On Stage, in Hospital, Finding the Wing, and a Bath . . . Nearly!

He's still around, that Repeating Genie.  He raised his head a number of times this week.  Although I lost most of Monday because I had the van serviced, it turned out quite a good week over all, through a couple of nicely full days running on from one job straight on to the next, and an attractive invitation for yesterday morning - more of that anon.

I've enjoyed a much deeper insight into Pinewood Studios this week.  Usually my visits there are for the firm across the road from my home, who liaise with a particular office in a corner of the site, access to which doesn't involve more adventure than crossing the car park next to the main gate.  On Tuesday morning, however, I made a delivery for another of our customers to the opposite corner of the Pinewood complex.  These items were taken to one of their 'Stages', and nothing could have prepared me for the amazing difference from any stage I've seen before.  No elevated performance area here, let alone a proscenium arch; just a big - and I mean BIG - brick shell with a wooden floor.

As I walked through the doorway, past a notice which read 'Closed stage - no entry without authorisation', it was like going into an assembly workshop.  A few men were working on a model behind a wall of mobile screens, but I could hear other voices, too.  I lifted my gaze, realising just how high was this place and there, among the girders that support the roof, spotted another team, installing lighting to suit whatever production would eventually make use of the props being constructed below.  Feeling somewhat lost in this strange and spacious realm, I was glad to see the approaching orange safety jacket of the security officer who was to meet me and find a home for my delivery.  And then on Thursday, came the same thing again, though more familiar by then.

Tuesday also took me to the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore, where I discovered the remote location of the theatre stores, and on to a health firm in Tilehurst for the first of two visits there during the week.  Wednesday brought the other 'excitement' of the week.  I'm sure some would find it exciting, anyway.  I was summoned to one of our regular customers to collect 'something urgent for Northamptonshire'.  Our normal cargo for this company is secure documentation for their directors, so I wasn't surprised to be given a fat envelope.  What did surprise me - not to say confuse me a little, too - was the address: 'The Wing, Silverstone', which turned out to be the massive admin. building on Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.  To reach it I must have driven all the way round the outside of the actual racetrack on its ring road: quite a distance, at least; and that was after getting through the main gate!

What I've described above as 'nicely full days' can comprise either one or two jobs some way away, where most of the fullness of the day lies in the getting there and getting back, or else, as this week, lots of what I would call local work.  Nothing was more than 100 miles away, and the two jobs that came closest to this milepost were on Friday.  In the morning I had an enjoyable ride in the sunshine to Thurmaston near Leicester, after collecting four boxes of accounting paperwork from St. Albans.  With scarcely a break upon my return, I was despatched up the M1 again, with two containers of parts for a motor plant in Birmingham.  This was somewhere I've been to before, and I was aware of the need to ignore the post code and ask SatNav to go to the road name, or else one is simply 'dumped' on the M6!

And then came the weekend.  On Friday evening, as I drove home, I was asked if I'd be available to do a collection on Saturday morning.  After Monday's activities, which had involved the replacement of my windscreen wiper motor, the recalcitrant behaviour of which had been driving me quite mad, I decided that the right answer would be 'yes'.  So yesterday I set off to collect a bath from an industrial and retail park on the outskirts of Clacton-on-Sea, where I'd delivered to a nearby factory only last week.  "The bath is in two parts," I was told, "so it should go in your van."  Famous last words!

"Can't you squeeze it?"

I was puzzled in the first place, because I couldn't see how a bath could be in two parts, presumably to be assembled on site, and still be reliably watertight.  I was given a clue when, as a first instalment, I was presented with an oval of ceramic, duly shrink-wrapped for protection, with the words, "here's the plinth."  The bath itself was quite complete, and impressive both in size and style.  Its sweeping curves ended in broad horizontal surfaces that could hardly be described as a rim, and a hole midway along one side determined the position of the taps.  This bath was luxury.  It was also too big for my van, as you can see, and there followed a wealth of telephone negotiation, and even verbal pressure on me to authorise the removal of the bulkhead from my van in order to accommodate it!

None of this changed things one iota, and I returned home with an empty but intact van, confident that right had prevailed, and encouraged that I had the complete support of the firm I work with.