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.

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!

A Gold Week, Day by Day

The biggest contrast between 'working' and 'retired' weeks for me seems to be the fact that things on my desk get started but not finished ... like the references I gathered for something last weekend, that have sat there since Sunday afternoon, gathering dust and making me feel slightly guilty every morning.  One afternoon I was home by 3.30, with no call on my time in the evening, and I felt uneasy about spending six hours or so working on a spreadsheet to understand the history of some investments I started when still in employment many years ago.  This was as a result of something that had come in the post that morning, and I felt it was distracting me from the work I'd left unfinished at the weekend.  Had this been a 'retired' week, there would have been no problem; but it's one I've made for myself, so I shouldn't grumble.

Perhaps this tension is also partially due to this week - the first of the new financial year for me - being what I term a 'gold' week, i.e. when both the actual turnover and the profitability of each mile driven have been above budget, and at the same time the total of miles driven has been below the budgetted figure.  It involved four early starts (pre-7.30), however, and on only one day was I home before 6.0pm (as noted above).

After the men's breakfast at church on Monday, the week got under way quite slowly.  It was, of course, a standing start, so I wasn't surprised not to be called until noon.  I then did just the one job, to Halesowen, and returned in time to have dinner and then go off to a crowded ringing practice.  I think word is getting around what a good teacher our tower-captain is (although he's now in his eighties!)  There was no after-ringing half-pint for me, though; I had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to collect some air conditioning equipment in Welwyn Garden City at 7.30 next morning. These went to Suffolk, and then came an urgent delivery of computer parts to a technology complex in Birmingham.  Two days down; three to go before a none-too-restful weekend.

Wednesday found me heading early for Sussex, where I collected some flooring, and then over to Pirbright near Guilford, for a machine door.  After a brief rest, I was called to take some drugs across to the hospital in Luton, but even then the day wasn't over, because I was sent to Biggleswade to collect some items for a Mothercare distribution centre beside the M1 the following morning.  As usual, I didn't know exactly what I was collecting; after tracking it down, the man told me to make sure I wasn't overweight with these three cartons that he carried in one large hand.  His smile was almost as big as the cartons!

Thursday, though eventful, was a pleasant morning.  Having made my delivery on time at 7.15, and enjoyed an exchange with the Polish girl there over the pronuncuation of her name, my thoughts turned to food, and I repeated a sequence of some months ago, when I'd remembered a BP garage just off junction 22 of the motorway.  In fact, there are three BP's quite close together, but none of them has a Wild Bean Cafe, where I could get my prefered breakfast.  Step by step, I recalled my former experience, and carried on for a few miles to a roadside cafe.  The condition of this place justifies its potentially pretentious title, 'Diane's Food Emporium', for the surfaces were not only clean but had recently been renovated, and the wall of the kitchen area proudly displayed the foor hygiene certificates of both mother and daughter who run the operation between them.  I expressed my anxiety that such an attractive place boasted no customers, until I'd walked in, but was reassured that there would be a steady stream once the day got under way.  I was, after all, quite early (it was scarcely 8.0).  Having obtained sustenance, and made a donation to a local charity, CBTRC, I continued my journey, aiming for a 9.0 collection in Nottingham.

This wasn't to be, however.  A mile up the road I joined a very slow-moving queue, waiting to leave the motorway at the next junction.  I think there had been an accident, but the matrices were giving no details, simply saying that the road was closed.  I found my way through local roads to rejoin the motorway further along, and eventually made my collection about 10.30! After a local delivery following my return, the day ended with the six-hour spreadsheet noted above.

Yesterday was one of those 'start and go on until it's done' days.  I left home about 7.15, in order to beat the traffic and collect some printed matter in Welwyn Garden City at 8.0, but I forgot that Friday's traffic is usually lighter - I've never worked out why; I'm just thankful that it's so! - and by 8.0 I was on already my way to take this to Bicester.  Then I was directed to a pick-up from a hospital in Oxford for a customer in Letchworth, and on the way came the challenge of getting two washing machines into the van beside these eight items, to be taken to a building site on the outskirts of Norwich. Before I'd reached Letchworth, I had already received instructions to make another collection, this time just round the corner from delivering the hospital stuff.  This was a bundle of steel bars to be taken to a small complex in March.

I had already protested my anxiety that by the time I got there, the workers on the building site would have packed up for the weekend, and when I arrived about 4.30, I certainly feared that this was so,  The site office and canteen were both deserted, although there were clearly people around somewhere because there were cars on the car park.  Further investigation led me to the discovery that the site manager and others were by the show house, which was due to open today, and to which access was separate. Desperate for fuel, I headed for a filling station on Norwich's ring road, where I decided to also get a snack for my tea, and finally made it home about twelve almost non-stop hours after leaving in the morning.

Tired but satisfied, I turned my attention to getting the weekend under way, with shopping and washing, in order to get to a church meeting this morning.  Life may be cluttered at times, but no one can tell me it's dull!

One a day, and Sussex by the Sea!

After a week off, whether holiday (as some might have thought) or the start of phased retirement (as indeed was the case), it's always a slow build-up back to normal levels of activity, and this was no different.  The situation is complicated by the usual slow build-up of 'normal activity' after the new year anyway.  But there was at least some highlight to each day, above a background of what I call 'bread and butter', local work.

Monday found me utilising my Dart-charge account for the first time in nearly two months, as I went to Swanscombe for a customer in Ashwell, whose goods were delivered to a delightful modern office building, aptly named 'The Observatory', for it offered excellent views in every direction.

The next day was a definite 'damp squib' work-wise, because the highlight was being stuck - along with thousands of others - on the M1 for several hours owing to an accident not very far from home, at junction 13.  It was feared that there had been a fatality, but the TV news bulletin that evening suggested that there were two serious injuries only.  It seems that a lorry had crossed the central reservation and taken out a car.  I wondered later whether the lorry might have come from the Bedford direction, and perhaps the driver had been confused by the new layout of the junction.  It's certainly esoteric - I don't know of another like it - with lots of subordinate junctions on either side of the motorway, quite apart from those that actually interact with it.

Wednesday began with a straightforward collection from a distribution centre along the A14 at Thrapston.  As I approached the gate, I recalled the confusion that I had had to overcome on my one previous visit.  When the security official had booked me in, and told me where I should go to make a collection - as he'd done on that other occasion - I explained that I had then found I needed to be 'over there' ... and I pointed in the opposite direction. Adopting a welcome relaxed and co-operative attitude, the official said he wasn't really bothered where I went: it was my choice.  Since it was nearer the gate, I went where I had gone before and began my 'I hope I'm in the right place ...' script.  It worked, in within minutes I was back on the road.

The week's fourth highlight, like the second, was not to my advantage, although unlike that accident, this one was predictable.  I was called on my way back from a delivery in Reading by another depot, who suggested - quite logically - that I might like to do a pick-up in St Albans for a destination in Stevenage on the way.  Unfortunately this was a collection of samples from the renal unit at the hospital.  Not surprisingly, these require special secure carriage and, although I have received the necessary training, the little box I'm provided with for this purpose wouldn't have accommodated even one of these large containers ... and there were at least ten!  There was no alternative but to ring in and get another driver, suitably equipped, to make the collection.

Friday was more like a 'normal day'.  It started with the collection of some bespoke export packaging in Letchworth.  As I was leaving the town, bound for Berkshire, the controller rang: how much room did I have?  There was one small box to be collected in Tring, for the south coast.  This was the 'first overlap'.  I collected the box, and then made my way to a private estate - automatic gates at every entrance - near Slough to deliver the empty boxes. The men there had anticipated a much larger vehicle; I had brought them four boxes, they were expecting about fifty.  They explained that this house had been sold for £10 million (!) and that the new owners had just arrived. There seemed to be no real anxiety, however, and as I left one said to the other, "we'll have an easier day with just four boxes to fill!"

