Thank you, Mr Hartley!

I hadn't intended to write a blog this week, but somehow needs must.  Let me begin with a pictue:

Here's my lounge ... or a corner of it.  You'll see I live amidst quite a large collection of books: this is only one section of it!  When I exchanged my computer for a new laptop this autumn, I retained the screen as an extension display.  It now sits opposite my armchair, from where this picture was taken.  I have no TV, but watch catch-up programmes through the computer, so this makes watching them more comfortable.

Many of the books, I confess, I haven't read.  One of these is one that I bought because it is one that we studied at school, L P Hartley's 'The Go Between'.  It's a romantic drama, set in Edwardian times, and a dramatisation of it appeared on TV earlier this year.  The book's opening words came home to me with some force this week, prompting this blog-post,  "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

I've spent much of the last two weeks going through two drawers of my filing cabinet, reviewing, sorting, removing stuff that either is no longer required or relevant to current life, or which should never have been kept in the first place.  I hadn't intended to do it in the run-up to Christmas, but it became a necessity when something I do want to keep couldn't be squeezed into place!

As the exercise has progressed I've found myself re-living past times, discovering things I'd totally forgotten, and drifting back to events that happened ten, twenty ... in one case almost forty years ago!  And out of it all has come a sense of perspective.  I now see many situations that, had they been met by the present me, would have been dealt with differently ... or might not have been confronted at all!

When I was briefly working in the USA at the millennium, I learned a deep truth, that any attempt to re-create an English way of doing things in California is doomed to failure from the outset.  It is a different country, with its own culture, ways of living, and doing all sorts of things.  As a complete set of behaviours they work, just as the corresponding complete set of English behaviours work in and of themselves.  As the saying goes, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'.  (Sorry for the geographical confusion there!)

Another thing that I attempted this week was to scan onto my computer a two-page document that I'd found in one of those files.  I haven't needed to use OCR software for many years, and the program on my laptop is not the same as the one I used long ago.  However I tried, a single page was all I could get it to cope with.  I even tried removing the program completely and re-installing it!  Still only one page could I manage.  I gave up, copied page one, copied page two, and added one to the other through the word processor.

I woke up this morning with a sense of contentment.  As I look back through the lens of this week at the past year, I realise that the plans I had a year ago for the next two years will never be fulfilled as I saw them then.  The same ends - more or less - have been achieved in a shorter time frame.  Life as I imagined it over twenty years ago just didn't happen.  Things turned out dramatically differently from the way I had expected.  And while I wouldn't want to go through some of those experiences again, the me that has emerged is more rounded, more capable in many ways, with a greater sense of achievement, although in ways that didn't even cross the horizon of my imagination then.  I realise that there are many things I'm not able to do, but I know there is contentment in those that I can.

So today I say 'thank you' to Mr Hartley and his century-old wisdom, and my Christmas prayer for all my readers across the world is that they may find the same contentment in their own lives that I know today.

Remember, Remember ...

Yesterday I listened to last weekend's Irish History Show on podcast.  There was a feature about TV viewing in Ireland before the momentous occasion on 31st December 1961 when Telefís Éireann broadcast for the first time. With BBC and ITV receivable in many parts of the country, it was reported that - I think in 1957 - there were more TV sets in Ireland than in Norway, Sweden or Denmark!  My mind drifted back through the years, and I recalled the arrival of the first TV set in our home.  What year was it?  How old was I at the time?  My memory was hard pressed to come up with a definite - let alone accurate - answer.

My powers of recall had already received a shock earlier in the day.  I'd spent most of it trawling through the contents of the third drawer of my filing cabinet, having discovered a day or two ago that it was so full I couldn't squeeze another single sheet of paper into it.  Happily, after the removal of quite a pile of unwanted archives, this is no longer the case.

The exercise brought to light early copies of a newsletter I used to circulate to a small number of close friends on a monthly basis ... a forerunner to this blog in some ways.  I remembered a time (the year could have been 2002 or 2003 ... or even 2004!) when I offered a short course in a local adult education group, and after learning something of the admin required, I was very thankful that there were no takers!  During the morning I learned that it did indeed take place in the autumn of 2002.  What I had completely forgotten was that the idea came from my acceptance of an invitation the previous winter to deliver two talks to a history group in my home town!

So, how reliable is my memory?  How reliable is anyone's memory?  I shall soon be boring my friends with stories of missions from the now completed archive of my courier career ... but how accurate will they be?  Just how many times did I try to sleep in the back of my van on a cold night ... and then give up after an hour and drive on in the dark?  ... which brings me to why I was up at 5.15 yesterday morning sorting out files all over the lounge floor.

For a couple of weeks now, sleep has been something of a challenge.  I'll wake up in the early hours and then find it difficult or impossible to get back to sleep again.  It could be the unusually warm winter nights; it could be the constant list of things on my mind to be achieved in connection with the transition from a semi-working van-owner to a fully-retired car-owner; or it could be some kind of 'cabin fever' the result of having no need to go out and cope with the traffic on the highways of our land, but instead to occupy myself all day at the desk and keyboard.

Cabin fever?  Somehow my mind wandered - it's been doing a lot of that lately - to Noah, cooped up in that smelly ark for weeks on end.  He must have suffered from a very severe bout of it!  And thinking further along those lines (although I realise that here I'm straying into the province of my 'other' blog), I thought of a smelly stable 2,000 years ago, where a young woman was forced by an accommodation problem to give birth to her firstborn child ...

At which point, it's time to wish all my readers Nadolig Llawen, Fröliche Weinachten, Milad Majid or whatever is your preferred term: Happy Christmas!  There may well not be a blog next week, but I'll be back in the New Year.

Mind the Gap!

As many people who have had the unfortunate experience of seeing a loved one die of a terminal illness will agree, even though a death is expected, it's still a shock when it comes.  If readers find it insensitive of me to refer to this truism in the circumstances I'm about to describe, then I apologise; it happens to describe for me what I felt last Friday evening when I returned home from the garage.

My van had been difficult to start all afternoon, and I called at the garage on my way home from my last delivery in Norwich, to get an opinion on what might be wrong, and how easy it might be to fix.  After listening both to my observation of warning lights and of the van's behaviour, and to the engine itself, running smoothly but noticeably louder than usual, the engineer pronounced, "I think your timing chain is going."  We discussed the next move briefly, and agreed that the van would rest over the weekend and then make one last trip to enable me to collect the car I'd already arranged to be its successor.

I outlined here a couple of weeks ago how my original phased retirement plan had gradually been curtailed, firstly only in vague and undefined terms, then to mid January, and finally to the weekend before Christmas. But that wasn't to be the final curtailment.  Last weekend was one of making some plans and changing others.  A phone call to the dealer was inconclusive because the salesman was on holiday, so I couldn't be sure how far advanced the pre-delivery routines were, given that as far as they were concerned they had two more weeks to get her ready.  An e-mail was left, supplemented by a text message, and bright and early on Monday morning came the confirming call.  Only one thing more was left to do, and I could collect the car that afternoon.

I'd had to wait until Monday to call the insurance broker to see if a parallel advancement could be arranged there.  Luckily it would take a matter of minutes to cancel one policy and complete another, so I called the dealer back to say, "It's all systems 'go!'"  Finally what had seemed all weekend to be very indefinite and unsatisfactory was now happening.  My prayers were answered, and the van started first time, both at home as I set out, and more importantly, perhaps, when the salesman started it to drive it to the rear of the showroom.  Documentation was completed, and within an hour of my arrival, I was on my way home.

On Friday evening, in my state of shock, I realised that while - as I opened this post by stating - there is a fine line between life and death, and yet the two are so different, so there are many other fine line distinctions in my present situation.  The gap between work and retirement turned out to be only a weekend; as this week has progressed, I've realised the gap that exists between the semi-retirement I've been living this last year and the real thing. I'm coming to understand that there is no urgency to get done this week all the things on my To-Do list ... there will be another week next week ... and the week after, and so on.

There is a fine gap between doubt and certainty ... as I've already described in relation to the car, but I found another example during the week, when the letting agent came for her quarterly inspection of my flat.  For some months now there has been a rumbling concern about the redecoration of my living space.  It was always going to be difficult while I'm living in it, and even more so now that I'm no longer working ... even some weeks.  Apparently, the designated tradesman was very reluctant even to consider such a piecemeal assignment as had been put to him, so the landlord has decided that, since I have no concerns at all about having the job done, it being perfectly satisfactory as it is for my unassuming needs, the matter will be left in abeyance until such time as I request something to be done.  Doubt has given way to certainty.

This afternoon I discovered a more practical gap as I did my weekly supermarket shopping.  With the van it was simplicity itself.  I pushed my trolley up to the rear of the van, opened the door and tossed the bags inside. Given the prevailing rain, I wasn't prepared to go through the automated slowness of opening the boot, getting the contents wet, then unloading the bags and following up with the equally slow automated closing.  These operations might be gentle and dignified in sunshine; in rain they simply afford the opportunity for an unwelcome soaking.  I opted for the swift opening of the passenger door and putting the bags quickly into the footwell ... an impossibility under the former regime because of all the 'clutter' kept there for ready use.

