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.