A Curate's Egg of a Week!

Yes, it's been a right mixture this week.  In particular, good at the edges and bad in the middle.  Monday was definitely a good day.  It began with a 'regular' delivery to Pinewood Studios, after which there was time for coffee before I was sent to pick up two jobs in Stevenage, one to Cambridge, and the other to Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon.  The one to Cambridge was to a laboratory that I hadn't been to for some years, and it brought to mind an amusing exchange on that previous occasion.  As she received the box I had brought her, the young lady mused, "OK, What have we here?"  While she examined the paperwork, I announced that we never know what we are carrying: "It could be anything from eggs to alligators!" After what I think must have been just the right delay, I added, "mmm ... I'm not sure about the eggs, though."  Seeing the bemused and rather puzzled look on her face, I explained that only a few weeks before I had been sent to a shop in Romford to collect 'a box', which was securely tied, had airholes in it, and made noises.  When I delivered it, I asked what it was that I had brought, and was told that it contained two baby alligators!

Talking of humour, rural octogenarians are perhaps one of the richest sources.  It was at Hinchingbrooke that I found myself walking down a corridor behind an elderly gent pushing his wife in a wheelchair.  As I overtook them, I heard the lady ask her beloved, "I'm not too heavy for you to push, am I, John?"  Quick as a flash, John replied, "No, dear, but that's a heavy old chair, though!"

After these amusements, I took a drinks delivery to a small pub in Attleborough, which brought the day's returns up to a most acceptable level, which was as well, for Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with annoyingly local jobs, and are best forgotten.  So, too, is Thursday, although it did begin with an interesting visit to today's equivalent of a stately home, for which the modern term is - according to the board outside - 'classically styled detached villa'.  This was on the outskirts of Maidenhead, where I found the actual building just about complete, and now awaiting a balustrade on the sweeping staircase in the main hall, and all the other interior floorings, fixtures and fittings.  The stone above the portico reads '2015', so it's clearly intended that it will be finished this year, although it looks far from it at present.

By the time I came around the M25 on my return, the rain was just starting, and I was asked if I would do a pick-up in Welwyn Garden City on my way past to go to Dunstable.  Naturally, I said this was OK, but when I got there I began to regret my willingness to co-operate.  'Dunstable' was elaborated as 'Toddington Services', and when I asked, "North- or South-bound?" I was told "both."  I was then loaded with forty cases of soft drinks, duly segregated into two separate deliveries, and sent on my way.  I think that it took about two hours to drive the 22 miles, locate the delivery point, attract someone's attention, unload and transfer the goods to the required location, and then cross the motorway and repeat the whole process again ... in the rain.  By the time I left I was not the 'happy bunny' I prefer to be!  And to crown it all, having returned home about 2.0 pm, there was no further job that afternoon.  The only consolation was the later announcement that I could start Friday with a nice gentle run to Southend-on-Sea.

This was indeed pleasant, and provided a welcome contrast to the foregoing. My load was ten 25-litre containers of 'fluid', being taken to a small shop, with a parking bay right outside, in a street that wasn't too busy.  I have no idea what sort of 'fluid' it was; I was simply thankful that the consignee was willing, with good humour, to carry all ten containers from the pavement into the shop.  There was even a glimpse of the sea as I drove away.

Our church had decided that, on the Fridays of Lent, our normal monthly practice of a day's prayer and fasting would become a weekly event for those wishing to take part.  It was therefore somewhat ironic, as I drove out of Southend on my way home, that the controller rang and said. "Pull over and have some breakfast ..."  He had a pick up for me at an industrial estate in Basildon, but not for about an hour.  I was pleased, though, to drive to the estate, listen to the end of a play and watch the antics of a robin and two brace of sparrows in the tree opposite.  It proved a relaxing prelude to what was to follow.  Having made my collection I was nearly back to Letchworth with it, when another call asked me to meet another driver, who had a chilled box to be taken on to Newmarket as soon as I had delivered my own consignment.  By the time I had done this, it was about 2.0, and I could see the day ending as had the one before.

Not so.  Within an hour or so, I was given two more jobs that seemed made for each other.  One was from Letchworth to Northolt, the other a pick-up near Potters Bar to go to Twickenham.  As I drove down the A1(M) to make the second collection, I realised that on one screen of my PDA the destination was given as TW11, but on the other it was TN11.  I rang in to have this clarified, and soon afterwards the TN11 was changed to match. However, when I made the collection, I found that it was addressed to a firm in Sevenoaks!  By then it was too late to have any hope of making both deliveries by the required 6.0 pm, whichever sequence I might adopt, so I sought advice from the office.  After a delay of about 40 minutes, another driver met me, and we exchanged the Sevenoaks delivery for a film to be taken to a cinema in Croydon.

I made my delivery in Northolt, and SatNav then decided that the fastest route to Croydon - it was Friday evening, remember - would be an almost straight line on the map.  I can't recall exactly which boroughs I passed through; many of the roads were familiar, many weren't.  Some were the perfect operation of the Repeating Genie, for they were the same that I'd used last Friday morning when going from Pinewood Studios to make further deliveries in Thornton Heath and Wimbledon.  I'm not a particular fan of London: in fact, when I started this work nearly thirteen years ago, I had previously driven only a handful of times anywhere within the M25!  I was very glad in those early days to be stopped by a red traffic light, so I could check on the map which road I needed.  Now with SatNav, however - complain about it though we might - things are totally different.  With no worries at all about where I was going, all I had to think about was the traffic around me, and driving through inner London on a winter's evening was magical!

It was a long day; I didn't get home until about 10.50pm.  But it was different, and in many ways the best ending for a week that would otherwise have been very 'flat.'