching from pavement to eaves and embracing both upper and lower lace-clad windows, and its neat black-painted woodwork, it seemed to live up to its name 'May Villa'. This appeared above the date '1896' on a stone tablet on the wall, and was echoed on a glass plate suspended by two chains above the front door. It brought to mind a street in a seaside town, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a 'Vacancies' sign in the downstairs window. For a few minutes, in the fading evening sun, my thoughts drifted from the KFC meal I was about to enjoy in the (noisy) service station just off the motorway, to the pleasant seaside holidays of my early teens.
Today was, for many reasons, my first free Saturday for some while, and this morning I paid an overdue visit to my local tyre specialist, where I was greeted by the shock news that my van was in need of a new set of tyres. To my amazement, the ones now replaced have seen me through 49,274 miles since early February, and for this deserve my grateful praise! This afternoon I tracked down one of the FA Trophy Preliminary Round ties, and watched a fast-moving, but none-to-friendly conflict between Royston Town and Three Bridges. I left early, put off as much as anything by the anti-referee shouting from the crowd, with the home team losing by three goals to one.
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