And finally - nothing to do with retirement - I must share with my gentle reader a more intimate gap that I discovered yesterday afternoon.  I decided that the time had come for a pre-festive tidying of my appearance, and visited the hairdresser.  I explained that I wanted minimal adjustment to the length of my hair, merely a thinning out where it was growing too thickly to be easily managed (in itself a blessing at my age!), along with a neatening of the edges.  There was a distinct gap between my explanation and his co-operation; or between his hearing and his understanding of my requirements.  I emerged in growing levels of anger, feeling like a freshly-cropped schoolboy!

Most of these gaps are, or will be, resolved by the disappearance of one party.  What will define the future for me, I think, is the extent to which I am able to resolve others - many of which have yet to emerge - by a gradual rapprochement of one side to the other.

Hitting the Target: a Problem of Habit

When I started writing this blog nearly five years ago, I didn't aim for it to be just a diary.  I didn't even aim for it to be extracts from a diary.  I thought it would be interesting to provide an insight for others into what I had found a fascinating, but unexpectedly intrusive way for an ex-accountant to earn a living.  From time to time I've digressed completely from tales of the courier life to provide the odd observation about life in general, to comment on pet grouses, and so on ... even bravely to dip the occasional toe into politics!  On balance, I suppose I've met that original aim about forty percent of the time, but I hope you, dear reader, have found the end result interesting whatever its diary-like divergence from its purpose.

I intend to keep writing it in permanent retirement ... for a few more months at least.  If I find I'm running out of topics to cover, then I hope I have the courage to kill it while it's still healthy, rather than let it stagger to an ungainly demise.  As to its diary-like qualities, this decline has perhaps been inevitable since, in order to fuel a portrait of a courier's life, examples have to be drawn from the ... diary!  It has become a habit to look first at the week's job-list to remind me of what I've done during the week and hence to pick up any commonality or running theme that may have developed.

It's amazing how easily habits form, not only in connection with the blog, but also in the life it has portrayed.  I remember in the early years, for example, there seemed always to be problems resulting from the roadworks to widen one section after another of the M25, there was a constant battle to avoid the delays, and one had only to mutter 'M25 ... roadworks' to be excused for any and every delay. More recently, the same has been true of a long swathe of the M1, from Northampton up to the M6, although this week I was pleased to discover that it's now clear and free-flowing up to junction 18!

During the course of my courier career I've used a total of six vans, in addition to the car I used for the first few weeks.  Of these, five have been Vauxhall Combos, and the other a Renault Kangoo.  The first days in the Kangoo were strange; the cab was so much bigger compared to the old Mark I Combo, because of the storage space behind the seat, and although the van was rated to carry a heavier payload, there wasn't enough space to make full use of this facility, because the body of the van was so much shorter.  The habit of fitting large items into the Combo had to go.

The next change, into a Mark II Combo, brought its own difficulties.  The space behind the seat, that I'd then got used to in the Kangoo, had reduced once more, while the overhead 'pod' of the Mark I had been sacrificed for the new streamlined shape.  Even the most recent van change was awkward when, for the first time,  I acquired a Combo with a solid, steel bulkhead, so there was now nowhere to fasten my trolley.  I took the bold step of giving it away, since I rarely used it, and haven't really missed it in the last four years.

The biggest batch of habits to be changed is yet to come; in a few days I shall say farewell to this van that has served more than a quarter of my career, and which I have nursed beyond the not insignificant 300,000 mile mark.  I shall acquire in its place a small saloon whose dashboard will bear that same familiar format I've worked with for nearly ten of those courier years.  But that's where the similarity will (have to) end.  From the start, I must learn to keep my 'bits and pieces' in the boot!

Perhaps the biggest upset will be losing the box from the passenger footwell. As well as restraining certain hidden items (like a hard hat ... what will become of that?!) this has acted as a 'table' for all the paraphernalia I might want to utilise during a journey.  In this case, definitely a bad habit to be expunged as soon as possible!

By contrast, one thing this new phase of life will not easily give up will be the driving style.  I'm sure I shall - for a while, at least - still be impatient with slow deciders, cautious drivers and learners, although I hope I'll always allow space for delivery vehicles of all sizes, being sympathetically aware of the many challenges they face.

But, even when greater all-round visibility will make it less essential, I'm sure I'll always extol the virtues of reversing into a parking space!

The End is Nigh!

I remember when, many years ago now, I got engaged.  I wasn't sure how it had happened, but happen it had, and I was now living with the con- sequences.  Similar considerations apply to two later events in my life, and this week brought with it another one for the collection.  It all started on Saturday morning, when I took my van to the tyre centre to have the pressures checked.  It was noted that the front tyres were showing signs of uneven wear, and the forecast was that they would probably only last another few thousand miles.  On Monday I had the van serviced, and asked for a second opinion.  They decided that to swap front for rear would be a good idea, since the forces are different, and envisaged a further 10,000 miles from them.

For a number of weeks now, I've been toying with the idea of curtailing my phased retirement plan, but had come up with no firm decision.  From the outset the plan had been circumscribed with the caveat that it would only be fulfilled so long as the van should last, but the question has thus far been unanswered, 'how - apart from an almighty explosion - can one tell when the van has had enough?'  A further complication was that, whenever I were to stop work, I should need the van to be still roadworthy enough to effect an exchange with a replacement vehicle.  After paying the garage bill - hefty, the same as last time, because other bits had needed to be replaced - my future course suddenly seemed clear.  I would bring forward my planned two weeks' work in January, and finish for good on the 15th.

Next day, I followed up recent investigations into the availability of a suitable car, and arranged a test drive.  I had a family engagement to fulfil on Wednesday, so it was Thursday morning when I got to try out my chosen car.  Being basically the same controls and layout as the vans I've been driving for many years, the outcome was virtually predictable.  I loved it, and we began filling in forms and making arrangements.

The big snag came when I asked for a completion date in the middle of January.  The vendors didn't like the idea of a sold vehicle clogging up their yard for nearly a couple of months, but would entertain it provided I paid for it up front, and agreed to a hefty penalty clause should I change my mind in that time and ask for a refund.  From their viewpoint, this made sense, but I said that, if I had to pay for it, then I'd take it before Christmas, thank you very much!

This was much more acceptable on both sides, so in Suetonius' words to Julius Caesar, 'iacta alea est' - the die is cast.  I have three more weeks to work, and then on 21st December I shall collect the true symbol of my retirement ... the first saloon car I've owned for over ten years.  Yesterday was our church's monthly day of prayer and fasting so, in between three gatherings there, I spent the day tying up loose ends.  I re-arranged my finances, and made a payment to the car showroom; organised the insurance for the car and instructed the cancellation of the policy on the van ... timed to allow me to use it on the day for the exchange.

Today has offered a distinct contrast to the high excitement that has gone before, helping to clear the fallen leaves from around the church, and this afternoon gets the Advent and Christmas season under way as we see the decoration of the tree in the church hall, accompanied by the singing of the first Christmas carols.

Heavy, but Balanced

I had issued a warning on Sunday that I wouldn't be at bell-ringing practice this week.  When our church started a 'traditional' choir during the summer - not for regular but occasional involvement in our varied range of worship - the leader very wisely decided that, while some practices would be held on a Sunday morning after the service, others would rotate from one weekday evening to another.  The latest one was to take place this Monday, and I had decided that it should take precedence over bell-ringing.

The week has proved yet again what I've been saying for years, that the life of a courier is not one that can be blended with, or lived alongside a conventional social life.  Work-wise, Monday started tamely with a job to Leamington Spa; I hadn't left home for the pick-up when a second job was added to it sending me first in the opposite direction to collect in Stevenage for Bolton.  When I left Leamington I decided that, unless I should be delayed, I ought just to make choir practice at 8.0pm.  I was still on the M6, not far beyond Birmingham, when the phone rang: when would I be likely to get to Bolton?

When I answered, 'about 3.10,' there was a brief pause before I was asked to collect something in Manchester on my way back, to be delivered next morning in Letchworth.  I hadn't even said yes, before the controller continued, "... and while you're that way, would you like a 5.0 pick-up to go to Liverpool before you come home?"  The very fact of the first foray into Manchester had threatened my singing, so it seemed little further sacrifice to express gratitude for the extra work, and turn a possible 'yes' to choir practice into a definite 'no', and promptly called the leader to tender my apologies.  It was 6.0 before I left Liverpool's Albert Dock after making my delivery, and this set the pattern for the week: financially beneficial, but socially disastrous.

Once the collected item had been delivered Tuesday proper began with a visit to the garage.  I had noticed that my indicator appeared to need a new bulb, but this turned out to be a relay fault which can (hopefully) be fixed when I take the van in for service next week.  By mid-afternoon I was returning from the second of two local jobs when I was sent to 'that' engineering firm, whose vans have provided us with many rescue jobs over the years.  It's all too easy to shut the rear doors without making certain that the keys are on the person, and the slam lock spells disaster with the key shut inside the van.  This mission was to Burgess Hill where the incident had occurred - fortunately - outside a large office block.  As I pulled up in front of his van, the driver scampered across the lawns to greet me.

