Slices of Life ... and Death

It's been strangely symetrical, this holiday week ... and I do call this one a 'holiday' week, rather than simply one when I've been retired rather than working, because in many ways it has been my summer holiday ... even if I may have one or more such trips before the end of the season.  It began with the news that, early on Sunday morning, one of the stalwarts of our church had died.  She had been ill for some while, so it was not unexpected, but even so, it came as a shock to many of us when the announcement was made.

All my preparations were made, and all I had to do after the service was to return home, swap vehicles and within an hour I was setting off on my travels.  The week took me to three caravan and camping sites, each different from the others, carrying with it its own atmosphere and experiences for me.  I had planned that, staying two nights at each site, I would make an excursion during the full day there to some other place of interest.  In the event, two of these extra visits were made on the way to the respective sites, and the third was simply abandoned.  Coincidentally, all three site names begin with 'B'.

From Blackshaw Grange, near Leek, Staffs., I had planned to use two bus services to get to Leek and then to Ashbourne, but I realised that since time was on my side, it would be just as easy to make my visit on the Sunday afternoon.  My aim was the Airfield Industrial Estate, to see whether there were any remaining evidence of the former airfield, since it was there that my cousin was based during the Second World War, and he had left there as a volunteer for the mission that claimed his life on D-Day.  Since the airfield was closed about sixty years ago, and has since been slowly but surely taken over by industry, relics were few and far between.  It was as well that I did go on Sunday, because Monday was wet all day, and I got to know the inside of my motorhome very well indeed!

A pitch beneath the trees

The site at Blackshaw Grange is a small one run by the Camping and Caravanning Club, within sight of the open moorland.  The facilities are in stone-walled buildings which look authentic, but are probably purpose-built in sympathy with the countryside around.  It felt homely, the staff were helpful, and the only problem was picking a pitch under the trees, so that it sounded as if it were raining, even when it wasn't!

Haymaking at Llanuwchllyn

On Tuesday morning I set out for my second 'B' - Bwch-yn-Uchaf, at Llanuwchllyn, near the southern tip of Llyn Tegid, also known as Lake Bala.  This is part of a working farm, and when I arrived haymaking was in progress.  It's situated between river and railway line, with Afon Twrch on the left, and the Bala Lake Railway on the right.  I was the only visitor at that time, and was sited back to the fence of the station, so I could see and hear all the comings and goings with no effort at all.  It was interesting, too, to chat to the proprietor of the site and hear of all his plans for the future, to maximise all the attributes his land has to offer.

I had planned while there to drive round the lake to see a new development at Llanycil on the northern side, but like Sunday, I realised that I would be passing this on my way, with time to stop, so to do so would avoid the need to secure everything in the motorhome in order to drive round the next day. The place I visited was called Mary Jones World, and I shall be writing about this in the next few days on my other blog, Gospel Around Us, so to find out more, visit http://gospelaroundus.blogspot.co.uk/ and look out for "So who was Mary Jones?".

The site at Bwch-yn-Uchaf (the name means 'The Highest Buck', I think) was a little more primitive than the bespoke club sites, but the facilities were clean and adequate, and on reflection I think it was, for me at least, the most pleasant of the three locations.

Thursday found me at the other end of the spectrum, as I arrived at a large club site on the outskirts of Kidderminster, a place with rolling neatly-trimmed grass slopes, dotted over which were caravans and motorhomes, great and small, with the occasional tent hidden amongst the awnings.  I chose a pitch back to the hedge, but made sure I wasn't under a tree!  This wouldn't have mattered, because the weather was fine and for the most part sunny, too.  The site, called Brown Westhead Park, while busy and commercial, boasting information and recreation rooms as well as all the expected facilities - which were spotlessly clean! - wasn't at all impersonal, as I found when I had a couple of small problems, which were dealt with both promptly and thoroughly.

While there, I had planned to take a look at the Severn Valley Railway, whose terminus is next to the main line station at Kidderminster, but in the event, realising that the bus tmes were somewhat inconvenient, I decided to walk into the town.  Having done so, my thoughts were elsewhere than on the railway, my first purpose being to locate the departure point of a bus back to the site, since I had no desire to walk back again!  I found the centre somewhat characterless in its newness, but clearly a good place to shop.

