Triangles

There are many ways of looking at the variety of work, payloads and destinations of this business, but I've never thought of geometry before. However, if you consider the geography of this week, it's quite true: just look at Monday for a start.

The week began with a collection of some air-conditioning equipment in Welwyn Garden City for Wooburn, from which I turned anti-clockwise into London, for a NW10 collection.  This went to Abingdon in Oxfordshire and just before I arrived at my destination came a phone call offering me a collection in Thatcham for Bell Bar in Hertfordshire.  Two more anti-clockwise movements completed this task and a third brought me home, covering each side of an approximate triangle twice over.

Monday was rounded off by an amusing 'offer'.  As I sat at my desk, wondering if the phone would ring, it sprang into life and brought me a choice.  Having confirmed that I was willing to go out again - it was almost 5.0 pm - Dave said I could either go to Amersham or 'RG27, wherever that is'.  I opted for the further destination (which turned out to be a hotel near Hook), to make losing my bellringing practice for the second Monday running really worthwhile, to which he replied, 'I hoped you'd take that one, because C----- <the only other driver available> won't know where S------ <name of our customer> is.'  To me, this implied that she wouldn't be able to find it in the dark, either! - and before you condemn me for being sexist, I can think of at least one male driver of whom he would have said the same thing!  To be fair, this particular customer's premises are in open country, some distance away from both the village that provides their address, and the nearest main road, some nineteen miles from our office, and both of these drivers live almost the same distance in the opposite direction!

Welcome to England (picture: flickr.com)

Tuesday was taken up by one long run to St Helens, with a delivery in Northampton on the way, and after two separate jobs on Wednesday, to Royston and Coventry, a third one to Hemel Hempstead primed me for the geometric theme again.  Only a few hundred yards from my delivery, I collected a full load of kitchen equipment to be delivered the following morning in Bridgend.  Once this had been successfully completed - getting there via Ross-on-Wye, of course, to avoid the toll - I made for the eastbound Severn crossing, amused as ever as I left the bridge behind me, to be welcomed to England in Welsh.  After a collection just off the M5 in the north-west corner of Bristol, I made a broadly 'left turn', to deliver in Derby, and after a welcome rest at Donnington Park services, my homeward journey completed a very large triangle.

Friday, too, began with two independent journeys, one to Northampton again, and the other to Pinewood Studios, and then came another triangle, this time clockwise, as I travelled to South Mimms to meet another driver. Here I was given a small package that he had collected in central London, which I took on to its final destination in Abingdon.  Once more, my homeward journey completed the third triangle of the week.  Incidentally, the astute reader may have noticed the hand of 'the genie' at work this week, too!

I wonder how next week will 'shape up'?