Then came the 'second overlap' for, as I drove around the M25, making for Rustington, near Littlehampton, with my box from Tring, I had a call from the Guildford office.  They had spotted me heading in their general direction, and wondered if I would be interested in a collection in Guildford going to St Leonards-on-Sea.  I told them I couldn't see why not, and after collecting a small box there I had the treat of a cross-country journey to the seaside.  The sunshine was almost summer-like (if you didn't look at the dashboard thermometer!) and I learned just how long is 'Good old Sussex by the Sea'.  It was a very pleasant journey indeed, ending with another Dartford crossing, after which I was home about 6.40pm.

All up One End

I may have used that title before ... if so, I apologise, but that's how this week feels from where I'm sitting now.  Let's dispense with the statistical evidence first.  The week involved thirteen jobs, seven of which filled the last two days, with only one job in the first three days exceeding 70 miles; and by the end of that third evening, I had achieved less than two days' expected income.

It's been a strange week for where I've been, too.  The one job I did on Monday, from a customer in Letchworth to one of their regular deliveries in Bedford, was exactly repeated on Tuesday, but an even stranger occurance happened later in the week.  Crawley isn't a place I get sent to often; just thirty-eight times in the whole period up to Christmas 2014, i.e. in the nearly thirteen years that I've been doing this work.  Already in 2015, I've been there four times.  The second of these was on Wednesday morning, when I took some steelwork to a building site in the town centre.  The next afternoon, I was asked to collect a CD from an office near my home to go to a large defence establishment there: a routine sort of job, with a simple hand-over in the security office at the gate.

Yesterday afternoon, I was sent to a different customer in Bedford, who had something to be taken to the very same location - three visits in three days, compared to an average of about three in a year normally.  On the way back I refuelled at the same filling station, and was served by the same cashier ... to whom I was just another face, of course, so he didn't recognise me second time around.

As regards visiting the same destination for different customers ... it does happen occasionally.  There was one a few months ago, although I don't recall the details, simply having the thought that it was a delivery point that I'd been to for someone else fairly recently.   I think the strangest incidence like that was several years ago, when I collected something in Hitchin for Canary Wharf (London E16).  Just as I got there, I had a phone call saying that another customer in the same road also had something for Canary Wharf.  When I made the second collection, not only was it for the same road, but for the same man at the same building!

The 'all up one end' feeling was also true in respect of the location of the week's deliveries,  Only one job took me north rather than south from my home area, when I went to Redditch on Thursday.  My resentment of an 'overdose of M25' was exacerbated by the fact that my Friday visit to Crawley came hot on the heels of an early start that morning.  I had been asked on my way home on Thursday to divert to Houghton Regis, to collect some display material for a location in Carshalton.  This was to be delivered by 7.30 am next day, and I was determined that it wouldn't overshadow the day by getting me caught in the rush-hour traffic in either direction. Consequently, I limited my Thursday evening activities to the bare essentials, had an early night, and set off just before 5.0 am.  I had expected an hour or so to 'chill out' (in more ways than one!) upon my arrival but, to my amazement, there was already someone there, so by 6.40 I was on my return journey, and looking for breakfast on the way!

Life for me now takes on a slightly different, and hopefully more relaxed, aspect; this weekend sees the start of my much-heralded plan of tapered retirement.  I fully expect that it will feel just like any other week of holiday from work, but it will carry with it many thoughts of how these non-working weeks will begin to form a pattern in the coming months, and I shall endeavour to sow some seeds of a new routine to life.  Time alone will reveal how successful this plan will prove.

New Year ... Same old Life!

I find this every year.  As the summer fades into autumn, I realise that instead of - in this case - 2014 feeling new while 2013 is still familiar, my outlook has gradually transformed so that 2014 is the familiar one, and this new prospect, 2015, is being felt just over the horizon.  So, as the 'old year' has drawn to its close, the image of the new one has become stronger until at last, with a great cheer, the sound of the pipers, and copious amounts of alcohol - not forgetting a lump of coal, if you can find one - it's HERE!

Now it has become reality and, having spent my first week back on the road, I can say that it feels little different from the old one; I expect it's the same for most working people.  For a start, I'd forgotten just how slack the first proper week of the new year is for the courier industry.  After the first few years I'd been doing the work, it was expected, and the big question would be 'how long before it picks up?'  Somehow, in 2015, this phenomenon had slipped my mind.  It wasn't until I looked back from Wednesday morning that I realised that this week is just like other years, and by the end of it, I find I've earned less than four days' income in five days.  How long, I wonder, will it last in this year of gradual recovery?

Other things, too, haven't changed.  There was a good slice of hospital confusion to mirror the same from before Christmas.  I was asked to take something from Lister in Stevenage to Addenbrooke's in Cambridge; this combination comes up quite often and, although not having the precise detail, I went out of habit to the ward where I usually collect specimens for the laboratory in Cambridge.  After quite a wait, I learned that they had nothing for me.  Whilst waiting, I reflected how - unlike my work - the 'feel' of this workplace has changed ... in complete accord with the current news bulletins.  No longer are there two or three nurses (I use the term in my ignorance to include various other grades on the ward) at the ward desk, beavering away, and exchanging the odd word of conversation.  One person only was present, and she busily engaged on the phone.  Others pass quickly to and fro, far too intent on what they're doing to divert their attention to resolve my presence.

I sought clarification of my mission from the office, was eventually called back by another depot, who had taken the job in the first place, with the bald comment, "have you tried pathology?"  I hadn't, of course, so did so, only to find two other drivers there, each apparently quite clear what they were doing, and the laboratory staff scratching around (or so it seemed to me) to find something that I might be expected to take.  It was most unsatisfactory, and unsatisfying.

Another thing that has been by no means uncommon in the past, was an evening collection that could be transformed into an overnight job.  It was 8.0 pm when I was called by the night controller and offered a job to Trowbridge.  It could be collected in nearby Royston at 10.0 pm, and had to be at its destination by 7.30 the next morning.  In the intervening hour or so, I calculated that, by the time I were to get back home it would be 10.30, and I should have to set the alarm for 4.30 if I were to avoid the early morning traffic and be sure of meeting the deadline.  I could remember going to Trowbridge for this customer before; I googled the likely consignee, hoping that I would recognise a name from the results of my search of the industry and the town's name.  I was in luck, and it took only a phone call to establish that they did run a 24-hour operation, and that the night shift personnel would be able to receive the goods.  So, once loaded, I made my way straight there, delivered, and was home and in bed by 5.0 am.  Though short, my sleep was uninterrupted by fears of missing the alarm, and any anxiety about the job to be done, and I surprised myself by the length of time later in the day that I was able to keep driving without getting drowsy.

Just to make me feel at home in the new year, it seemed, there was an evening when I delivered a vanload of drinks to a public house, albeit on Thursday instead of Friday.  And to round things off there was a job that was too big for the van.  In this case, that wasn't strictly true, but the pallet that had been used only had loading holes down the long sides, which meant that the length of the pallet would have to fit across the width of the van ... which it didn't.  Apparently this particular establishment only have pallets of this design, but I usually only collect from them in individual units, so the problem hadn't arisen before.  At least I hadn't remembered the one previous occasion, until the fork truck driver asked me to watch out that he didn't touch the door steadies of the van with the pallet as he offered it up to see if there were room for it between the wheel-arches.  It was then that I recalled that earlier experience, my resulting anger and the furious attempts I'd made to straighten the bent article sufficiently for the door of the van to close!

But it hasn't been a week without some good points.  I've been able to make good use of the gaps between jobs, even down to the minute, measuring all sorts of aspects of the interior of my newly-acquired motorhome, and making appropriate plans for an extended shopping expedition today to get some of the necessary items to equip it for more adventurous use than seeing it parked outside my window!

Christmas Cheer!