On my way home today, I planned to visit my cousin in Birmingham, the sister of the one who had been based at RAF Ashbourne.  On leaving Brown Westhead Park, I made my way through the Worcestershire countryside to the southern suburbs of the city, to the last address I had for my cousin.  A strange face met  me at the door, and this lady explained that, not only had my cousin and her husband moved into a care home some while ago, but also that, since then, they had both died!  We had not been close - the distance and lack of transport had meant that no one else from Norfolk had visited them, although they had made the trip in the opposite direction many times over the years - but this would have been my fourth visit in twenty years, and I was quite fond of her.  She was only a few years younger than my mother and, being my father's eldest neice, she had provided some interesting insights into the family's life between the wars.  I now have an address for her son, and this might be a source of more information in the months to come.

Rolling, neatly-trimmed grass slopes:
Brown Westhead Park

Family Matters

It seemed like the end of an era.  I learned last week that my late cousin's widower had died.  This week's post brought a neat, handwritten card from their daughter, advising me of this fact, and also relating the death last month of another cousin, whom I hadn't seen for years, but who was still on my Christmas card list ... something that seems to govern regular, albeit rare and inexpressive communication between distant friends and family members.  As I've got older, this topic has ceased to be a morbid one, and if you find it so, dear reader, then I can only apologise.

Even in this clinical and post-modern age, death is inescapable ... and especially so in big families.  My father was the eighth of nine to survive infancy from a family of twelve.  Two of his siblings didn't marry, two more didn't have children, and the other four had a total of twelve children between them.  I remember him making a comment - probably in the mid-1970s - that there seemed to have been family funerals every year for ages. This wasn't actually the case; in fact there were five deaths of either siblings or in-laws in the '60s, and four in the '70s, but with two in three months at the end of 1976, it must have felt that way to him, and as he got older, he must have been wondering when his turn would come.  He lived another ten years.  The death of his youngest sister in 2002 ended that generation.

As the son of a youngest son, my birth was followed in almost annual succession by the first three daughters of the next generation, as the grandchildren of my father's eldest siblings began to arrive.  It was one of these three who had written to me this week.  I believe it was her mother, just over two years ago, who was the first death of the next, i.e my, generation.  I can't be certain about that, because there are - or were - a number of cousins with whom I have had no contact for decades.

The man who has just died, although not a blood relative, played a significant part in my early life, as I indicated in an earlier post of this blog. He and his colleague Geoffrey not only ran the shop where I spent much of my spare time in my mid-teens, but were also good friends outside of work, being two of the leading lights in the town's Cage-Bird Society, and their Autumn Show was an annual highlight for a bored schoolboy, albeit one who had no interest in birds.

One thing that does intrigue me I only discovered in the last few years.  I wonder whether Cyril had any idea that there was possibly a distant and contorted link between his colleague and his wife's family.  It appears that Geoffrey's aunt's second marriage was to the great-nephew by marriage of Cyril's wife's great-aunt.

What a small world we live in!

Mixed Fare

Everyone has two sets of grandparents (in theory, at least), and most people have countless cousins of one degree or another.  However, in my childhood there was one grandad, since the other one had died scarcely a year after I was born, and I never knew him.  Likewise, there was only one cousin, to my early knowledge, she being the daughter of my mother's sister, for I had never met any others.  So, when I talk of 'my cousin', with no supplementary description, it is this one to whom I still refer.

My cousin has a habit of tackling puzzles.  She claims - and I believe her - that to use the mind and keep it 'sharp' will prolong its usefulness as we advance into old(er!) age.  So it was, prompted by I know not what, that I was doing mental arithmetic in my bath this morning, and have determined that, on 17th April, i.e. in just under three weeks' time, I shall have reached the precise age that the aforesaid grandfather had on the day that I was born.

I thought I'd share these musings, dear reader, because there is little to tell of the working week that preceded them.  It was good, and reasonably productive, but there were few highlights.  The traffic was so bad on the M25 on Monday morning, that the week got off to a very bad start.  I had thought that an extra half-hour ought to be enough to allow me to get to Camberley for 7.30, but I eventually arrived at 8.35!  As I made my profuse apologies, my ears seemed to hear music, for I was kindly, but promptly told that had I arrived at 7.30, there would have been no one there!  This was followed by a puzzled enquiry what it was that I was hoping to collect, for they had not requested a collection.  Eventually all was made clear, that I was there to correct an error made by another courier company on the previous Friday, by picking up a parcel they had delivered by mistake, and take it where it should have gone.  Why people can't correct their own mistakes, I don't understand!