In a gabble made scarcely intelligible by the tension of his afternoon, he explained how he had turned his back on the van for only a moment; the wind caught the open door and ... slam!  He was left outside in the rain, and his coat, with the precious key was locked away.  Luckily he had his phone in his pocket, and the firm had allowed him to shelter in their reception area.  I have never been accorded such profuse gratitude for one of these missions as on this occasion.  My hand was shaken with such warmth that I had difficulty in getting away.  While I had been dealing with this, my phone had been busy.  There were two missed calls from the Brighton office and, as I got into the van, it rang a third time.  Would I be able to do a job for them from Hayward's Heath into Brighton before heading north?  It was already past 5.30 and, after a long day on Monday followed by a short night, I was whacked, so I apologised and made for home.

After returning the keys on Wednesday morning, I enjoyed a lull, during which I was able to catch up with some of the desk stuff I'd had to shelve in two late evenings.  About lunchtime came the only job of the day, a drive up to West Yorkshire, to collect some laminate from a factory in Morley.  By the time I had got there and collected the goods, it was clear that I wouldn't return before our customer would have closed for the day, resulting in the third 'carry-over' of the week.  This time, however, the office were on the ball, and before I had reached Newark, I received a phone call, after which I experienced a great sense of calm.  Two jobs had been assigned to me for the following morning.  I would deliver the laminate at 7.30, collect in Royston for Southampton at 8.0, and then make for Stansted airport for another pick-up at 8.30, this to go to Bournemouth International Airport.  It worked almost to plan and I was loaded and on my way shortly after 9.0.

I recalled on my way south-west that, even in the early years of the last century, Hampshire was referred to officially as 'the county of Southampton', and found myself wondering why its current name wasn't accorded to Northampton instead.  My idle mind clicked into gear in time to make my deliveries and, clear by 1.0, I began to look forward to a more leisurely evening.  I forgot the 'spy in the cab', however, and made the fatal error of leaving the M25 because of traffic, only to be spotted by the Heathrow office, who asked me to perform a transfer from Feltham to Willesden, which is only 13 miles but at rush-hour took at least two hours, so yet another evening was foreshortened by work!

Yesterday I felt rewarded for having learned all my lessons, when I was given two complementary jobs, one from a firm of structural engineers in Letchworth to an isolated business development near Salisbury, and the other from Hertford to Chertsey on the way.  Neither caused me any problems and I had completed them both by about 2.0.  Since I'm not working next week, there was no need for me to remain in contact so I logged off and made my way home completely away from the dreaded M25, travelling up towards Oxford.  Unfortunately, I realised just too late that I'd missed the turning I'd planned to take off the A34 to go through Abingdon, and had to go round the Oxford ring-road.  As I did so, going even further away from the direct route home, I found myself unable to escape feelings of guilt.  Common sense told me a) that no one would know; and b) it was entirely up to me which route I used since, having signed off for the day, I was no longer at the beck and call of the office.  Yet I still felt uneasy because I was going a longer way round than necessary, and would be late as a result.  Was it the uniform? ... the van? ... or simply habit?

Today brought excitement of a different kind.  As part of the prayer ministry team at church, I had received an invitation to a birthday party for a little girl for whom we have been praying for some while.  She is gradually overcoming a combination of health difficulties that have beset her first year of life and, although not the size of a normal one-year-old, she was clearly happy and at ease in the arms of her loving parents.  It's not the sort of occasion that I'm used to, but fortunately others from our church were also there and, by the end of a couple of hours of watching and chatting, I had to agree that it had been an enjoyable occasion, as much for me as for everyone else.

Next week I have the usual list of outstanding tasks to be attended to, but I expect to be able to relax considerably more than in recent days!

Elephants by the Motorway?

Not for the first time, this has been a week of ups and downs.  Monday was a good example of the way the national network is favourable to us drivers. It began with a very small consignment for Market Harborough, and I was invited to wait a short while to see what else might be going that way. In a very few minutes I was sent to Royston for a couple of boxes going to Derby. Once these had all been delivered, I phoned the nearby Nottingham office, collected an envelope for them from Castle Donnington, and then took another small load from Loughborough to Birmingham on my way home.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought only two jobs apiece, with Wednesday being one of this year's leanest days.  On Thursday morning my thoughts turned to income once more, and my prayers included an earnest reference to a cup filled to overflowing.  The spiritual effort wasn't in vain for, within the hour, I was on my way to Kempston to collect some metalwork for a firm near Wakefield.  This time it was the Leeds office who provided the complement to the day, with a collection in the middle of Sheffield for a factory out in the countryside not far from Coventry.

But the day was not yet finished. On my way home I was invited to make three deliveries of prescription medicines to old people's homes in Hitchin, and then - with some hesitation after last week's disappointment when a Scottish job had failed to materialise - I was offered an early pick-up from a national company at the other end of the county, for delivery to two of their other plants, one on the outskirts of Liverpool and the other in North Lanarkshire.

So it was that yesterday morning, with unexpected calmness, I set out on a more unusual route into Scotland.  I had decided that it wouldn't be clever to consider sleeping in the van at this time of year, and particularly in view of some recent problems with a shoulder, so on my way I phoned ahead to book a room at the truckstop in Carlisle.  I made the Liverpool delivery by about 1.0, with little bother.  Then came the interesting part of the trip.  It was interesting not, for once, because of any difficulty, but simply literally. That middle section of the M6 is one that I rarely use; if I'm going to Scotland from home the better route is up the A1 to Scotch Corner, so I don't usually hit the M6 until Penrith.  This time, though, there was no choice and, although it feels a long way and the radio signal is intermittent, the scenery is magnificent.  Perhaps irreverently, I decided that the rolling slopes of the fells to the east of the motorway required only a few strategically-placed fir trees to resemble closely a number of retreating elephants!

One thing that did concern me, however, was the weather.  This was the day after storm Abigail had caused a number of electrical outages, and had attacked the west of Scotland with extremely high winds.  The matrices on the motorways were cautioning about side winds and lots of spray, but apart from just a short burst of rain there was no appreciable problem until I was well into Scotland.  The last few junctions along the M74, however, disappeared in deep concentration as I stuck to my course with only intermittent visibility between the deluge of spray thrown up by the lorries.

Although I've made that trip to Motherwell a number of times before, I found that my route this time was longer, owing to the constant development work on the road system in the area; while memory told me that I needed go only a couple of miles from the motorway, this time it was at least ten, having left it at a different junction, which was itself in the midst of a very muddy re-construction.  My delivery completed by 5.0, I began the slow return home.  To my utmost pleasure, the rain had stopped by Lockerbie, and the roads almost dried up by the time I was back into England.  After over 500 miles and more than eleven hours of almost constant driving, I was ready for a break, a meal and a restful (if not luxurious) evening.

This morning I was greeted by the awful contrast of dry roads and a gentle dawn, accompanied by the ghastly news of the bloody events last night in Paris.  By Scotch Corner, I was glad to stop and find some comforting normality in breakfast at the Moto services there.  From then on, accompanied by a couple of CDs I'd brought along for the purpose, the journey was plain sailing, and I was home, even after stopping for some shopping, by 12.15.

Now to fit all the usual weekend essentials into what's left of the weekend; ... what was that about an easy way into retirement?

Fireworks!

Today I'm looking back at the week through the ashen haze of November 5th and all the significance of that day.  Some have suggested that, had the Gunpowder Plot not been detected, the ensuing explosion could have wiped out not only the King and the Commons, but such a large slice of the country's higher society sitting in the House of Lords that the vacuum left could have given rise to complete anarchy.  At least one public voice has forsworn marking the occasion because of the burning of catholic effigies; ... the event still causes comment and controversy after 410 years!

For me the week began with an emotional 'banger' when, on Monday afternoon, I made a delivery to the Tata steelworks in Corby.  The present activity is but a small percentage of what once went on at the site, and in some ways it was like driving through a graveyard, with vegetation creeping over almost every piece of concrete and brickwork.  Even the occupied buildings are dismal, and this was matched by the demeanour of the few people I encountered.  The storeman's hi-viz jacket looked as if it hadn't seen a laundry for a year or more, and after he had torn himself away from a conversation with two others, similarly attired, his attitude to me - while not offensive - was at best desultory.  I got the impression that he would have preferred to be anywhere but there, but that there was no choice for him ... which is probably not far from the truth.  I was reminded of some factories where I have worked in the past, and I wondered what it must have been like to work there, say, thirty or forty years ago.

Ouse Valley Viaduct;  photo credit:
Joshua Dunlop, expertphotography.com

Contrast this sad scene with the catherine wheel that was the delight of Tuesday afternoon.  This was, I think, the second time I've driven past the Ouse Valley Viaduct near Balcombe in Sussex, and it was no less surprising and spectacular than previously.  Wikipedia tells me that it's 96 ft high, and its 37 arches stretch for a distance of 1,475 ft. ... well over a quarter of a mile!  Made of 11 million bricks in 1841, the viaduct is still in use, carrying over 100 trains a day between London and Brighton.