This is the time of year when weeks take on a different shape.  Since my childhood, this week has always been made up in this fashion: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, another Sunday, 'Someday' and then Saturday again.  Someday?  Well, Boxing Day is like no other.  It's not a Sunday, because there are no church services (except for those really devoted people who celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen) and, legally speaking, if 26th December falls on a Sunday, it isn't Boxing Day anyway, because a Sunday can't be a Bank Holiday.  And it's not a Saturday either, because ... well, it just isn't.  Yet there is sport; for many years, it has been a definite full programme day for the world of football.  Even at the level that I watch, there were quite a number of matches to choose from today; although I decided to stay at home in the dry rather than venture out and get soaked.

"Chicken!" I hear you shout.  And you would be quite right - there was chicken for dinner today, after lashings of turkey yesterday. (I've lost count of the wonderful accompaniments that filled the remainder of the plate as I shared the festive meal at the home of a generous and welcoming family from our church, who made a last minute invitation that I just had to accept.)  And of course, the season wouldn't be complete without all the other special foods that only come out at this time of year, like the dates and candied fruits, the iced fruit cake decorated with sleds, santas and snowmen, and the tasty stollen (now easily obtainable from the nearest Lidl!)  Then there's the booze, of course, (more of that anon.) and the chocolate ... loads of it, on its own in all shapes and sizes, or coating biscuits or a variety of nuts and cremes; even some in square blue boxes imitating fruit!

But before all that, you'll no doubt be wondering about the Monday, Tuesday and 'Saturday' that came before the feast.  Monday began in routine fashion, with the regular delivery to Pinewood Studios, and then I went over to Thatcham to make a collection there for a customer in Luton.  After that came a sequence of three local jobs that filled up the day nicely, allowing me to join my friends in the tower for the final ringing practice of the year.

Tuesday reversed this pattern, with odd jobs first.  In fact, after a pre-booked collection of air-conditioning equipment in Welwyn Garden City for a house in Cambridge, it was so quiet that I thought maybe things had shut down already for the festival.  No so, however, for I was then sent to a farmyard workshop in a tiny village in rural Hertfordshire that I'd not heard of in my fifteen years as a resident. (Although I'm sure there are many more such places!)  On my way back, I took a detour to collect a package that was to be forwarded from our office to an address in Lancashire, and then a second detour to collect another job, from a customer in Hitchin.

I've often 'name-dropped' about the unique occasion quite early in my driving career (records aren't clear whether it was 2004 or 2006), when I found myself passing just inside the hallowed black door of no. 10 Downing Street, SW1; this particular job could have reached an even greater pinnacle of achievement.  The parcel I collected in Hitchin was for no less an address than Windsor Castle!  Although Her Majesty would not have been in residence, security was no less severe, and my instructions were clear.  I rang the number I'd been given, and the recipient met me on the roadside outside the gate, where I obtained the necessary signature under the gaze of the guards.  I wonder what action might have been taken had I not then promptly turned my van and driven off!

Once I'd returned, and agreed that I would be willing to do another job that evening, matters returned to normal ... or as normal as the day before Christmas Eve can be.  I loaded as many cases of drink as would cover the floor of the van (more than half its permissible payload in weight!) and set off for the fens.  As I entered the Red Lion in March, two customers were leaving.  One said to the other as they passed me, "Santa's early this year ... and he's not wearing red, either!"  The lady behind the bar saw my white beard and looked rather embarrassed.  "Seasonal joke," I said, putting her at ease before I determined where I should park in order to transfer some of my load to her cellar.  On then, to discharge the remainder of my consignment to the Three Tuns in Wisbech, where a willing customer offered to help, carrying some of the cases across the road to the rear entrance for me.

I was expecting work to be very quiet on Christmas Eve, but I usually offer to be available because it relieves the obligation on others who have families to think of, and often the work itself is not very demanding.  I had only one job, which I rather enjoyed, because it took me to the rural byways of southern Suffolk, delivering a case of wine to an isolated farmhouse in Stoke-by-Nayland.  I was reminded of a delivery I made some Christmas Eves ago, to a Victorian house in a terrace somewhere in London, about two streets from the Thames - I can't recall whether it was Chiswick or Wandsworth, or somewhere else in that general area.  What I do recall was that the occupants were the wife, and two children under ten, who were playing by the open fireside.  As I walked through their lounge a number of times to deliver several cases of wine to the kitchen, I thought what a charming picture they made, almost Dickensian, from the location, and yet not so, because of their dress and the toys ... and the TV in the corner.  I was very glad that this was my last job before Christmas.  It made my day, and in many ways made my festival complete!

Whatever Next ...?

... Or, put another way, 'a week not without incident'.

It began with an uninspiring visit to the office, where my PDA was unjammed, during which time I joined a new driver and completed my official training in the handling of medical samples.  At the end of this I was allowed to sign a certificate, which will be kept in the office, and was presented with more 'essential' equipment, a home for which must be found in my already over-crowded van.  The day proper continued with jobs to Harwich and Cambridge.  Despite being home soon enough, I missed my ringing practice because of an instruction to be in Stevenage for a 6.0 collection the next morning.

I confess, I was late, and didn't get there until about 6.15, but it made little difference.  No one at the warehouse knew anything about what I was supposed to collect, and I had to wait until the day shift arrived at 7.0 before I could collect the fresh produce that I took to Norwich to be photographed for publicity materials.  Upon my return, I was sent north again, this time to exchange nine cooker hobs on a building site in Manea.  There was then just time to clean the van's carpet and my boots before darkness fell, and I was about to settle down for the evening, when another call sent me off once more, this time to a medical practice in rural Essex.

Wednesday morning's fruitless exercise took place in Hertford.  As a matter of interest, it was at the very same building (although this time for the host company) where a few weeks ago I managed to set off the security alarm (see the full story here).  This week's job was to take 36 boxes to a retail park near to the Dartford river crossing.  We tried loading them one way and another, but there was no way this quantity of fairly large boxes would fit into my van.  The sender gave up, rang the office, who said they'd sent out a bigger van, and I left to make my way back home.  I got as far as the last junction up the motorway before mine, and was then turned back to visit a white goods firm in Hemel Hempstead.  The job was to collect two items, one for a hospital in Colchester, the other for a building site near Sudbury.

After a long wait, it transpired that I would only be collecting a large oven for the second of these, since the other job had been taken by another driver earlier in the day.  Once I was loaded, and about to depart, I rang the office to advise them of the change, whereupon the next phase of the saga unfolded.  It seems that the other driver had been 'persuaded' to take this Colchester job, notwithstanding that he was actually going to central London - not a combination that would normally be entertained!  By this time he was on his way back with it, and I was asked to meet him to collect my second job (which would actually be the first one) from him.  I set off for South Mimms services.

It was there that I learned the sorry truth.  The Colchester job was not one item but two and, with the oven already on board, there wouldn't be room in my van for both these additional items.  After some further discussion, I left for Suffolk with the one item I had collected, surprisingly unfazed by the fact that, after a completely wasted morning, this was the only job I would do that day.  This time it was too dark when I returned to clean the van a second time in as many days.

Thursday was a better day; possibly the best of the week.  It started with a large envelope to be taken to a converted granary office on a Norfolk farm. I'd woken up that morning with a strange feeling of regret that I had no pictures of the graves of my immediate family.  No sooner had I crystalised this thought, than I realised that this very day I could do something about that fact and, once my delivery had been made, it added only a couple of miles to my return journey if I diverted via the cemetery in my native Diss. Upon my arrival, I went straight to the oldest of the graves I sought, that of my paternal grandmother, for I remembered its prominent position, and found it neatly trimmed - a contrast to the last sight I had had of it, covered in long grass, with the headstone barely visible.

My father's grave

One by one, I found all the others.  My father's, a rugged York stone, that I had chosen myself to match his rugged life on the land, next to my mother's grave, unmarked save for a strange marker I didn't recognise and can't explain, thrust down into the site of a long-removed flower vase.
My maternal grandparents', neither of them marked by a stone, were surprisingly easy to find, because I remembered many a visit made with my mother in my teens, when we always recognised them by the adjacent stone which bore an unusual surname, Wass.  The last one took longest to locate.  It was that of my paternal grandfather, who died in 1950. I knew the rough area, but when I looked there, all the graves were much, much older, and somehow as I progressed with the dates, I then found myself amongst far newer ones than that which I sought.  At last, I explored in the opposite direction, and struck gold, as it were.  This particular plot may have initially been occupied by a garden or perhaps was a later addition, for here were several of this 'intermediate' age, as if positioned here as 'infill', long after the cemetery had been started in the mid-nineteenth century.