On Tuesday came a job that I was determined would not be late!  Last time I did this run, from Baldock to Slough, I had been diverted to another job, and then delayed by an accident along the way, so that delivery had come a massive five hours after collection.  So, I was on the doorstep promptly at 8.0, had no holdups at all, and had remembered that the entrance to the destination building was on a different road, which had added a further five minutes to my time on the last occasion!

The biggest job of the week - nay, of the year, I think - came to me on Wednesday, when I was given a box to be delivered between 8.0 and 9.0 the following morning in a tiny place called Cwmfelinfach.  You will have already concluded that this is in Wales; in fact it's not far from Newport, but is more easily reached from the north than by going into the town.  This justified, if justification were necessary, my normal decision to go to south Wales via the M1 and Ross-on-Wye rather than the M4 and the Severn tolls.

Somewhere in the distant past, I've heard a saying about sleep and late night habits, 'one hour before eleven is worth two after.'  This certainly proved true on this occasion.  I had made my preparations and was into bed on Wednesday evening by about 8.0, only to wake up just before 10.0.  As is often the case when I try to shunt my night's sleep forward a few hours, I was awake again by 1.0am, and only really dozed after that.  By 2.50, I decided to get up rather than toss and turn for another half-hour until the alarm should go off.  When I did leave, at about 3.30, I didn't stop at all until I got to Monmouth, and didn't need any delay for a doze.  Although unnecessary for financial reasons (the toll is payable going into Wales, but not coming back to England), I decided to return the same way, and stopped at the High Noon services on the A40 just north of Monmouth for breakfast. I've been there before, and enjoy the tranquility and the super view of the hills between the road and the Wye.

Amazingly, I was spotted on my way back by the office at Warwick, who invited me to choose between two jobs for which they would like to enlist my help.  These were two of a whole cluster to be picked up at a warehouse near the A5 in Lutterworth, going to a variety of destinations across a swathe of the midlands.  The choice I had was either Derby and Mansfield, or Nottingham, so partly because of the distance, and partly because I know the place better, I chose Nottingham, and was rewarded in that what appeared on paper to be two deliveries, were in fact to the very same building.

As if to bear out the truth of that saying, I arrived back in Letchworth about 4.30, and wasn't even feeling tired!  Sadly, the same can't be said of today, however, after a day's bell-ringing.  In our annual spring outing, we visited six churches, none more than a dozen miles from home, but with bells either heavier or harder work - sometimes both - than our own, it proved quite an exhausting, if enjoyable day.

Now for a work-free week in which to recover!

Looking Back

After commenting - some readers might suggest I was complaining, but I did say that slackness was typical of early January - that there wasn't much work last week, this week has brought much more in terms of both variety and overall activity.

I have often said over the last twelve years that I could never go back to an office job.  The excitement of not knowing until the last minute what I'm going to do next, and yet being confident in my basic ability to deal with whatever it might be, was the very thing that evoked my delight in the first place, and has maintained it ever since.  This wouldn't suit everyone ... and doesn't!  Some try it for a week or two and are not seen again; others hear of certain regular jobs and negotiate to be allocated to them, or else have already made it plain that this would suit them better, should such an opportunity arise.

For example, one of my colleagues a few years ago, whose family circumstances it suited, liked to start work every morning from about 6.0 knowing that he would be home most days from about 3.30, or at least by then he'd know for certain what time he would return.  From time to time, customers ask for someone to perform a specific run early each morning, and Peter was often assigned to these tasks.  Once he went on a fortnight's holiday and I was asked to stand in for him.  The particular job he was doing at the time involved collecting boxes from an office in Welwyn Garden City at 6.30 am, taking them to a similar office in Wokingham, and bringing back the empties from previous days.  The task was simple and straightforward, but by the end of the first week, I was yearning for his return, even though I was back home by mid-morning and that the rest of the day brought the variety I craved.

