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!