Thoughtfully I continued my journey home, and back to the world of work. A local job appeared on my screen just before I got home, and following this a hospital transfer that proved to be non-existent as both I and another driver sought it to no avail.  Someone had apparently got his wires crossed! Then came that crucial late-afternoon question, 'are you available for more work this evening?'  I decided that I was, and was persuaded to make another trip to Norfolk, to deliver some wine to a night club in the centre of Norwich.

The return journey was more exciting than I either expected or desired.  As I drove down the A11, delighting in the new dual carriageway through Suffolk at about 65 mph, with dipped headlights out of consideration for drivers coming in the opposite direction, suddenly the blackness of the road surface was broken by blood and gore.  I remember thinking that this stretched further than usual along the road but, since it was all between my wheels, I dismissed it as a larger-than-usual badger that had met its end.  No sooner had I done so than my lights picked out a large white object.  LUMP! I'd hit it and was up in the air.  CRASH! in a split second I was down again, and - amazingly - still travelling smoothly along the road.  It must have been a full-grown deer that had been killed by a passing lorry.  This morning my first call was at the garage, where I sought to confirm that nothing serious had befallen the van.  The staff there were only too pleased to run it onto one of the ramps before the work of the day got under way.  It was concluded that my alignment when I'd hit the beast was about as fortunate as it could have been.  A few inches either side and the result could have been serious. As it was, the only damage was to a few fuel-pipe clips that had been twisted a little out of position, the radiator grille needed re-fitting where it had been knocked loose, and I'd lost one half of the front skirt.

I think I can say that's the first time in my motoring history that I've hit an animal - alive or dead - and I'm quite content for it to be the last!  After that, the rest of the day pales into insignificance, with nothing more venturous than two loads of printing, one from Stevenage to Ampthill, the other from Hitchin to Barking, and in between some fibre-glass moulds and products from Bedford to Letchworth.

Tomorrow sees yet another rehearsal for our annual carol service the following day, and this intense weekend will be the opening phase of the festivities, with only three more days before the start of the long Christmas and New Year holiday.  No doubt there will be some account of the procedings here, but timing might be a little uncertain!

Triangles

There are many ways of looking at the variety of work, payloads and destinations of this business, but I've never thought of geometry before. However, if you consider the geography of this week, it's quite true: just look at Monday for a start.

The week began with a collection of some air-conditioning equipment in Welwyn Garden City for Wooburn, from which I turned anti-clockwise into London, for a NW10 collection.  This went to Abingdon in Oxfordshire and just before I arrived at my destination came a phone call offering me a collection in Thatcham for Bell Bar in Hertfordshire.  Two more anti-clockwise movements completed this task and a third brought me home, covering each side of an approximate triangle twice over.

Monday was rounded off by an amusing 'offer'.  As I sat at my desk, wondering if the phone would ring, it sprang into life and brought me a choice.  Having confirmed that I was willing to go out again - it was almost 5.0 pm - Dave said I could either go to Amersham or 'RG27, wherever that is'.  I opted for the further destination (which turned out to be a hotel near Hook), to make losing my bellringing practice for the second Monday running really worthwhile, to which he replied, 'I hoped you'd take that one, because C----- <the only other driver available> won't know where S------ <name of our customer> is.'  To me, this implied that she wouldn't be able to find it in the dark, either! - and before you condemn me for being sexist, I can think of at least one male driver of whom he would have said the same thing!  To be fair, this particular customer's premises are in open country, some distance away from both the village that provides their address, and the nearest main road, some nineteen miles from our office, and both of these drivers live almost the same distance in the opposite direction!

Welcome to England (picture: flickr.com)

Tuesday was taken up by one long run to St Helens, with a delivery in Northampton on the way, and after two separate jobs on Wednesday, to Royston and Coventry, a third one to Hemel Hempstead primed me for the geometric theme again.  Only a few hundred yards from my delivery, I collected a full load of kitchen equipment to be delivered the following morning in Bridgend.  Once this had been successfully completed - getting there via Ross-on-Wye, of course, to avoid the toll - I made for the eastbound Severn crossing, amused as ever as I left the bridge behind me, to be welcomed to England in Welsh.  After a collection just off the M5 in the north-west corner of Bristol, I made a broadly 'left turn', to deliver in Derby, and after a welcome rest at Donnington Park services, my homeward journey completed a very large triangle.

Friday, too, began with two independent journeys, one to Northampton again, and the other to Pinewood Studios, and then came another triangle, this time clockwise, as I travelled to South Mimms to meet another driver. Here I was given a small package that he had collected in central London, which I took on to its final destination in Abingdon.  Once more, my homeward journey completed the third triangle of the week.  Incidentally, the astute reader may have noticed the hand of 'the genie' at work this week, too!

I wonder how next week will 'shape up'?

New Lamps for Old

Yes, it won't be long until the panto season!  But Aladdin and his stories bear no real relation to my tale this week.  It has been a week - more than ever before, I think - of two very different halves.

But first, why that title?  Well, there have been many new things lately.  The take-over at the end of July brought a whole new way of working, and with it not just the use of the much-grumbled-about PDA.  (When I reached a delivery the other day, my finger misjudged its stab as I tried to tell the beast that I'd arrived.  I took ages to get out of a completely alien screen; when I went inside with my package, my tale of woe met with wit as well as sympathy, "I just thought you were never going to get out of the van!")  Now that our self-billing invoices come online on Thursdays instead of a paper document on Mondays, I'm having to adjust to a new financial discipline as well.

In August and September, there seemed to be far more work, and it was easy to ascribe this to the new régime, too.  This made October's abyssmal performance feel far worse than simply a return to the mediocre levels of the spring.  Early this week, realising that in two days I'd earned scarcely more than one day's expected income, I totted up that in the last three weeks I'd done only three jobs that were more than 100 miles in length, compared to 29 in the previous eleven weeks since the take-over.  I began to wonder whether I had been singled out for punitive treatment!

I chewed this over during my daily quiet time next morning, and found a sort of perspective about it, realising that, as a consequence of attentions focussed elsewhere, my work had been largely absent from my prayers lately.  Now, I'm fairly sure that Dave, my controller, is not a 'God-botherer'; I'm not so sure of the extent to which he is or is not 'God-bothered'!  He rang me as I was returning from yet another local job that afternoon, to ask if I would be able to do a couple of jobs that evening.  In my acceptance, I decided to advise him of that statistic.  He sounded quite shocked, and shortly afterwards rang me back to add another hospital delivery to the one that he had already instructed, along with the relief of someone who had locked himself out of his van ... this an all-too-common occurence for this customer, of whom I've written here before!

Thursday morning began quite tamely, returning the afore-mentioned van key, and then deliveries in Hemel Hempstead and Uxbridge.  As I drove through Uxbridge, about a mile from my second delivery, the phone rang.  I was given a job I'd done a few weeks ago, collecting some computers from a training session in a hotel near Gatwick airport, and taking them to another one in the chain for a similar session the next day.  This wouldn't be until after 3.0 pm, but I was being told now since it would save my travelling if I were to go straight there.  It was about 11.0, and I received this news with mixed feelings.  A couple of idle hours, but then a good job; a good job, but overall a very long day.

I hadn't gone far after making my delivery when the phone rang again.  This time it was the Reading office, offering me a complex, but in the event an undemanding and interesting job.  I collected seven deliveries of car parts from a logistics firm in Slough, passed four of them on to other drivers, and then delivered the other three, finishing only three miles from the hotel, just on 3.0!  What better way to fill idle hours?  Then came the planned delivery of the computers to Manchester, hampered by motorway traffic, but otherwise uneventful, from which I returned home at 3.15 am.