Wednesday began with a handful of sparklers: a trio of local jobs, before the day's squib, a trip to Cheshire.  However, it was more like a damp squib because, by the time I arrived at Mottram St Andrew it was dark, and I discovered that the delivery point was an executive dwelling in a road where each house had a name rather than a number.  I was very glad that my job had been updated to provide me with a phone number, but even so there was a little confusion about where in the road I had parked to make the call, and my mission was only successful because the householder came outside and spotted my stationery headlights along the road!

Thursday took a shape rather parallel to its predecessor; more sparklers were followed by a rocket, but one with a broken stick.  I was returning from Biggleswade when a phone call invited me to consider a morning delivery in Glasgow.  A quick calculation sent me home briefly, to gather a few essentials together and make a telephone booking for a room at the truckstop in Carlisle for the night before heading to Stevenage for the pick-up.  The first problem was that no one knew what I was supposed to be collecting.  A phone call quickly identified the person who had made the booking, but she was not at work that day.  More delays and phone calls ensued.  Eventually it was revealed that I had been despatched in response to what had been no more than a quotation provided some days previously: a quotation that had proved too expensive, and the goods had already been despatched by other means.

Yesterday's sequence resembled a roman candle, beginning with a couple of low-level jobs, firstly collecting for one customer from two local suppliers and then, on my way back, being diverted to the hospital in Stevenage to collect some documents for an address in Letchworth.  Then came deliveries to a couple of surgeries in Buckinghamshire before the final explosion, a small parcel for a private address in Mangotsfield, just off the Bristol ring road.  It seemed that half London was escaping down the M4, and my delivery time advanced almost as quickly as the traffic.  What had set out as a planned 5.30 delivery finally hit the doorstep at 7.40; fortunately my fears that the consignee had given me up and gone out for the evening were unfounded!

Now I can prepare for November's usual pattern to move forward another notch, to commemorate both national and personal war dead on Remembrance Sunday tomorrow.

When Nothing Much is Happening ..

I decided that, with no other plans for this non-working week, it would be a good opportunity to clean the flat.  I've developed a great aversion to house- work over the years (never trained right as a lad, in my adult opinion); so long as everything is in its place, I'm inclined to leave the hoover in its place too.  In fact after seeing my then dwelling for the first time some years ago, one lady commented, "It's dirty ... but tidily dirty!"  But after some while, there were a lot of things not in their places ... especially things for which the proper place is the recycling bin, like five-year old catalogues, and even older railway timetables.  It was time for action!

As a tempter, I resolved to clean one room per day, which more or less worked out, and the job is now done.  I can hear sympathetic readers (the others have probably closed this bulletin already in disgust) saying, "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?  Now try and keep it up from now on."  And you're quite right, of course; I can only say I'll do my best.

Alongside this feverish unaccustomed domestic activity, I also started out taking a walk each afternoon, but this was thwarted on day three when the rain told me, "go home - there's no point getting wet just for the sake of it!"

There was also much feverish activity on the admin front, as I sought to make important and long-term decisions about funding my retirement when it is finally phased in ... all this being prompted by setting up a realistic budget for next year.  After an extended evening's work constructing a spreadsheet, I went to bed exhausted, only to wake up a couple of hours later convinced that the whole effort was wasted because of a flaw in the thinking behind it: a flaw so basic as forgetting that, although sharing a pasture, tax years and calendar years are not the same beast.  The next day found me doing exactly the same exercise ... but properly, this time!

During last week I discovered that my printer wasn't working as it should, and as I explored possible reasons, it occurred to me that a lack of bespoke ink might be the difficulty, so I placed an order.  Meanwhile, as I dabbled further with the problem, I hit on the true remedy, and fixed it.  Hence the order for ink dropped off the radar, and the other afternoon a delivery driver (not from my company, thank goodness!) tried to deliver the parcel, only to find me in the bath!  No embarrassment was involved, I'm pleased to report; once dressed, I happily collected the card he'd put through the door, and drove across the town to collect the ink, which is now stored ready for use in due course.

The weekend promises to be a busy one, too.  Tomorrow I'm planning to visit my native Norfolk, to watch an FA Vase tie, and on Sunday our church is holding its annual pets service, so anything could happen there!  Sobriety returns in the afternoon, when there is a bereavement service for those who have lost loved ones during the past year, and a little later, at the other side of the town, the bellringers will gather for this year's final attempt to ring a quarter peal (1,260 changes, taking about three-quarters of an hour's intense concentration).

The Silly Season

There is a saying in the world of newspapers that summer is the 'Silly Season', because there is frequently nothing sufficiently important to capture the headlines of all the papers, and each tends to pick out something different from the mix to lead on.  It may not be summer any longer, but that's the shape of the week just ending: lots of snippets, but no lead story.

Snippet number one finds me on Sunday evening, parked on a pavement in the centre of the town, assisting in the unloading of a two-seater settee to one of the early Garden City houses.  The father of the occupant had secured this item on freecycle [What a boon this is to so many people in search of both the mundane and the esoteric!], and had solicited my help in collecting and transporting it to its new home.

On Monday, after a couple of deliveries in Kent, I was given a choice of two possibilities in the late afternoon.  One was two drinks orders to Suffolk and Essex; the other was a medical item to be taken to a private address in Milton Keynes.  I chose the latter on the basis that I ought then to be back in time for ringing practice in the evening, where I had been told there would be several regulars who would be absent this week.  I returned home at 7.20, grabbed a sandwich, and was on parade as usual at 7.45.  I discovered that not only were most of the supposed absentees present, but also a number of others, too.  After two abortive attempts to concentrate, I decided that my time would be better spent at my desk after all, and so came home again.

Tuesday's success was to drive around Suffolk and Essex enjoying the rich autumnal colours by the roadside, while Wednesday required me to cross the Dartford Bridge for a second time in the week in order to take a parcel to a restaurant near Sevenoaks.  I was spotted going around the M25, and given another collection near Hastings for delivery in Stratford, E15.  I stopped at a service station on the way back, where I discovered that refurbishment had necessitated temporary toilet facilities in the corner of the car park.  After marvelling at the immaculate tiling on the walls and the shiny basin, I encountered other regular features such as the ubiquitous puddle beneath the urinals, and the fellow-user who rejects the opportunity to use the adjacent urinal in favour of standing in the cubicle without shutting the door ... augmented on this occasion by an outside door that wouldn't open properly, causing a painful collision of thigh and door frame in both directions of travel!

Thursday began uncomfortably early, with a 6.30 collection in Royston, going no further than Thetford, to be followed by two local jobs.  The second of these was withdrawn (thankfully!) and replaced by another, more lucrative opportunity: an envelope to be taken from an office in Welwyn Garden City to another in a beautiful park location near Knutsford.  On the way came another, more conventional, delivery of some plumbing equipment to Tamworth.

Wednesday, as many will be aware, was the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, where Norfolk's most famous admiral lost his life aboard HMS Victory.  Like me, perhaps fewer could have said that yesterday was the centenary of another death, that of the 67-year-old William Gilbert Grace, who has been described as 'the King of Cricket'.  It was appropriate that I made this discovery through listening to the lunchtime feature on the second day of the Pakistan test match, while driving to a delivery in South Cerney, in the county where WG was born and spent much of his life, Gloucestershire.

Next week is another in which I play the part of 'trainee retiree', and I have no significant plans, apart from a few minor chores that have accumulated under the heading of 'when time allows'.  Is this what true retirement will really look like?

Muddle and Get Nowhere

In my native Norfolk in 1893, a number of small railway companies that over the previous fifteen years, under a variety of names, had linked communities in equally varying combinations, were amalgamated to form the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Company.  This was operated jointly by the Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railway; it was universally known as M&GN, and affectionately as 'Muddle and Get Nowhere'.  Although having no connection whatsoever with railways, this week for me fits that title admirably.  It's been quite enjoyable in parts, I have to admit, but not greatly productive.

As an example, at the start of the week, I presented my new insurance certificate, which was copied and submitted to the driver admin people.  On Thursday an e-mail was received, pointing out that the word 'Courier' didn't appear on it, so could I provide other evidence confirming that this was indeed the intended meaning of '... and the policyholder's business'.

On Tuesday morning, I was supposed to collect one tyre from a local company at 8.30 to be taken to Kent.  I was given another job - 'available at 9.30, but perhaps you can get it earlier' - to go with it.  After nearly an hour's investigation, interrogation, and numerous phone calls, it was finally established that the tyre was supposed to be collected from the company's depot in another town, and I was left with the second job, which by then I had picked up at a nearby factory.

As I began this present stretch of three weeks of work, I realised that the MOT on the motorhome would expire before my next week off, so I arranged for this to be done, along with an annual service, on Monday.  After (as I thought at the time) dealing with the van insurance, I took the motorhome to the garage, saying that I'd collect it between jobs later in the week.  I eventually collected it after returning from the Kent delivery on Tuesday afternoon.  It had failed the first test, simply because the horn wasn't working.  Once the electrical contacts had been cleaned, it passed second time around.