Another such regular job, which has been performed daily since long before I joined the team, consists of providing an internal mail service between the many sites operated by our local college.  There were always a small number of drivers who knew this run, and I was invited to become one of them soon after I arrived on the scene, although I was clearly a 'reserve', since records indicate that I performed it only 34 times in just over two years.  I hadn't been asked to do it for almost ten years ... until this week, when one of the current 'regulars' was in France, another was already committed, and the third had pressing family business that required his absence from work for a day.  Who, then, could the controller turn to but ...?  I was asked to undergo a verbal update via a phone call to the one who would be away, and learned of a couple of new twists to the routine, but in some ways it was just like turning the clock back.

Talking of clocks in reverse gear, three other things have happened this week that fall into that category.  First was the appearance on facebook of the school photo from 1969.  This was the year after I'd left the establishment, but naturally most of the faces were familiar, and it was interesting - and not a little embarrassing - to discover that some of those names that I ascribed to unlabelled faces, I then found had been correctly applied to a different face on another page!

Then the local paper published a picture from five years earlier of the pupils at one of the primary schools in the town.  Although this wasn't the school I had attended, I did recognise some of the faces as belonging to children from my own street, or who had appeared later at the high school when I was there.

Full credit for the final ocurrence of 'historic' significance should go to my 'number one cousin', who spotted the remarkable coincidence of two sur-names from our family history appearing in the same obituary column.  I have identified one of them as being the widow of our fourth cousin, and in so doing I discovered a number of details in my records that still require verification, along with more recent relatives from the newspaper announce-ment who can now be added to the family tree.  As to the other lady, further investigation is required to link her family - whom I have now traced back to the late 19th century - to that of our great-great-grandfather.

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!

Off the Pitch!

"Thass bin a funny ow week!" as my mother might have said.  A funny (in the sense of strange) week indeed.  Let's look at work for a start: 18 jobs, which is quite good, but apart from one - which I'll tell you about in a moment - only one other was over 60 miles, so it wasn't a particularly profitable week.  Most of its highlights came 'off the pitch', to steal a footballing metaphor.

On Monday, as I returned from a hospital run to Addenbrooke's in Cambridge, via a collection from another hospital in Peterborough, Dave my controller rang me because he couldn't track me on his computer and wondered how I was getting on.  Apparently the goods I'd collected were quite urgently required for another hospital.  I took advantage of the call to seek a meeting with him about my retirement, and was told, "come in any time."  I decided to strike while the iron was hot, and after delivering to our customer in Letchworth, I visited the office.

Over the last few weeks I've been playing with figures, to come up with a plan for a 'graduated retirement'.  I've heard many tales of men at this age. One week is work as normal, the next week ... nothing!  And how do they cope with a change to life that can seem like falling off a cliff?  Some find it no problem, with hobbies and outside interests that easily expand to fill the vacant hours.  Others have been so wrapped up in work that life suddenly seems empty.

My father for instance, after a lifetime working on the farm, had quite upset my mother, getting under her feet as he wandered to and fro, not feeling needed in the home.  He quickly found a part-time job at a nearby nursery, where the owner had engaged quite a number of ex-farm workers, who provided agreeable company for each other alongside their work.  Another man, whom I knew quite well, was a church organist; he and his wife were childless, and had plans to travel after he had retired.  Only a few months after he had finished work at an office in the town, he had gone to church early one Sunday to practise the day's music, and was found dead at the organ later in the morning.

I have no desire to be killed off by a sudden change in the pattern of life!  So I'm planning to spend the next two years 'in decline', so to speak.  Rather than simply retract to a four-day week, as some have done, I'm thinking of a working/retired 'sandwich', working full weeks, but not so many of them, and interspersing these with periods of other activity.  Fine plans were - and still are - in the making, but the key requirement had yet to be obtained. Would it be acceptable to work like this?  Hence the meeting with Dave.  It went just as I'd predicted.  I presented him with my plans, we exchanged a few words of explanation, reference was made to his being well satisfied with my work, and within minutes were were talking about the football team that he manages in his spare time!  This formality over, my plans have been taken to a more detailed degree this week, as I've tried to finalise my financial needs and arrangements.

As our meeting took place, telephones were ringing in all directions, and there were frequent interruptions from colleagues.  One call had announced that the customer to whom I had just delivered needed something taken that evening to the far side of Bristol, so as I took my leave I said to Dave, "Can I be cheeky and suggest that I go round to <customer's name>?"  He smiled and replied, "Good idea!" - it was the best job of the week!