In the last three weeks, when there was a lot of waiting time, I had begun making tentative plans for retirement.  Having seen and heard many instances of resulting torment and trauma, I've no intention of this being an overnight life change.  Instead, I'm planning a gradual transition, and incorporating within it the acquisition of a motorhome, so I've been looking at what is available within my budget.  There's a vast spectrum of possibilities, and some very attractive models which I don't feel I can justify for just one person.  As I've considered these, I've come to realise ways in which this vehicle will not be merely a 'toy' for holidays, but that its arrival will herald a whole new life-pattern.

As if to underline this train of thought, I listened this week to a sermon podcast based on the parable of new wine and old wineskins from St Matthew chapter 9, and it seems that in order to accommodate the 'new wine' of the motorhome, I shall have to renew the 'wineskin' of my lifestyle.

Time will tell, and no doubt this blog will report in due course!

It's Personal!

Personal - adj. - one's own; done or made in person; directed to or concerning an individual; existing as a person, not as an abstraction or thing - Oxford English Dictionary (selections).

Most of my work is the collection and delivery of goods the ownership of which is being transferred from one inanimate entity to another.  By contrast, the work is carried out by receiving the goods from an employee of one company and later having them signed for by an employee of another company.  I receive them from one person and give them to another person ... in that way, it's a personal service: rarely, if ever, does it take place without the passage of words - more likely a brief conversation - between us.

Some of the people I collect from are already known to me, like Martin, who used to be a fellow bell-ringer, and whom I sometimes encounter watching the same football match on a Saturday.  Others I have come to know through regular contact, some by name, like Shazad, who usually sends me on my way with a friendly comment like 'take care, mate!'; others simply by being the same face at the same door every time.  On the delivery side, regular jobs often involve meeting the same people each time I deliver there.  Sometimes a single delivery can generate conversation sufficient to warrant the parting greeting, 'see you again', or 'see you next time', even when there is little likelihood of my ever going there again.  Often peculiar situations make specific people or jobs easy to recall.  This week, for example, I delivered a piece of equipment to a dental practice in Liverpool.  It was heavy, and the occasion was memorable for the genial conversation between myself, the recipient, with whom I carried it from the van to the office, and his female assistant, who dealt with the doors.

I'm reminded of another dental delivery some months ago, this time for a different customer, and to a practice in Oswestry.  Here the goods consisted of a single box, less than 12" cube, but exceedingly heavy.  It was as much as I could do to lift it from the floor to the van.  When I arrived, the nearest I could park to the door was several yards away, and the comment that sprang into my mind, as I asked if there was someone who could carry it in, has lodged there ever since.  I said to the woman who answered the door, 'I don't know what's in that box, but it's far heavier than something that size has any right to be!'  The smile of sympathetic amusement that accompanied the reply, 'I'll fetch our young man,' underlines the personal nature of my work.

This line of thought was prompted by two separate incidents this week.  On Wednesday, I did a job for one of our oldest customers, whose goods are always fragile.  When he gave me the job the previous evening, the controller said, "I'm not sure I should tell you this, but they asked for you in particular to do it: 'can we have the man with the cross, please?' "  I have to explain that, for many years now, I have consistently worn a small wooden cross around my neck.  It is usually overlooked, perhaps thought of as a mere eccentricity, or unmentioned because of familiarity or for lack of something appropriate to say.  Occasionally, however, it attracts a passing comment like 'that's a nice cross', or a direct question, 'are you a Christian, then?' Sometimes it can introduce confusion when people assume - wrongly - that I wear it because I'm a priest.  Explanations can vary from complex, to embarrassing, to dismissive, according to the personalities involved.  In this case, it was a convenient means of personally identifying their preferred driver.

The second incident won't reach its conclusion until next Thursday, but already it is dominating the news bulletins to the point of exasperation.  I refer, of course, to the Referendum on Scottish Independence.  When it first arose, I think I considered the whole thing a bit of a nonsense; they've been part of the UK since 1707, why on earth should things change after over 300 years?  As 'R-Day' has drawn closer, however, and the debates have become more heated, I have found myself thinking more deeply about the matter. The 'magic' date of 1707 only marked the final union of the two parliaments; soon after his succession as King of England in 1603, James I (who as James VI had already been King of Scotland for over 35 years) was dreaming of the two kingdoms becoming one and declared himself to be King of Great Britain.   Against this, it is arguable that the countries themselves have never been one.  Scotland, for example, still has its own legal system which, though generally similar, is different in countless ways from that of England and Wales.

Listening to the most recent discussions on the radio - my constant companion on the road - I learn that the main thrust of the pro-independence argument is the claim that, despite once more having its own Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland still finds itself fundamentally governed from Westminster by a Parliament which does not reflect the political balance of the votes cast in Scotland.  Whatever additional powers might be granted to the Scottish Parliament in the event of a 'No' vote, this basic situation would still prevail, keeping Scotland subject to English domination and whim, very much like a colony, with its own control only over those matters that the dominant power decides to allow.

I find myself in sympathy with the 'Yes' side, and experience the same kind of feelings that characterise my deep, though unexplained, interest in all things Irish, of which I have written before in this blog.  I have questioned why this should be, since - at least as my family history researches have shown up to now - I'm English through and through.  The only thought that seems to stand further scrutiny is some kind of post-devolution envy. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each has its own assembly to control essentially domestic matters, but control of the corresponding domestic affairs of England are inextricably inter-woven within the legislature that governs the whole Union.  This lop-sided situation is unfair to England, which has never had its own exclusive parliament since the Act of Union (with Wales) in 1536; at the same time, it is unfair to the other parts of the UK, since it underlines the thought expressed above - if nowhere else - that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are but colonies, allowed to run certain things for themselves, but within strict limits defined by the motherland.

Everything is personal, whether it's the reaction of other people to me or with me, or mine to them, or the thoughts that clutter my mind on the road. Sooner or later it all comes out here in the blog, so watch this space for more personal revelations!

Holiday time!

It's felt like a holiday week . . . again!  Not just because of the weather (sweltering at 27-plus, with no air-con) which was cooler than last week's maximum (31), but for other reasons too.  Now, given that holiday time is when you do things you wouldn't normally do, how's this for starters?  On Sunday afternoon, with the decks all clear, I was wondering how to fill the time . . . yes, it does happen occasionally! . . . when the phone rang.  "I don't know if you'd be interested in this, Brian." (Of course you don't, I thought, that's why you've rung me: to find out.)  The weekend controller continued hesitantly, as is his wont, and offered me the chance of a trip to Glasgow. "Now?" I asked. "Well, it's ready now; needs to be there tonight."  A slight pause ensued, as I considered my situation.  I don't normally work on Sundays, with the exception of collecting something for delivery on Monday, but I had been to, and enjoyed, the normal Sunday service, and there was none planned in the evening.  "I'll take it!" I heard myself saying.

Thus it was that, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I drove down to Waltham Cross, collected two reels of film and subsequently presented myself at Cineworld just one street away from Glasgow's famous Sauchiehall Street that evening.  The consequence of that was that, after a few hours sleep and a refreshing bath, I had a decent interval in which to look back at my proper holiday and try to organise my many photos, before presenting myself in the office in time to collect my invoice for the last week's work.

Tuesday started with a couple of fairly local jobs, going no further than Buckinghamshire, and then another long period at home, during which those photos got finished.  Here are a couple of samples.

Guernsey - St Peter Port

Sark - La Coupée

Wednesday was quite relaxing, too.  I presented myself at our large pharmaceutical customer in Hoddesdon at 8.0am, and took an ailing pump to a specialist firm in Bradford for repair.  Sandwiched between delivery to a building site at Maidenhead railway station on Thursday morning, and taking some fuses to a Reading night club on Friday afternoon, the remainder of the week was a decent selection of regular work.