Both Wednesday and Thursday mornings were spent at home, as I waited for work.  Although not actually wasted, because I managed other things, it was frustrating, especially as I looked back to such full and flowing days only a few weeks ago.  There was more frustration when I picked up a job on Thursday afternoon which should have had borne a bar-code.  This would require different treatment with my hand-held device, and the job had been set up that way.  With no bar-code to scan, this was extremely difficult; although I eventually managed to record that I'd got the box on board, there was no way it was going to accept a signature for it when I made the delivery.  I had to phone the office with the name of the recipient, and get them to enter it.  However, the job still lingered on my screen, so more time was wasted on Friday morning as I attended the office once more to get it sorted ... not to mention also the insurance!

There were, however, four highlights of the week.  On Monday after returning from taking the motorhome for its MOT, I was sent for another 'practical Welsh lesson', going to the Rhondda, to Ysbyty Frenhinol Morgannwg, or the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.  On Thursday, during my absence dealing with that box, some leads were delivered that I had ordered only the previous morning, enabling me to fit up the screen I had saved from my old computer, so I can now sit in the comfort of my armchair and watch i-Player TV or a DVD, instead of sitting at the desk.  I also benefitted from the exercise of emptying a bookcase and shifting it in order to plug the screen into a socket behind it, and then putting all the books back again!

Yesterday's only job was to a private hospital in Sheffield, to get to which I had to pass through some areas I had first encountered almost twenty years ago, when I had run away from home and spent a couple of weeks tramping around in the February snow trying to find work there.  It seemed strange to be there many years later in autumn sunshine; yet at one point I could almost feel the damp and smell the snow ... more ghosts layed!

And finally, today was the annual autumn outing of the bellringers' group. Along with friends from other towers, we visited five churches in south Cambridgeshire, enjoying the challenge of ringing other bells, the fellowship of people we don't meet every week, and the fun and laughter of an away day together.

St Mary Magdalene, Ickleton

Preparing to ring at Trumpington

Back in at the Deep End

The week began with harvest festival at the church.  A new choir had been formed during the summer, which I had readily joined, and this was our first 'outing'.  The service was followed by a simple lunch for about 120 ... no small task for the catering team, who did an excellent job!  In the afternoon - across the town - the bellringers attempted a quarter peal, which was unsuccessful, although not before over 1,000 changes of good ringing had been achieved.  A healing service in the evening rounded off a very busy day.

After two weeks of 'retirement', courier work this week came as more of a shock than any time since my reharnessing after Easter.  And there was no gentle easing into it, either.  After a couple of hours' wait (which allowed me to marshall my thoughts about entering to my various records all the stuff I'd collected at the record office on Friday), my first job was to Pontefract. This was a repeat run of one I'd done during my last working week, albeit that had been late in the day, so the road-busy-ness pattern was different. Returning about 4.0pm, I thought the day would be at and end, but I had to think again when I realised that the job that had appeared on my screen was for delivery that day, rather than Tuesday, and a run to Greenford neatly knocked out my attendance at bell-ringing practice.

This week has included a bit of most things that have made up my courier carreer, the cancellation of my evening plans being only the first.  Next came the 'single job in a day', when Tuesday's job - to Cheltenham General Hospital - didn't begin until 11.0, so once more I had a morning at the keyboard, this time setting-up my newly installed computer Bible program. Wednesday's task was pre-announced, so I had the chance to research it online first.  It took me to Jarrow, a place I had first visited over 24 years ago, as part of a 'Medieval Monks and Monasteries' course at Durham University.  In fact this destination - reached midway through a day best described as 'a 6-hour car-wash' - was a small engineering works only a few hundred yards from St Paul's Church, where the Venerable Bede had started his ministry towards the end of the seventh century.

Thursday's experience was at the opposite end of the spectrum.  I had phoned in as usual at 8.0, but having heard nothing by 2.15pm, by which time I had entered all my family history data and finalised my budget for 2016, I decided to ring again.  I was told that I was their only driver (but wondered, perhaps ungraciously, whether I might have been overlooked completely).  My suspicions were strengthened five minutes later when I received a call suggesting that, if I were willing to help out with a local job then, I could get a 'decent' job for the next day.  The local job was to take some printed circuits to Newmarket; the 'decent' job turned out to be from Hertford (one of two that another driver was collecting) to Manchester airport ... for 9.0 am delivery!

Not having any idea what the effect of the morning rush-hour might be, I decided to allow almost an hour, and left home at 5.0.  It worked.  I arrived at 8.50, found the right office and made my delivery.  Returning to the van, I called the local City Sprint office.  Contrary to my expectations, I wasn't told to hang around while they waited to see what might come in; my next challenge was issued immediately, a collection near Crewe for an organisation in Melton Mowbray that, although I had never been there, I had registered many years ago as being one with whom I had had dealings in a past employment.  My next phone in was nowhere near so productive ... so I headed home, thinking that early start had merited an early finish.

Just as the premature counting of unhatched chickens is decried, I had looked forward too early to a lazy evening.  Before I had reached even the neighbouring county, let alone home, my screen had been visited by two more jobs, one to Leicester Royal Infirmary, and the other to a major industrial site in Nottingham.  By the time I had stopped at a truckstop for an evening meal I had clocked up a sixteen-hour day ... and the week wasn't over yet!

Yesterday began with a short but futile attempt to achieve the usual weekend routines.  Then, shortly after lunch, I set off on a personal journey.  The first destination was to attend a football match in Bury St Edmunds ... part of the annual 'Non-league Day' celebration ... and then I paid a long overdue visit to my son and his wife, the excuse for this being to hand over my old computer which he had undertaken to coax on the next steps of its career.

At last comes the weekend rest ... all too short, I fear, before an early alarm heralds tomorrow's breakfast gathering!

Busy Week of 'No Work'!

As hinted in my last post, this week began with the trip to Cambridgeshire. It's often the case that, whether it's meeting a new correspondent for the first time, or a visit to an unknown venue, the actual differs considerably from the anticipation.  I was apprehensive about what I might achieve, and had imagined some walking over (hopefully dried) muddy fenland tracks.  Both of these fore-thoughts were far from the case ... and not independent of each other!

The first surprise was to find that I had the place to myself.  Apart from three parked-up unoccupied caravans, the park was empty ... and I saw no sign of fishermen either until the day I left.  This was quickly followed by discovering that there was no phone signal, so not only did I not have to worry about incoming nuisance calls ... there was therefore no Wi-Fi, so there was no distraction from social media either!  Amazingly, by an hour or so after the shock of finding myself 'cut-off', this didn't bother me.

The site was separated from one of the fishing lakes by a line of leylandii, but a path led to the other side of this barrier, and on both afternoons I enjoyed the experience of walking round the lake on the broad grassy surround, in warm sunshine, and without the slightest hint of a muddy track!  It was the ideal opportunity to marshall my thoughts and, by Tuesday afternoon I found that I had accomplished all that I'd intended.  I was also rewarded on one of my afternoon strolls by the shocking - and beautiful - sight of a fish rising vertically out of the water, like a bather pushing up from the floor of a swimming pool.  Having displayed itself, it then sank back into the lake, leaving only an intense pattern of circular ripples to confirm that it had been real, and not a dream!

I returned home on Wednesday to the contrast of a noisy and exciting fund-raising quiz night at the church.  This engaged - for the first time for most, if not all, of us - an internet quizmaster, supported by a computer whiz and two charming young mums from our midst who acted as hostesses/ comperes for the evening.  The questions were presented, and our answers submitted, on our smart phones or tablets.  I was fortunate to be on the winning team, although considering the large proportion of questions that focussed on TV, sport, films, pop music and the celebrity culture, this was in very small part due to my own prowess!

Thursday was a day of admin. and I stayed indoors all day.  Being the start of a new month, most of a long morning was devoted to accounts and things financial, and after lunch I turned my attention to family history, preparing for a visit to the Suffolk Record Office yesterday.  Having been slightly more successful there than usual with the majority of my searches, I decided to abandon the quest for the few obscurities and came home mid-afternoon, instead of staying until closing time.  This enabled me to fit in my weekly shopping in advance of another busy day today.

The Printed Page ... and Beyond!

Well, it's been a good week for learning how to do retirement.  As a result, there are few eventful things to record, so they stand out just that much bolder, and command full attention here.  Someone commented that I've been more present this week on Facebook ... that's another consequence of having a non-work week with an almost blank diary.

Something I learned from Facebook was that this was International Book Week.  One was encouraged to "Grab the closest book to you; turn to page 52, and post the fifth sentence."  The post I had spotted then continued with a sentence containing a clue of its source, Dickens' Bleak House.  Another follower of this trend posted something from 'popular fiction' (not a genre with which I find any affinity).  Willing to take part, however, I reached for the end book on the shelf next to my desk, and followed the formula.  I do wonder what people made of a reference to King James issuing a religious declaration of not shedding blood 'so long as the Catholics remain quiet'! The book I had picked up was one of many that I've bought when the opportunity arose, but am yet to read, The Gunpowder Plot - Terror and Faith in 1605 by Antonia Fraser.

