A Drop of the Old Stuff

It's been very much a week in the old vein.  Perhaps, being the third successive working week, my name had become 'part of the scenery' once more, rather than 'the man who comes and goes'; perhaps it was because Dave - still the principal controller, despite no longer running the operation - has been on holiday; or perhaps it's just been 'that sort of a week'.  I neither know nor care.  Suffice to say that I've been tested, and enjoyed it.

After a weekend of desk-clearing, shaking off lots of financial burdens and planning a touring week that's about to begin, Monday started quite quietly. Luckily I remembered reading on Saturday evening as I submitted my Tax Return that there would be a delay before it appears on my record, and that, during this approximately three-day window, there would be an opportunity to make amendments.  As I tidied things up in the aftermath, I discovered something that I had wrongly declared, and there was just time to go online and put this right before my PDA beeped to call me into work mode once more.

The first job was a local delivery to Bedford, but on the way I was called to pick up something in a nearby village for Westerham ... my first visit to Kent for quite a while.  As if to prolong last week's theme of things in pairs, I was diverted to collect from the office something another driver had picked up, which was going to West Malling, not far away.  Later came another trip south, to Stevenage and Enfield, from which I returned just too late to be able to fit in my weekly ringing practice.

Tuesday began with a collection - though that might not be the best word! - in Stevenage.  When I arrived and announced where I was going (Maidenhead), I was told where to park along with the comment, "There's a lot of stuff in that bay; you won't get it all in that little van!"  Then the manager arrived to organise the loading and, with the efforts of both of us, with Mr. Doom-and-Gloom passing one item after another, it did all fit ... just.  When I rang in, as requested, to say I was loaded, I was invited to go back to Letchworth, where another driver was collecting a small consignment which they'd like me to take if I could fit it in, bound for Barnstaple.  This consisted of one large box for which there was just room inside the door, and six small ones, which filled a gap in the 'eaves'.  I returned home just before midnight.

After a late start, Wednesday brought me a string of five jobs, no further than Aylesbury, the last of which was a collection for a nationwide parcel company from a nursery in Hertford, to go to their regional distribution depot in Enfield.  Being the first time I had done such a job, I wasn't aware how the program on my PDA was, of necessity, being 'misused'.  It appeared that I was to make a delivery to the same place from which I'd just collected, but this element had been added simply in order to record the number of packages I had picked up.

Thursday's curtain-raiser was a call at about 9.30 from the office.  "I don't know if you'd be interested in this job, Brian, but it's a rather juicy one!" Intrigued, I asked where it was going.  "Whitehaven" came the reply.  I told him I was interested, and within minutes was on my way to Luton to collect ... a small package containing, as I later discovered, some fuses.  By the time I arrived, the manager was just walking through his warehouse 'to see if they'd arrived'.  We spotted each other simultaneously.  As I walked towards him he asked, "Have you brought my fuses?"  I could only say where they'd come from, which satisfied him.  He said he'd been wondering if I'd make it in time, since he now had to get them to his customer ... presumably by the close of business that evening.  After stopping for a meal at KFC in Penrith, I was home this time at 12.35 am.

I would have been quite content yesterday with the delivery of three bottles of wine in Stevenage and two kegs of beer in Hertford, but I was asked if I could accommodate four tyres as well.  Although they were for a Porsche, I found there was just room, so my week finished in Reading, faced with a lengthy journey trying to avoid the regular crush around the M25.  It's been an enjoyable one, I have to say.  Apart from the pleasant back lanes of Kent getting between the two deliveries on Monday, there was also the delight of seeing part of Bath that was new to me, as I diverted from the motorways on my way home from Devon, and both Barnstaple and Whitehaven are places I'd never visited before.  Coincidentally, my two 'near misses', to South Molton and Workington respectively, were during the summer and autumn of 2002, soon after I'd started doing this work.

Now for what one friend has described as a 'busman's holiday', of which I shall tell you more when it's over!