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!