The literary theme continued later in the week, when I scoured the BBC's i-Player for something to watch over dinner, and discovered a film version of L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between.  I watched the first half that night, and saw the rest of it yesterday evening.  I remembered the salient points of the plot from reading the book at school, where it was part of a lesson bearing the loose title 'General English'.  This was the headmaster's brainchild for the cultural development of all those in the sixth form who weren't taking English at A-level and, so far as I recall, consisted of nothing more than reading a 'modern classic' around the class.  Other books we tackled included The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, and A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

Last night I dreamed about some of the characters in The Go-Between.  I suspect this might have been due to the conjunction of the origin of my knowledge of the book, and the single item in this week's diary, which has been executed this afternoon ... a class reunion of some of those with whom I passed through high school, including some who had suffered that same reading exercise.  Considering that a few of us hadn't seen each other 'in the flesh' (as opposed to seeing pictures on social media) for upwards of 45 years, it was quite remarkable that more "Now, who are you?" wasn't expressed than was actually the case!

There had been such an event fifteen years ago, but on that occasion the organiser had been unable to track me down, so I wasn't present.  Apparently the talk then was of professional achievement; today there was more focus on the extent of life-threatening illnesses, and our plans for making the most of our retirement.  The once-active sportsmen among us were now talking of 'a seat in the stand' rather than 'being selected for the football team this week'; and golf has now taken the place of cricket in many lives.  Although the lady was never mentioned, I found my thoughts drawn to a comic sketch performed by Joyce Grenfell, the words of which were placed in the mouth of one 'Lumpy Latimer', who had been living in Kenya ... 'although you have to call it Ken-ya now'!

Other achievements this week have included some preliminary preparations for what may be this year's last 'serious' outing in the motor-caravan.  This will be to a site in Cambridgeshire, popular for anglers.  I hasten to add that this is not my own interest; I chose the venue for the prospect of tranquillity and maybe a little fenland walking.  I have a number of things to deal with that require a few less distractions than regularly present themselves at home.  I wonder how many will have been progressed significantly by the time I return!

The Smelly Side of Life

As autumn begins, a familiar smell is noticeable as I drive around the countryside.  No sooner has one crop been harvested than the farmer is preparing the fields for the next one, and preparation means one thing ... muck!  One of my earliest memories is of my mother grumbling about the smell when dad came home from work after muck-spreading, and her acknowledgement that it (i.e. pigs' or cows') wasn't so bad as chickens'.  In that vein, I recall a few years ago taking my camper-van to a farmyard site where they kept ducks, and how they instantly reminded me of a visit at the age of about four or five to a great-uncle who lived on a farm, where there were ducks in the orchard, and how we were told to mind where we walked!

Smell is the most powerful of man's senses, they say; it's certainly connected to the brain's power of recollection, and triggers all kinds of memories from the past.  Another early memory of mine is of the journey to school past the bakery, with the early-morning smell of fresh bread bringing some relief from the agonies of cycling up a steep hill.

The variety of places that my work takes me presents an equally varied selection of smells and memories, some of which I share - for good or ill - with the people I collect from or deliver to.  This week, for example, I collected from a small firm working with fibreglass, and I recounted the tale of the director of one of the companies I worked for, who had an interest in small boats.  He made an arrangement with a boat-builder to utilise part of the ground behind our factory, and we got involved with the administration of this new business as well as our own ... totally different in scale and attitude from the precision electronics that were our 'bread and butter'!

I often find myself at the door of a machine shop or fabrication business, and am reminded of a four-year spell working for a company that manufactured agricultural machinery.  I'd not been there long, when the finance director came into our office one day and genially asked how I was getting on.  After a few pleasant exchanges he looked over at my boss and, perhaps remembering what he had come in for, indicated by way of encouragement how far I might go if I were to apply myself. "Look at Snellin' there," he said.  (The cost accountant's name was Snelling, but this man had a pretentious, quasi-aristocratic habit of dropping his g's.)  "He's costin' a foundry."  My boss had been asked to spend some time introducing a costing system at a sister company a few miles away, which made castings for our machines.  One day I accompanied him on a visit and discovered - just as when, many years later, I visited Whitechapel Bell Foundry - that this is another industry that has a very distinctive smell.

Of course, when you are working in a particular environment all the while, you don't notice the smell.  Just as with the things I wrote about last week, the body - in this case the sense of smell - gets used to it.  Another recognisable 'fragrance', sometimes detected in the supermarket and many other places, is what I call an 'old people' smell.  It's really down to a simple lack of fresh air; if you live all week with the windows and doors always shut, the air gets stale, and this staleness transfers to the clothes you wear.  I sometimes notice it when I come home in the evening, but only for a minute or two.  The smell hasn't gone ... I've just got used to it again.  With a 'retirement' week ahead of me, I'm hoping for sunshine so that I can have my windows open a lot of the time!

It's What You Get Used To

This back-to-work week has been a bit tough.  I'll try to put it into context.

Some years ago, I had a brief chat with a colleague who was playing a prominent part in our company's support in (or put another way, financial benefit from) a Scottish bank's campaign to replace all its computers.  For him this meant, for a number of consecutive weeks, two return journeys per week from Hertfordshire to Edinburgh and sometimes beyond.  I suggested to him that a single journey of that distance - over 370 miles by the most direct route, not allowing for diversions or variety - must be exhausting, let alone there and back twice a week!  Without undue modesty, he explained that, the more you did a journey, the shorter it seemed.

Put that way, I had to agree.  Indeed, I remembered some of my early jobs, when to travel up the M1 to the distribution centre at Crick (just off junction 18) seemed quite daunting, and a journey to Bradford almost into another world!  After a few years - months, even - the longer jobs came to have a distinct attraction for me.  Partly, I think, there was the freedom ... there is always more than one way to get somewhere and, if the destination is at some distance, the choice of one road over another becomes less significant in the overall distance and time taken for the whole journey.  There was also the sense of achievement ... going to the far side of the country, and we shouldn't forget the financial rewards, too ... although the profitability of a long journey for a single job is always questionable.

As time passed, I quickly became accustomed to driving an average 300 miles a day without batting an eyelid, sometimes in a single journey, sometimes split over several separate ones.  In fact, it is surprising just how quickly the body accustoms itself to changes like this.  In a totally different way, I had had a similar experience a few years earlier.

Taken in 2000, long before 'selfies'
were the fashion, near Dublin, CA

When I first set foot in California in July 2000, I was reluctant to step out in the sun and made quickly for the nearest shade, so shocking was the summer heat.  Yet, in only three weeks, I can remember waiting for a lift on a street corner, in full sun and not feeling any discomfort.

And that's where I came in.  In recent months, work has usually stretched from 8.0 or 8.30am into the early evening.  When the occasional late night has seen me arrive home around midnight, I've gone straight to bed, had a slightly later start the next morning perhaps, and thought no more of it.  As to early mornings, a 7.30 pick-up has been about the limit.  This week, by contrast, I had agreed to be one of three who stepped in to fill the absence of someone who regularly has a 5.30am collection.  The days for which I was selected to do this were Tuesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday, I had an 8.0am delivery at a hospital in Bournemouth, which necessitated leaving home at about the same time.

Those three early starts, each followed by a day of normal working, left me drained.  It was a new pattern of life to which my body hadn't adjusted.  It had started to do so - on Thursday morning I woke more refreshed than on the other two - but the process was by no means complete.  Let me expand the picture by taking a slightly longer view.  As I've mentioned here before, I examine each week's activity and classify the good weeks as 'gold' or 'silver' according to whether the results beat my budget in the criteria of income, profitability and mileage, or just the first two.  The last two weeks I've worked (and because of my phased retirement plan, that means two of the last four, which may also have some bearing on the matter), have both been 'gold', with an average of 1,465 miles per week compared to an average for this year from April of just under 1,600.  This week's travels have involved 1,645 miles - by no means beyond the 'normal', but well above what my body has recently been used to.

It might seem that I'm moaning, whingeing or just being grumpy.  Let me reassure you, dear reader, that this is not so.  I'm happy as ever with my lot. It was fascinating, for example, to drive through Cardiff - or should I say Caerdydd? - on Wednesday afternoon viewing the roadsigns in a new light as a result of the early lessons of my Welsh course: realising why on some signs 'University' was translated as 'Pryfysgol', and on others as 'Bryfysgol'. And, even as I write this, I see that this is yet another example of the whole subject of this post: what the body - in this case the brain - gets used to.

And here I'll stop, as I debate whether or not to go and watch one of today's FA Cup ties ... more miles!

Neither One Thing, yet the Other!

As I announced last autumn here, and have mentioned in subsequent posts on this blog from time to time, I'm going through an indefinite period of 'phased retirement'.  In conversation after the church service last Sunday, I found myself explaining just what this actually means and, under a title that came to mind in an echo of how my father might have described it, I'll begin this blog by sharing my thoughts.

My plan began simply with a pattern, as I described it to my then boss, of 'working complete weeks, but not so many of them'.  So began a season, lasting up to a maximum of 21 months, when worker would be sandwiched with retiree, and during which I would be neither wholly one nor completely the other.