Then came another taste of holiday, as I took three kegs of ale to a hotel on the seafront at Hunstanton, completing the formalities just in time to cross the road to the chip shop as it was closing.  The proprietor stood at the door turning people away, but I deflected his protestation - quite justified - that there were no more chips left, and secured a portion of cod and a battered sausage, which sustained me quite adequately.

Last Saturday I witnessed for my first time a local football match in which each half was interrupted by a much-needed drinks break, and today I'm planning to go to another pre-season confrontation, this time in Nottinghamshire, where the visitors are Dereham Town, from my native Norfolk.  The home team, Shirebrook Town, play in a lower league but, as we all know, this is no guarantee of away success!

What makes the Humdrum Exciting

It's been one of those 'going nowhere special' weeks.  It hasn't been particularly uninspiring, though, and even the return journey on Tuesday for the one that I took on Monday to collect some paint from Cheltenham had its upside, because I was sent to a different address.  It wasn't inconceivable that the company had two sites in the town, after all; but when I got to the address I'd been given and found nothing there with the right name on it, Google had to be referred to.  Only one address appeared - the one I'd collected from. There was, however, a phone no., so I rang to locate these premises, and my growing suspicions were confirmed when the receptionist announced that they'd moved from there to where they are now ... over a year ago!  If only people could keep their records up to date, life more could be more efficient (and boring) for everyone!

Lots of little jobs filled the week, but amongst them all has been a strong sense of nostalgia.  For example, one day I collected from an engineering firm in Sandy.  Sandy as a town is very pleasant, by my estimation.  There is a busy shopping street, with many independent shops, and it always seems to be sunny when I go there, which keeps the rose-tinted specs bright and shiny! The fact that the railway station is slightly outside of the town is reminiscent of my native Diss - although it's not the boring mile-long walk away that Diss has to suffer. I suppose it's the way one thought leads to another, that Harleston came to mind.  About ten miles from Diss, it occupies another comfortable slot in my memory.

For four years in the 'seventies, I worked at an engineering firm there, whose premises have long since been demolished, and the site redeveloped.  When I deliver to or collect from such firms these days, I often recall my time there. They say that smell is the strongest of our five senses, and the whiff of lubricating oil on a milling machine brings memories flooding back.  Like the day when I visited one of the little offices on the shop floor with a query, and as I noted on my pad the answers I'd been given, the girl who'd provided them looked across and said, "Coo, haven't you got nice neat writing ... for a feller!"

At one time my immediate boss, Mr. S----ing, was given the additional responsibility of preparing accounts for a sister company nearby, which ran a foundry.  He spent several days there, over a period of weeks, setting up the necessary recording systems, and on one of these days the Finance Director came into our office to see him.  I reported his location and the FD (a patronising chap, always eager to create an impression) said to me in fatherly tones, "You see where things can lead, if you're bright, an' play your cards right.  Look at S----in' there, gone off costin' a foundry!"  From then on, I always paid attention when he was speakin' and noted that, if he thought he could be overheard, he would deliberately drop those g's in a quasi-aristocratic manner that encouraged ridicule rather than respect.

I don't have a TV, as I proudly declared to the licensing people when their regular update letter arrived last week.  Instead, when word of something interesting crosses my inbox, I note the details and, when I have the time, I watch it on the catch-up facility.  Thus came another dose of nostalgia this week as I watched the first part of 'Shop Girls' with Dr Pamela Cox.  The references to 'living over the shop', and the pronouncement that grocers were one of the last trades to relinquish the 'all male' tradition were very much in tune with my own family history, as I wrote about at some length on this blog a couple of years ago.  And if this weren't enough, I then got a second dose of the same thing when I listened to Robert Elmes' podcast of his programme on BBC London, where Dr Cox was one of his selected guests.

There were more memories yesterday evening, when I went to Guildford Hospital - or more to the point when I came home.  The M25 was its usual clogged self, and I decided to stop for a snack at Wisley Services, hoping that it would have cleared by the time I set off again.  This wasn't the case so, faced with a 26-minute delay and likely arrival time of 9.43pm, I opted to fight SatNav, and made my way straight up the M3 towards central London.  I travelled on some roads that I'd not been on for several years and, as one who had scarcely driven within the M25 before taking up this work twelve years ago, I was quite pleased with how much I remembered, and how I'd managed to navigate my way despite, rather than helped by, the electronic marvel on my windscreen.  I even surprised myself at one point by muttering, 'there used to be a scruffy factory along here somewhere, that I delivered to once ... oh, it must have been there, where that building site is!'  And I was home by 9.45, which I felt was a much better use of my time than sitting in a queue!

Now I'm looking forward to a Saturday afternoon with a difference, for tomorrow I shall spend two-and-a-half hours in church, not on my knees in prayer, but taking a small part in, and hoping to enjoy all of, a concert described as 'Tea and Entertainment'.  A party of young people from the church are off to Albania in a few weeks' time to support the work of one of our link missionaries, and the event is one of a number to raise funds to meet the costs of their expedition.  I was amazed to see from the programme that no less than eighteen people have volunteered to take part, providing about thirty items to enthrall those present.

It Never Rains but ... and it's Still Raining!

In the town where I grew up there was a soft drinks company named Doubleday.  Where that name came from I have no idea, but it comes back to me now as I review a few days of distinct ups and downs.  Best, as always, to begin at the beginning.  On Monday I had the usual enquiries from my friends at breakfast as to what I would be doing today, and unusually I was able to answer them positively.  Normally if there's a definite answer, then I'm already on the road, and not there to give it.  This Monday, however, I knew exactly where I'd be for most of the day, since the van was booked in for a service and MOT.  A couple of years ago I had an argument with a bollard on one of Tesco's car parks and come off second best, with the result that I've been driving around with a headlight that was fully functioning but with a cracked glass.  Gradually since that assault the interior has been gathering dust and damp, and has grown ever dimmer so, deciding that now should be the time to have a replacement, I was fairly sure that the whole sequence would take up most of the day . . . a day easily absorbed by my current family history project, once I'd completed my January accounts and submitted a VAT Return.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both good days, and went some way to compensating for the loss of income on Monday.  Tuesday began early with a local collection for Northampton, and goods to bring back to our customer in Letchworth, followed after only a brief interlude by a couple of local jobs.  I was nearly back from the second of these when I was diverted to collect from our office, where there is a small medical warehouse facility.  Three items were then taken to the Russell Hall Hospital in Dudley - another journey made easier by having done the exact same job five months ago - resulting in a return home about 9.45 pm.  I made straight for bed, resolving to do the daily admin when I got up.

As soon as I'd finished breakfast on Wednesday I rang in as available.  It was about 8.30, and I anticipated having an hour or more to record the doings of the past day and read through the e-mails and social media that had accumulated since Tuesday morning.  Not so.  Within about five minutes came a call asking me to collect something urgent for Oxford from a healthcare firm in town.  By the time I'd collected this, another job had come in for something to be taken from Welwyn Garden City to Didcot.  The visit to John Radclife Hospital in Oxford resolved a doubt I'd expressed a couple of weeks ago as to whether or not I'd been there before.  Clearly I hadn't, for I'm sure I should have remembered it, if only for the difficulty in finding the main entrance.

My goods were designated for the theatre, so having once found a reception desk and placed my enquiry I was distressed to learn that they had at least two operating theatres.  Since I had no indication which one I needed, it was agreed that I should be sent to 'main theatre', and followed the directions to the main entrance, which I had already bypassed in ignorance in my original search.  Once there, the staff were very helpful, and examined the goods I'd brought, in order to determine their application.  On discovering that these bore the critical word 'paediatric', they sent me further afield to the Children's Theatre, escorted for convenience by a member of staff, whose swipe card could gain access through the otherwise securely closed doors.  Once the delivery had been completed, I was then escorted in the opposite direction to recover my van at the main entrance.  Taking into consideration the length of the corridors, and the speed and energy of my escort, I felt I'd had this week's workout by the time I set off for Didcot!

