What makes the Humdrum Exciting

It's been one of those 'going nowhere special' weeks.  It hasn't been particularly uninspiring, though, and even the return journey on Tuesday for the one that I took on Monday to collect some paint from Cheltenham had its upside, because I was sent to a different address.  It wasn't inconceivable that the company had two sites in the town, after all; but when I got to the address I'd been given and found nothing there with the right name on it, Google had to be referred to.  Only one address appeared - the one I'd collected from. There was, however, a phone no., so I rang to locate these premises, and my growing suspicions were confirmed when the receptionist announced that they'd moved from there to where they are now ... over a year ago!  If only people could keep their records up to date, life more could be more efficient (and boring) for everyone!

Lots of little jobs filled the week, but amongst them all has been a strong sense of nostalgia.  For example, one day I collected from an engineering firm in Sandy.  Sandy as a town is very pleasant, by my estimation.  There is a busy shopping street, with many independent shops, and it always seems to be sunny when I go there, which keeps the rose-tinted specs bright and shiny! The fact that the railway station is slightly outside of the town is reminiscent of my native Diss - although it's not the boring mile-long walk away that Diss has to suffer. I suppose it's the way one thought leads to another, that Harleston came to mind.  About ten miles from Diss, it occupies another comfortable slot in my memory.

For four years in the 'seventies, I worked at an engineering firm there, whose premises have long since been demolished, and the site redeveloped.  When I deliver to or collect from such firms these days, I often recall my time there. They say that smell is the strongest of our five senses, and the whiff of lubricating oil on a milling machine brings memories flooding back.  Like the day when I visited one of the little offices on the shop floor with a query, and as I noted on my pad the answers I'd been given, the girl who'd provided them looked across and said, "Coo, haven't you got nice neat writing ... for a feller!"

At one time my immediate boss, Mr. S----ing, was given the additional responsibility of preparing accounts for a sister company nearby, which ran a foundry.  He spent several days there, over a period of weeks, setting up the necessary recording systems, and on one of these days the Finance Director came into our office to see him.  I reported his location and the FD (a patronising chap, always eager to create an impression) said to me in fatherly tones, "You see where things can lead, if you're bright, an' play your cards right.  Look at S----in' there, gone off costin' a foundry!"  From then on, I always paid attention when he was speakin' and noted that, if he thought he could be overheard, he would deliberately drop those g's in a quasi-aristocratic manner that encouraged ridicule rather than respect.

I don't have a TV, as I proudly declared to the licensing people when their regular update letter arrived last week.  Instead, when word of something interesting crosses my inbox, I note the details and, when I have the time, I watch it on the catch-up facility.  Thus came another dose of nostalgia this week as I watched the first part of 'Shop Girls' with Dr Pamela Cox.  The references to 'living over the shop', and the pronouncement that grocers were one of the last trades to relinquish the 'all male' tradition were very much in tune with my own family history, as I wrote about at some length on this blog a couple of years ago.  And if this weren't enough, I then got a second dose of the same thing when I listened to Robert Elmes' podcast of his programme on BBC London, where Dr Cox was one of his selected guests.

There were more memories yesterday evening, when I went to Guildford Hospital - or more to the point when I came home.  The M25 was its usual clogged self, and I decided to stop for a snack at Wisley Services, hoping that it would have cleared by the time I set off again.  This wasn't the case so, faced with a 26-minute delay and likely arrival time of 9.43pm, I opted to fight SatNav, and made my way straight up the M3 towards central London.  I travelled on some roads that I'd not been on for several years and, as one who had scarcely driven within the M25 before taking up this work twelve years ago, I was quite pleased with how much I remembered, and how I'd managed to navigate my way despite, rather than helped by, the electronic marvel on my windscreen.  I even surprised myself at one point by muttering, 'there used to be a scruffy factory along here somewhere, that I delivered to once ... oh, it must have been there, where that building site is!'  And I was home by 9.45, which I felt was a much better use of my time than sitting in a queue!

Now I'm looking forward to a Saturday afternoon with a difference, for tomorrow I shall spend two-and-a-half hours in church, not on my knees in prayer, but taking a small part in, and hoping to enjoy all of, a concert described as 'Tea and Entertainment'.  A party of young people from the church are off to Albania in a few weeks' time to support the work of one of our link missionaries, and the event is one of a number to raise funds to meet the costs of their expedition.  I was amazed to see from the programme that no less than eighteen people have volunteered to take part, providing about thirty items to enthrall those present.