Early into this period I took a lump sum from my pension and purchased a motorhome ... more specifically a motor-caravan, although I haven't been able to decide just where the distinction between the two terms lies.  Either is a bit of a mouthful, so she is commonly referred to alliteratively as 'Mary'. Sunday's conversation began with the question, 'have you been far in your motorhome?'  As I mentally reviewed my travel diary to respond, I realised that the trips I've made so far don't in themselves really justify such a large financial outlay.  What's Mary all about, then?

I explained that some of the early months (alongside the continuing demands of work) had been occupied with the business of equipping the vehicle, filling up some of the many cupboards and lockers with those items that are indispensable to life on the road, on the one hand making me independent of hotel accommodation and restaurant meals, and on the other eliminating the need for a major packing and carting of 'stuff' from home to vehicle every time it's used.  In addition to this, has come an increasing experience of the routines involved in using the on-board equipment, such as making sure the gas is turned off, and the fridge turned over to electric operation before moving off ... quite apart from the significant differences in driving a larger and less manoeuvrable vehicle than the van I've been used to.

In thinking this through, I realise that in some ways the same can be said of this whole business of 'phased retirement'.  It's a case of learning how to live a different life.  Working life - especially in thirteen years of self-employ-ment - has been very largely one of discipline.  If you don't get up and go to work, you don't have money to live on.  With no holiday pay, or sickness benefits, there is no question of taking a day off, or 'throwing a sickie'.

As the business world has changed its dimensions over the years, so the demands on a courier's time have also changed.  At the outset, I was almost always home by teatime, and evening commitments I'd entered into during paid employment could continue unabated.  Slowly one after another had to be given up as I found myself unable to attend.  Soon, I now realise, there will be the opportunity to take these up again ... at least where my own interests haven't also changed over the years!  In the meantime, comes a time in which - during those weeks when I'm not working - I have to learn a new kind of normal life, rather looking on such weeks as just a lot more holiday.

This week began by spending the Bank Holiday - and a half-day either side of it - with my cousin, my 'second family'.  When I returned home, and life quietened down, I noticed that I had become out of touch with programmes I usually listen to on the radio, or by podcast, in the van.  My pattern has been to enjoy the silence of home after the constant buzz and activity of driving.  So another aspect of retirement that I have to get used to is listening to the radio at home.  They're all tiny things, but each requires a habit of years' standing to be consciously overturned.

Now, with the weather having taken a turn towards autumn, all the frenetic financial activity of starting a new month completed, and an air of boredom wafting around the flat, it's time to think about another few weeks on the road.  An apologetic call from the office yesterday has already hinted of a couple of early starts to look forward to.

More Interest!

I described last week as 'interesting'.  This week was possibly more so; I leave it to my readers to decide which meaning they apply to the word this time.  Monday was a good day.  When I received a mail order delivery on Tuesday evening, the driver saw my uniform as I answered the door and asked me about working for CitySprint.  'How many jobs do you get in a day?' he asked.  He has to take well over 100, as a multi-drop driver, and only gets paid for the ones he actually delivers.  I told him 'anything from one to eight', and used Monday's experience as an 'average' illustration.

I began with a visit to a tiny village near Oundle, where all the houses are in 'Main Street', and have names instead of numbers.  As usual, I found the right one on my way back through the village, and delivered to the man who had waved to me as I went past on my first pass.  On then, to Grantham and District Hospital, a neat and modern place, much of which is on a single floor.  By late morning I was almost home again, and given two more jobs, one from Letchworth to Welwyn Garden City, and the other from Stevenage to High Wycombe.  I think it was while driving round the M25, that I was asked to collect some white goods in Hemel Hempstead on my way home, for delivery in Hereford for 8.0 the next morning.  I had nearly got to High Wycombe when a change of plan was announced.  In my present location, I was the only chance, the controller decided, of achieving a collection that afternoon from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, to be returned that evening to our depot in Letchworth.  Any fear of an early start the next morning was cast aside, and I went to bellringing practice as usual, where there were many old faces, some of whom hadn't been there for a considerable time.

Tuesday started off in fine form, as I hoped for a long job to make up for losing Hereford.  A collection from Bedford for Milton Keynes was complemented by a pick-up in Flitwick on the way back for exchange at Elstree film studios, and return to our customer.  Now, Tuesday morning was subject to sporadic but heavy rain showers, and as I passed Toddington Services on my way back to Flitwick, my windscreen wipers decided to take a holiday.  In fact one part beneath the surface had had enough, after going to and fro for a quarter of a million miles.  I completed my delivery and then made my way to the garage, seeking restoration of rain-shifting services. Sadly, the required part couldn't be delivered until the following morning, but one of the staff was able to arrange a temporary 'fix', using the wiper mechanism from his own car to keep me going.  Wednesday, therefore started on time in the morning, but consisted only of a handful of very local jobs, until I attended the garage in mid-afternoon for the job to be completed.

As I reported to the office my status as once more available, I was asked if I'd like an 8.0 am collection in Letchworth on Thursday.  This was a job to Gloucester that had been requested by the Swindon office.  I accepted this, and duly presented myself at a factory opposite my home at the required hour.  Unfortunately (the job having been arranged by their customer), they weren't aware that I would be calling so early for the goods; these were already packed, but I had to wait some while for the paperwork to be completed.  Once this job had been delivered, I called Swindon, with a fair hope, I thought, of getting more work from them.  I wasn't disappointed, and a few minutes later they called me back with a pick-up in Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham, for central Birmingham.  In the afternoon, the triangle was completed by a job from the Warwick office, collecting in Nuneaton, for delivery in Harlow.

I had called the office on my way home to explain my situation, because this delivery couldn't be made until the following morning.  However, the message wasn't passed on in its entirety, because when I received a call about an hour later, it was to ask if I fancied a trip to Wales ... that evening! I pointed out that, while this would be quite acceptable (it would compensate nicely for the work I'd lost through the wiper malfunction earlier in the week), I wouldn't be home early enough to contemplate an 8.0 delivery almost thirty miles from home the next morning!  "Leave it with me." I was told.

When there's a willing driver to do a potentially awkward job, there's usually a way, and someone was coerced to make the Harlow delivery yesterday morning.  I took the goods to the depot and made my way to our customer in Hitchin.  Since venturing to North Wales in my motorhome in June, I've decided to pick up once more the Welsh tutorial that I'd abandoned some forty-five years ago and, as I drove up to the customer's premises, I realised that I could now form an appropriate sentence.  There are building works going on in the yard, so I stopped where I could be seen some distance from the door, and got out of the van.  As the customer walked over with the expected lightweight parcel, I greeted him with "Yr wyf i yn mynd i Gymru!"  I had to stifle my smile at the man's face: something between shock and amusement.  "Are you Welsh, then?" he asked.  I explained, but decided not to translate, leaving him to think that it was something more elaborate than 'I'm going to Wales.'

The job itself was not difficult, although it would have been easier in daylight.  It was to a private house in a one-street village, where a group of new houses have been given a separate name.  SatNav - misguidedly helpful as ever - decided that this was another street, running parallel to the real one.  It tried to find me the right lane to use to get there, as a result of which I now have an intimate knowledge of several inapplicable garage drives. Fortunately the parcel's recipient had heard a slow-moving van passing to and fro, and opened her door!  The rest echoes the history of many previous late-night jobs; I was home and snug in bed by about 3.30 am.

The protracted nature of Thursday meant that Friday began at lunchtime, and I confess I was not expecting anything exciting.  Au contraire, the controller was most relieved to take my call.  He was runned off his feet, and didn't even need to call me back to request a collection in Hitchin for a hospital in Nottingham, and a pick-up in Biggleswade for a factory in Newark on the way.  A leisurely drive to places I'm familiar with, on a sunny afternoon at the end of the week was ... delightful!

Today has seen a bit of tidying up, before going to watch a football match. We all stood in silence for a minute before the start in memory of players Matt Grimstone and Jacob Schilt of Worthing Utd. and the others killed in the Shoreham Airshow tragedy last weekend.  In keeping with the last match I saw, two weeks ago, the team I support - in this case Biggleswade Town - was one goal down soon after the start, but on this occasion things livened up in the second half.  There were four more goals, at least three yellow cards, two sendings-off, one saved penalty, and the result was a 3-2 home win.  Oh, and the man sitting next to me won a prize in the raffle ... the nearest I've been to a prize in years!

Now for another 'retired week', beginning with a family visit for the Bank Holiday.

An 'Interesting' Week

I use the word 'interesting' in the sense I first discovered in the words of an erstwhile Rhodesian colleague, who applied it to the sort of incident that was unforseen, and the resolution of which would require some ingenuity.  And, in that sense, I have to confess to some exaggeration, too; for most of the week did not fall into that category.

And so to the detail.  Monday got off to a slow, but triumphant start.  I related last week the problems associated with the aquisition of the laptop computer.  This was delivered on Monday morning, but not until an hour or so before the actual event did I know precisely when this would be, so I was uncertain whether I would be doing any work that day or not.  In the event, it was so conveniently early that I was able to achieve a most acceptable job to the hospital at Cosham, just outside Portsmouth, and be home in time for bell-ringing practice.