After negotiating an alternative route to avoid a road closed owing to floods, I had almost reached home when the almost dreaded call came, sending me immediately onto another job.  This involved collecting a small bundle of timber from Hitchin for a public house just outside Nottingham.  I'd just picked this up when another call announced that a customer in Letchworth had a small parcel for Leicester (which turned out to be a large box of plastic trays - bulky but lightweight).  This was definitely two days in one, and by now the rain had settled in for the night, although it was still only about 3.0 pm.  An accident on the M1 caused a diversion on the way up, and the road conditions made it slow going anyway, so I was getting a little anxious that all the staff would have gone home by the time I arrived at my destination.  In the event the manager was looking out for me; the door opened just as I pulled up outside and, by the time I'd completed my paperwork after making the delivery, he had secured the premises and driven off himself!

On then to Arnold, where the Greyhound Inn is being refurbished.  By good fortune I had the phone number for someone involved in the operation, and a quick call resulted in a door opening to indicate how access was to be obtained.  Another late night ensued, and at 10.30, it was time for bed when I got home.  When I got up on Friday morning I already felt tired, and decided that a couple of local jobs would satisfy me quite nicely to end the week.  So this time, I didn't ring in after breakfast to say I was available.  In fact, I didn't need to, because the phone had already rung before I'd finished my cereal!

Friday was already under way.  I managed to squeeze in a little essential admin before I was sent to Luton, following which I was summoned once more for the next job before returning home.  This time I collected from Stevenage for Rochford, to deliver to badly-identified premises on an industrial estate behind Southend airport.  I confess, I didn't hurry home, was then conveniently given a job to start off next week, and felt confident in beginning my weekend routines.  When the controller rang at 5.45, to ask if I would be able to do another job that evening, I was pleased at the way I confined my response to a polite but firm 'No,' following this with the advice that, since two late nights had robbed me of two evenings, I needed to catch myself up before embarking on a busy weekend.

And so it is; my busy weekend has already begun with a follow-up to that MOT: a tyre check that reveals the need for a new set of four!

Genies and other Spirits

After working in the same job for nearly twelve years, you get to 'know the ropes'.  I have said before, two or three words can be sufficient to tell me where to collect, what I shall be collecting, where it will be going, and provide a fair indication of who I shall meet at the delivery point.  We certainly know something of the business of our regular customers.  Monday's collection was a case in point.  Although I hadn't done any work for them for some while, I had a fair idea, from the fact that the collection was from a hotel, that it would be promotional material of some kind.  Often we are called upon to attend before and after an exhibition, conference or sales gathering, delivering and collecting banners, literature for hand-outs, and so on.

In this case the name of our customer added a different twist for, while it may not be their sole activity, this particular firm uses us to service whisky tasting events.  So my collection was the remaining spirits, and all the paraphernalia used on such an occasion.  When I delivered it, I commented that some of the boxes were empty, and was told that this is their normal practice, so that they can be re-filled for the next occasion.  It seemed a praiseworthy nod to the business of recycling.  So it was that the 'repeating genie', of which I have spoken much over the years, sent me back to this customer on Thursday, to collect some of those same boxes, now checked, replenished, re-labelled and secured, and deliver them to a certain café in Cheshire, the proprietor of which would be hosting a tasting event that evening.

The 'repeating genie', so-called, has also been active this week in other directions.  On Monday, after my post-whisky-tasting collection, I was assigned a local job, collecting instructions and paperwork from our customer in Letchworth, collecting the goods on his behalf from his supplier in Luton, and delivering these four miles away in nearby Dunstable.  On Wednesday, one of a number of local jobs - fillers while waiting for something more significant - was a repeat of the very same sequence.

Back to the subject of booze.  One of our customers is a beer, wine and spirits wholesaler, and on a Friday afternoon it's quite often the case that we get sent to a distant pub with urgent liquid provisions in advance of a special event, or simply to fill in because their own drivers have left off or have no hours left in the week.  I was surprised, therefore, to be sent there on Tuesday in order to take some wine and a cask of ale to a hotel in Norwich.  But the week's drink theme doesn't end there.

I've spoken about getting to know our customers' businesses.  One advertising firm seems to specialise in the beauty trade, but I was taken aback on Friday to be sent to a distribution centre to make a collection on their behalf and to be presented with . . . four cases of whisky!  No questions asked, of course.  As long as they get what they ask for, delivered safely and promptly, our service is completed, and our interest at an end (except for side-views such as this blog, that is!)

And finally, a word about genies of a different kind.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about a cousin in the US, from whom I had received lots of information to add to my own family tree.  We are fourth cousins, which means that she is descended from a sibling of my great-great-grandmother.  The operation of amalgamating her data with my own therefore fell into two distinct parts. First came the exploration of my great-great-great-aunt's family, leading down to my cousin.  This week I'm feeling not a little satisfied to have finished this first, and possibly greater, part of the task.  Now I move on to phase two, looking back to the earlier generations, ancestors which we both share. Needless to say, there is less information about people born in the 18th and early 19th centuries, so the immediate challenge will be smaller, although there is that ever-open door leading deeper into history!

Bacon Breakfast Bonanza!

It's nice when one job runs on to the next, with no time wasted in between.  That's how this week started. My first delivery had to be in Horsham by 8.0, so I opted out of the church breakfast in order to miss the worst of the traffic build-up, and stand some chance of getting there on time.  While this aim was successful, I didn't find anywhere nearby to get any breakfast, so my tummy had to wait for satisfaction until I got to Stevenage, where I knew the search would be successful.  The phone went just as I got into the van armed with a bacon roll ... a collection in Letchworth for Doncaster, the start of quite a successful week.

As I waited for my invoice in the afternoon, I was assigned the delivery on Tuesday morning of something that was then being collected from north London, so I went home to await a call from the driver when he had arrived with it.  This being done, I was free to join the ringers in the evening, where we practiced a more advanced method, which was in fact new to some, with the promise of a more demanding variation of it to follow this week, if the right people are there.

The second of four 'outside' breakfasts of the week was more assured, for I knew there would be a convenient facility parked outside a public house, just off the M6.  Again I was summoned as I drove home, and when I called into the office (this being on the way), I was given details of two jobs that took up the remainder of my day.  I'm amazed at the differing ways two minds can assess the same situation.  As I collected the second of these, which was going to the village of Enstone in Oxfordshire, I asked whether Lotus F1, the consignee, was a new identity of Renault, to whom I had made many deliveries in Enstone in former times.  "Oh no," I was told, "This is down a tiny lane, and when you think there's nothing down here, and you wonder whether you've got the wrong road, all of a sudden it opens up and there's the security gate!"  I agreed, then, that this couldn't be the same place, because I recalled the entrance to the Renault site being right beside the road in open countryside. It was, though - the very place to which I had been before, now re-designated, but essentially the same as it ever was!

Wednesday's breakfast was the forerunner to a somewhat hectic, and rather aggravating morning.  I had two jobs, the first being to deliver some display material to the East Midland Conference Centre on the campus of Nottingham University, within a 30-minute pre-8.0 window.  With a bit of target-time-management, the second one ought to have been almost achievable, an 8.0 collection at Bilsthorpe, some 20 miles away.  I left in good time, snatched an 'eat-as-you-go' breakfast at an M1 service station, and all went well, until I left the motorway.  I'd heard that the Nottingham rush-hour is horrendous; I was aware of roadworks on the A453, so wasn't surprised that SatNav took me up to the next junction to enter via the A52, which was, in fact, a more direct route to my destination.  Even so, I was totally unprepared to take over an hour for the last five miles or so of the journey!