With so many jobs this week, there have also been a number of convenient slots between them in which I've been able to keep up with 'stuff' that has piled up on other fronts.  One morning I had just listened to the morning service on my way home, and decided that I really ought to give some thought to my assigned task of leading the prayers in church on Christmas Day.  I'd just added the final full stop to my draft as the PDA by my side beeped to announce the next job!

On another day, the podcast of an excellent talk by Audrey Collins at the National Archives inspired some notes of possible lines of research to discover what my uncles were doing in the First World War, which I hastily scribbled before the next job arrived!  Survivors with common names are among the most difficult to trace, and following up these ideas might utilise one of the first creeping fingers of my retirement!

As my geography teacher once told his class, "The land is like life itself, if it doesn't change, it dies!" - wisdom not wasted!

Things Recalled, Things Remembered

It's been another week of triumph for the Genie, in both regular and novel modes.  I've lost count of the number of times I've thought to myself, 'here again! Genie at work!'.  Then, yesterday, came a new guise.  Four times in succession, I was misled by SatNav, the electronic marvel who isn't the all-seeing eye we think him to be.  The day started in darkness, with a 6.30 collection of pharmaceutical samples for pre-noon delivery in a variety of locations.  I was one of three drivers attacking this task, and was assigned Watford and West Molesey.  In Watford, just as day was dawning (although one could be excused for not noticing this fact, owing to the torrential rain!), I was directed to a private estate of executive houses, which I knew instinctively was going to be wrong, because these goods are usually sent to warehouses or distribution centres.  In fact, although I didn't recognise the name, it was a large establishment I'd visited before, about two streets away.

On, then, to West Molesey, where I found myself on an industrial estate, but sent to a dead end, with the roof of the place I wanted peeking cheekily from the adjacent road over those immediately before me.  On the way home, I was diverted from the M25 for another job, collecting from Uxbridge for a specialist aviation repair firm near Southend.  My collection was from a well-known logistics firm where I recalled being held up for some while waiting for goods on a previous occasion.  There was no change from this yesterday but, before I could enjoy this experience, I had to overrule the instruction to take the previous turning!  As I keyed in my final journey, for the delivery in Rayleigh, I had the feeling. 'this one isn't going to be right, either!'  The delivery note told me 'Claydons Lane', but when presented with the postcode I'd been given, SatNav had come up with 'Rat Lane' which, although adjacent, required me to drive around the block a second time, and then make a verbal enquiry, before I could see my target.

So much for routine.  There is nothing routine about a famous star of the silver screen reaching the age of 80.  Twice this week, on Tuesday and Thursday, I was sent to my East Anglian homeland. On Tuesday to Hadleigh and Ipswich, and on Thursday closer to 'home', to the village of Hoxne, where I was to collect a guitar autographed by a famous singer-songwriter.  As I drove along the A14 on Thursday morning I was thrilled to find myself listening to the first item on Woman's Hour, as Jenni Murray interviewed Sophia Loren about her 'fairy tale life'.  You can hear the interview on the BBC website here.

Why did this so delight me, you may ask, and especially why so as I travelled towards the area where I grew up?  Many possible explanations come to mind, ranging from 'coat-tail clinging' through 'name-dropping' to 'stealing glory that belongs elsewhere'.  I prefer to think of it as simply pride to be associated, however tenuously, with such a romantic story.  My link is this.  Apart from the fact that she was an immigrant to our rural community, my mother-in-law had two other claims to fame.  One was that her birthplace was mentioned in the Bible (Acts 28:13), albeit in a variant form of the name; the other was that, while she was growing up in Pozzuoli, and serving as a Sunday School teacher, in her class had been the future Sophia Loren.

My mother-in-law, long widowed, died in the spring of last year, and our lives had been lived far apart for the last thirty years or so, but I have often recalled this unusual claim to fame ... if I'm honest, probably far more often than, in her humility, she did.  Maybe that's because my own life, lived for so many years in one place, and very much steeped in routine, boasted no such peaks of innocent achievement to celebrate.

This week has been quite a time of remembering; indeed, this whole year has been so, and I find - perhaps like many - that 'remembering', or rather the calling to mind of events that happened too long ago to be remembered in the literal sense, has become somewhat mind-numbing.  I'm suffering from 'WWI overload'.  I recognise its importance in our history; nevertheless, the fact that there are four more years of 'remembering it' to go through, none of which will match the horror of the original, is rather daunting.  So it seems refreshing to have something lighter, while equally 'too long ago to be literally remembered' to think about.