Tuesday saw the first of three jobs this week to the Manchester area.  Before making this delivery I had already been spotted and given a collection 'just round the corner' (in fact about five miles away) to take to a private address in Maidenhead.  It was then that the week's 'interesting' elements began, because to cover those five miles took an absolute age owing to a hole having appeared just before the evening rush-hour (so I was told) in one of the city's key through routes.  Certainly the traffic on the south side of centre was gridlocked!

I made my pick-up about 6.30, and stopped at a filling station to collect something for tea.  In my excitement, I must have omitted to set the handbrake for, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my van moving as I walked away from it.  I wasn't quick enough to stop it, and it rolled gently into the back of the taxi parked in front of it.  Fortunately, there was no apparent damage to either vehicle, and I was most relieved when the driver, emerging from the store, agreed with me, clasped me by the shoulder and went on his way.  I then discovered that SatNav - not for the first time - was working on its internal battery rather than from the lead plugged into the van.  If left unheeded, the eventual outcome of this would have been a complete lack of power, and no directions so, once I had established the best route across country, I switched it off until I neared my target.  The remedy to this unfortunate state, I have discovered, is to plug it into the computer to update it, which I did next day.

After this administrative chore Wednesday was, by contrast, almost uneventful with a local collection to start, and then deliveries to Aldershot and Alton.  Once more my presence was noticed by another office, and I collected fourth job in Bordon to bring me halfway home.  At this point it was discovered that the Alton job also involved a return leg, so I had to divert to pick this up on my way back.  By then it was too late to deliver this before the end of the working day, so it had to be taken to our customer in Hertford the following morning.

Thursday followed that same pattern, with a local collection, followed by two deliveries, this time to Leicester and Salford.  After picking up the second of these in Hitchin, I set SatNav to take me to the first delivery point ... Leicester.  When I realised that, in order to get to my target, I was being taken out of the city towards Peterborough, I began to lose faith in my electronic 'friend' once again.  Surely, in this instance, it would have been quicker to avoid Leicester itself, and go via Peterborough, than to be tormented by the continuing miles of roadworks and speed restrictions on the M1?

I'm not sure whether it was the lingering frustration at this apparent lack of judgement, or the test match commentary, or simply the flow of traffic that cause me to be in the wrong lane for my motorway exit.  Whatever the cause, I therefore had to take a cross-country route to get to Manchester.  It was beautiful, but took at least half an hour more.  Fortunately the recipient was willing to wait for me to arrive ... and there were no holes to delay me this time!  With no return job, I was able to enjoy a much needed leisurely break and meal on my way home.

Today, when I eventually declared myself 'fully turned around' after the late night return from Salford, I was surprised - nay astonished - to discover that the first job I was given was from nearby Melbourn to Stockport!  I decided there and then that I wouldn't be looking for anything else, but that a leisurely drive there and back would round off the week nicely.  So I was making my way up the A14, with the cricket commentary for company when I noticed that the image in the mirror by my side was unsteady.  In what seemed to be quite a long moment, I remember thinking to myself, 'Uh oh, I know what's going to happen in a minute ...' and by the time I'd managed to cross the intervening traffic lane and get onto the verge, it had happened. The glass from my offside mirror was laying on the road some distance behind me, and I was sitting in a vehicle that I could no longer drive!

I called the office to arrange another driver to take my job off me, and the AA for rescue.  Meanwhile I had been spotted by a passing police patrolman, whose main concerns - given that there is no hard shoulder there, and about a fifth of my van's width was still actually on the carriageway - were to get it and me to a place of safety, and to remove the risk of an accident being caused as passing traffic might swerve to avoid me.  He explained the strategy that we would adopt, which seemed quite straightforward.  I would drive slowly along the road the quarter-mile or so to the next exit, keeping to the extreme edge of the carriageway.  Meanwhile, he would be a short but safe distance behind me, blue lights flashing, keeping well over to the other side of the lane, as a shield.  I would then park in the layby just off the roundabout.

It seemed so simple, and was quickly executed; but at the end of it, I was shaking.  As I said to the officer when he walked up to make sure all was well, "You have no idea how scarey that was!"  Actually, he probably did have, but ...  After assuring me that to remain there, in what was actually a bus stop, would be OK, he was on his way.  My load was transferred to an Aberdeen driver who had been delivering nearby and was embarking on an empty journey home, and as we were discussing his best route out of England via Stockport, the AA man arrived.  After completing formalities, he went to collect a replacement mirror, and later duly returned to fit it and arrange payment.  Although, once home again, I presented myself as once more available for work, I was rather glad not to be called.

The weekend has started a little early this week, and I'm hoping it will lack the 'interest' of the week it follows.

A 'Winter Holiday' Week

I've chosen my title for this week's blog in recollection of of times when - in certain industries at least - holidays had to be taken within set periods of the year.  My dad, for example, was entitled to a week in the summer and a week in the winter.  While it was a valuable break from the hard work of the other fifty weeks, the winter week was always a bit flat for him.  Once he'd done what he needed to get the garden straight, I don't think he knew what to do with the rest of the time.

For me, this week has been dominated by three things ... one of which shouldn't have been a dominant item in the first place.  I agreed to use my van to take some of the inevitable post-holiday club 'clutter' from the church to the local dump: one van-load would save a number of car trips, so it made sense.  At least it did until I got there on Monday morning.  There I learned that a new permit scheme for all vehicles other than cars had been in force since the beginning of the year.  I was annoyed, because I had been there within the last few months to dispose of an item I'd replaced in the home, and had been admitted without let or hindrance.  I therefore knew nothing of the permit scheme.  The permit is free, but needed to be applied for on line ... from an office in Liverpool!  I made the application immediately, of course, but I'm still waiting for the permit to arrive!  The cardboard, meanwhile, has been 'parked' in the motorhome.

Last weekend, I noticed that there was a small puddle of oil beneath said motorhome, so another task on Monday was to have this checked over.  Now that I've got all the equipment I think I need to make proper use of the vehicle, I felt it would be a good point at which to check the overall weight against that permitted according to the official plate in the cab, so I also incorporated a trip to the nearest public weighbridge, where I learned I have about half a tonne capacity to spare!  The garage cleaned the bottom surfaces and told me to run it for a few days and return.

Ducks doing what ducks do best

On Tuesday, therefore, I sought somewhere interesting to visit not far from home, and discovered a nature reserve near Tring called Cottage Lake, which fulfilled both purposes i.e. a journey in the vehicle, and the ideal of time away from work: relaxation.  When I returned to the garage on Thursday, there was no sign of a leak, so apart from keeping an eye out, all seems to be well.

Then there's the matter of the laptop.  I decided it was time to replace my computer, which is getting a bit tired and, since it's a desktop machine, it puts me at a disadvantage when I go to meetings or for research, in that I need to use a less capable intermediate device.  Following good advice, I ordered on line, thinking it would be in my hands by now.  Sadly there was a problem with the credit card ... well actually a card-user interface difficulty, i.e. I had made an error when I filled out the order document on line ... and the simplest solution was to let that order lapse and re-order it 'properly' later.  I was waiting until this morning, therefore, for confirmation of the order and provision of a delivery date in order to know that all is well at last.

When things aren't going well, I find I tend to think of times long ago, and the other morning I recalled an office where I'd worked some 45 years ago.  In particular, I recalled a typist at that establishment who had a comparatively uncommon surname, and I wondered how easy it would be to find anything out about her now.  I have to praise findmypast.co.uk (although I did complain heavily about their new website last year).  Within little more than half an hour I'd traced the girl's marriage, the birth of her daughter, and a recent address and, thanks to Google Maps, I had found a picture of the neat dwelling that she and her family have occupied for the last thirty-odd years.  Fantastic!

This weekend has seen the first encounters in a competition that will end next May with two top football teams meeting at Wembley ... yes, it's the extra-preliminary round of the FA Cup.  As on the Friday evening of the comparable weekend two years ago, I ventured into Norfolk to support my native team, Diss Town in their efforts.  Sadly, as on that previous occasion at Thetford, today's match ended in a home win, but what a different Diss team set foot on the park at the Elgood Fenland Stadium.  The eighth minute goal that determined the result was very much against the run of play, even up to that early point in the game.  All through the ninety minutes, whenever there was a loose ball, there seemed to be an orange shirt to meet it, and most of the activity seemed to be in the Wisbech half.  The only - but crucial - thing Diss seemed to lack was finishing power.  So many shots landed directly in the goalkeeper's hands and, while not denying that man's power and skill, he didn't have a lot of work to do.

Today also marks the 70th anniversary of VJ-Day.  I had felt that I wouldn't be observing the occasion at all, apart from pondering over my researches concerning the uncle whom I grew up being told that I closely resembled, and who died of malaria while a PoW working on the Burma Railway.  This morning, however, as I drove into town, I happened to notice a gathering by the war memorial.  Putting two and two together, I walked back after parking the van, and was able to join in a short service of commemoration.  Having been unable to take part in the ringing of bells for the occasion, owing to a mis-match of other commitments among the ringers, I felt this more than compensated.

"When you go home, tell them of us and say,  

For your tomorrow, we gave our today."

                                                            -  Kohima Epitaph