The day's disasters had only begun.  I arrived 35 minutes late, with four parcels, two of which were beyond my power even to remove from the van (I'd watched two quite young men struggle to get them on board the previous afternoon!) to find that the marquee where the event was to be held was empty, apart from the designated stand frames.  There was no one about, apart from another driver, similarly confounded.  Luckily he responded to my plea for help, and we carted these items inside.  I was relieved of any obligation to reciprocate by the fact that he had a colleague with him, and instead departed into the traffic once more to make my way to the day's second challenge.  I was chased by phone calls every few minutes until I arrived at 9.45, to be confronted by the apologetic news that the goods weren't yet ready - they'd be about another hour!  I've no idea what had been going on behind the scenes, but I was then told that there had been an exchange of phone calls the previous afternoon to explain that the goods ought be ready by 10.0, and that therefore the courier (me!) should be deferred until that time.  Talk about panic for nothing!

I called the office when I left, a little before 11.0, and then quite enjoyed my drive down to north London, interrupted by only one phone call, just as I'd re-fuelled at Colsterworth services.  It was a relief to deliver in a pleasant cul-de-sac to builders who had been forewarned of the traumas of my morning, and were understanding of the delays to their consignment.

Thursday was much more relaxed, and more amusing than annoying.  As I recall it, I'm reminded of Noel Murphy's song about a hod of bricks.  It started with breakfast at home, and a nice convenient pair of jobs, to Sunbury-on-Thames and Basingstoke.  As I came home round the M25 I was called to change direction and make for Surrey, where there was a collection for Colnbrook.  I'd got about as far as the A30 exit, when another call told me that this job had been cancelled, so would I like to turn round again and head home.  No sooner had I got beyond the M40 exit for the second time, than a third phone call apologised profusely, and turned me around once more - the job was back on!  It then proceded smoothly, apart from the fact that it was a job on behalf of a customer in Hertfordshire, and their supplier, from whom I was collecting, didn't have the address of their customer, where I had to deliver ... and there was no mobile signal there, so I had to stop just before I got back onto the motorway to call the office for the address!

After all this, Friday seemed quite tame, with an early morning delivery in Huntingdon, followed by three nice easy local runs, one after the other, which took up the rest of the day, until I was assigned a couple of modest jobs for tomorrow, beginning with an 8.30 collection, which will enable me to enjoy breakfast with my fellows at church first.

Dipping and Dodging

One aspect of the life of a courier that appeals to me, as a seasoned 'people-watcher', is the way that I dip into and out of other people's lives.  As I do so, I sometimes find myself wondering if a system works.  Or put another way, looking back at my own experiences in business and industry, I wonder whether there is actually a system in place to achieve what common sense tells me is essential.  I mean, if you receive a delivery of goods, it seems to me two things are critical.  Firstly, the goods have to find their way from the person who receives them on behalf of the company to the person who is going to use them; and secondly the individual who will eventually initiate payment for these goods has to be told by some means or other that they have actually been received, and that therefore payment is justified.

Take last Monday for example.  I made a delivery to a hospital in Birmingham.  The box I took had been used several times for, although it bore a number of labels on it, in varying degrees of wear and obliteration, it didn't carry any indication of the individual or department to whom its present contents were consigned.  These details were written on a separate, un-headed sheet that was given to me when I collected it.  The gentleman at the receiving point signed my sheet to confirm a successful delivery, and his body language indicated that our business was then at an end.  I offered the paper I'd been given, saying, "there isn't a name on it, do you want to note who it's for?"  His smiling reply almost sent me reeling.  "No need.  I know who it's for by the shape of the box!"  Knowledge is a wonderful thing, I mused as I drove away, but what if he were to fall beneath the proverbial bus during his lunch-break?

This week I first had a Suffolk day, and then an Essex day, each of which was satisfying, because there were no hold-ups. I could go, deliver and return with no hindrance at all.  There was also a glimpse of the seaside, too, as I ended up on Tuesday morning just yards from Lowestoft's seafront.  I had gone there to collect some samples for a laboratory in Letchworth.  I'd taken a couple of big metal boxes in which to carry them, and my contact carefully - almost gingerly - brought them forth from a locked room: a number of plastic boxes that he handled wearing bright blue safety gloves.  Once they were loaded, and the metal containers securely fastened, we carefully lifted these back into my van, and I drove back very steadily, least there should be any spillage of the liquids from the plastic boxes, which reminded me of ice cream tubs or margarine cartons.  Upon arrival at our customer, the containers were eagerly removed by two members of staff and, while one signed to acknowledge their receipt, the other was already opening the first container, and then one of the plastic boxes, which he had lifted out with his bare hands.  I had to presume that he was aware of the nature of what he was handling, but I found this a distinct contrast to the care and caution of the man who had loaded them just a short time previously.  Realising that this was none of my business, just like the 'knowledge-rather-than-documentation' attitude I'd encountered a week earlier, I departed for my next job.

The next day, I found myself driving down a lane completely shrouded by trees, and narrow enough to need passing places every few hundred yards.  About three miles after leaving a 'normal' road, I turned into a farmyard that had now been converted into a trading estate, to make my delivery of labels.  There were over a dozen units, built inside (or carved out of, depending on your point of view) a number of long, low buildings accessed by wide concrete roadways.  Piles of boxes, and pallets of more boxes, stood around as if just delivered, and in the warm summer sunshine a gentle breeze was blowing a thin layer of dust over everything.  It wasn't exactly unpleasant, but I had a distinct feeling that I wouldn't like to be working on any kind of permanent basis in such an isolated and untidy location.

By complete contrast, on Thursday I was sent to an establishment to which, in a past life, I'd often addressed communications.  I'd never dreamed of one day visiting Companies House in Crown Way, Cardiff.  Whenever I'm called to go to south Wales on a job that isn't so desperately urgent that an extra half hour or so is critical, I prefer to avoid the M4.  For one thing, it's such a long and boring road, and for another, there is the ever-increasing cost of the toll at the Severn crossing.  Normally, the journey time is only a little longer, and cost of the fuel to cover the additional distance is far less than the toll fee.  On this occasion, I did question my wisdom when I found myself sitting in a queue of traffic on the A40 waiting to turn off for the Monmouthshire Show.  At last I could find cool, if brief, freedom from the sun in the Gibraltar Tunnel, and the rest of the journey proceeded unhindered.

The return journey wasn't free from hold-up either.  I had noted that there were no northbound queues at Monmouth, but SatNav had indicated that there were significant delays on the A46 near Leamington; not wanting to use the M6, for fear of further delay in traffic, I opted for a slower but shorter and at least constantly moving route through Birmingham.  Indications that the tunnels around the city centre were closed prompted further diversion, and then a wrong turning led me to the M6 I'd sought to avoid, but when I reached the M1 I felt I home sweet home would not be long now.  Wrong!  An accident near Northampton held me up yet again, before I could finally declare the day closed.

Friday was more like a normal end-of-month story, with a collection from Rushden for an engineering firm in Sandy, and then a little run over to Luton, before I finally reached the head of the list, and was despatched to an address in Hoddesdon to collect a couple of cases for a stand at the NEC.  I'd been warned that there would be no one there when I arrived, so I nearly took the longer and less likely to be congested route via the A10 and A14.  SatNav prevailed, though, but nearly went out of the window when I found myself in yet another motorway queue halfway up the M1!  When I arrived, I felt a little conspicuous pushing two bulky cases under the protective screen erected and fastened around the display area, but a reassuring smile from a security guard who had watched the complete procedure, offered me welcome relief.  It would have rounded the week off rather badly to find myself accused, however innocently, of planting explosive devices in a public place!

Yesterday, having dipped into and out of many different lives in the course of an average week, I indulged in a bit of 'third party' dipping.  One of the many football teams whose fortunes I follow is Walsham le Willows, who play with my native Diss Town in the premier division of the East Anglian League.  A couple of weeks ago they played in the extra-preliminary round of the FA Cup, and were beaten by Tower Hamlets from the Essex Senior League.  Had they won, they would have visited Southern League's Harlow Town in the next round, and I'd planned to go to nearby Harlow to watch them there.  I decided to stick to my plan, and watched the match anyway.  Rather than feeling the satisfaction of revenge, however, my sympathy for underdogs came to the fore, and I was rather sorry to see Tower Hamlets beaten 3-0 in a game that I felt was closer than the score line implied.