Good, Better, Best!

I wrote last week about 'bad days': my definition of them, and how difficult they can be to cope with.  This week's principal story is an extension of that theme.  Monday brought me four jobs, which took me to Crawley, Bourne End, Colnbrook and, in the evening, to Ash Vale, near Aldershot: although financially beneficial, definitely in the 'bad' range.  Tuesday began with prayer for something 'generally north'.  (I like north for many reasons; not least the attraction of a number of possible eating places - aka truck stops!) In contrast, the working day began with a job to Greenford and then one around the M25 from Cuffley to Esher.

As I made my way homeward, a call came to ask if I'd like 'a trip to the Emerald Isle.'  'I would, sir,' I replied, rolling the 'r' in an attempt at an Irish burr.  A job was then described that could be collected on my way home, for delivery 'in Belfast' the next morning.  Thankfully it turned out to be to a hotel some distance away from the city, to the north-west.

Realising that there could then be an interval before the departure of the return ferry, my thoughts turned to my family history, and the problem of confirming that a will, of which I'd obtained a copy some while ago, was actually that of my great-uncle.  The name was right, George Evans, and the date was certainly possible, but this man's profession as a farmer, and his location, were at odds with what I already knew of my great-uncle's life; and his son and executor had 'acquired' an additional forename I'd not known before.  I'm fairly sure this problem can only be satisfactorily resolved in Belfast - if at all - so I left home armed with all the details in case this might be an opportunity to take the matter forward a stage.

Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge
(picture - RTÉ)

I've said here before that my preference is always to go to Ireland via Holyhead, to avoid the long trek to Stranraer.  Although the M1 north from the end of the excellent Port Tunnel (only a €3.00 toll outside the rush-hour!) is now becoming familiar, I confess to not having previously appreciated the Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge, although it's been there since June 2003!
Maybe my eye caught the roadside announcements of its change of name last year in honour of the former president; the last time I had passed over it would have been before that event.

As I drove on up the A1 towards Newry, my PDA bleeped, and I noticed at the same moment a text message on my phone.  These had originated from the ever-vigilant Milton Keynes office, who had spotted on their screens that I was prowling around on the other side of the Irish Sea, and had linked this with a request for a collection from a military base not far from my destination.  In my twelve years of this work, I've only been to Ireland eight times, and up to now I've neither achieved, nor heard of other drivers enjoying, a return load on such a trip.

The job proved no more difficult than to any other military establishment. The main difficulty is always identifying to the security staff just where your contact is to be located.  On the last such occasion I found myself trying to make a delivery to someone who was no longer there!  Once that hurdle was overcome, it was simply a case of sitting and waiting; the boxes were brought to me, loaded into the van, and I was on my way, all thoughts of any diversion to the Public Record Office completely forgotten.  Instead I enjoyed a drive round the country lanes of Antrim and Down, before rejoining the A1 for my journey south.

As I neared my destination, pleased with a likely arrival in Dublin just before the check-in time, the phone rang.  It was Dave, my controller.  "I hear you went into an Irish church, and came out with another job," he said, with teasing geniality.  When I replied that there had been no church involved, implying simply prayer - although not expecting so generous an outcome! - he said how pleased he was that I'd been able to do the extra job, and asked whether I'd still be able to make the ferry booking, since this had been made on the basis of just the one job.  I have to confess to not a little pride as I told him, "No problem.  I'm driving through the Port Tunnel as we speak!"

The fact of a job to Ireland was 'better' than the 'something north' that I'd prayed for; the extra job was something even better, but for me, Dave's call was the icing on the cake ... the 'best' of this week's headline.  It wasn't until later that I noticed another fine detail.  Our ferry bookings are usually made showing the vehicle on the outward journey as 'laden', i.e. carrying goods, but on the return journey as 'empty'.  On this occasion, both journeys were declared as 'laden'.  A slip of the pen or ...?

After an early delivery of the goods I'd picked up, I spent the rest of Thursday in recovery mode, and yesterday was fairly normal, beginning with jobs to Haywards Heath and Hove.  When I was then offered an evening ride to Salford, I had to say no, but collected the goods from West Drayton for another driver to take north.

Today, our ringers were supposed to take part in the county Striking Competition, but had to withdraw at the last minute owing to illness, so I'm left with the opportunity to visit one of the FA Cup ties taking place this afternoon.  I'm fortunate in having little cause for boredom, the curse of so many these days!

Mustn't Grumble!

I've heard it said that, when Ivan met Ygor in a Moscow street some thirty years ago, one asked the other, 'How's it going?' and received the response, 'I can't complain.'  In that apocryphal exchange there was, of course, a subtext about the restrictions of a totalitarian regime.  There is no subtext about my description of this week as one about which I don't feel I can complain.

The first four days were, to say the least, spartan.  By Thursday night I reckoned that my activities had not met the expectations of three days. Yesterday's demanding schedule, however, was both pleasant and productive. The first challenge was to take some radiator covers to a care home being refurbished in a Hampshire village.  Once the delivery had been completed, I took great delight in refuelling at nearby Dibden Purlieu.  Apart from the picturesque name - according to my reference book, it means 'deep valley on the outskirts of a forest' - it seemed quite a pleasant little town too.  Then came breakfast at Rownham services, sitting on the car park in the sunshine with the van door open and a refreshing breeze outside . . . the only drawback was the constant whoosh of the motorway only a few yards away.

Later, I was able to listen to virtually all of the second day's play from Lords, as I delivered a small parcel to a dental surgery in Oswestry.  Here again there was just one negative.  Although small, the box had a weight totally out of proportion to its size, and I could hardly lift it.  I was glad that there was a strong young athlete at the receiving end!  As is to be expected on Friday afternoon, the journey was fraught with traffic and roadworks, but it was worth it for the delight of being so near to Wales and yet not quite there, with signposts directing to Wrexham, Llangollen and Welshpool . . . and Four Crosses, where I delivered almost four years ago, and have ever since wondered why a Welsh village should have such an English name.  Pedwar Croesau wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

That isn't to say that those first four days weren't busy.  I managed 13 jobs, but only three of them were 50 miles or more - to Corby on Monday, to Bracknell on Wednesday, and a collection from Bury St Edmunds on Thursday.  The rest were essentially local, and most of them one-at-a-time. The point about no cause for complaint came from what happened between them.  At the start of the week my mind was still focussed on D-Day, and - not without precedent - I found that organising my thoughts, reading and re-reading all the material that I'd collected over the years, and then finding the right words to string it all together was far more demanding than the end-product might indicate.  The result was that at teatime on Wednesday, and thanks to all the gaps between jobs, I posted my 'D-Day Special' blog here.

On more than one occasion I had just come to the end of a paragraph, or of a particular aspect of the story, when the phone rang to call me out. Amazingly, this phenomenon was still with me on Friday, as I returned from the delights of Hampshire.  I have adopted the policy with my 'other' blog of making two posts per month: one at the beginning and one mid-month.  I suddenly realized that, with a full weekend planned, another blog-post is due tomorrow. There was just time to review and tidy-up something I'd written some while ago, and schedule its publication for Sunday morning.  I pressed 'Publish' as the phone rang.

Not for the first time, I find myself amazed at the pattern of my courier work. Not only is there a repeating genie, of which I write here often, but also, when the need arises, there's time to fit in other 'stuff' as well.  And, boy - does it fit snugly, sometimes!

"Seventy Years on"

I've written here before about the three 'shifts' into which my work falls, identified by the state of work allocation at the beginning of a day.  This week has brought to my attention another kind of distinction: one that has existed as long as I've been doing this work, but which has not before been noted and classified.  I refer to the difference between 'solid' days and 'split' days.  The former, easily defined by the name, simply stretch from my departure in the morning, and involve a number of jobs - either distinct or overlapping - which fill the day until I return home for an evening - however short - and bed.  Split days, however, include a substantial period between returning from a job or jobs, during the late morning and leaving for another later in the day.

This week has given me three 'split' days, which have offered the opportunity for a variety of tasks at home, in addition to the work on the road.  Workwise, the only real highlight was on Monday, when after a mid-afternoon break, I was challenged with driving up to Knowsley (on the far side of Liverpool) with a box that would be brought to me at home at about 5.45pm.  I was thus home well after midnight, and only did one short job on Tuesday, which allowed me to catch up on a couple of items of personal correspondence, and send off a brief narrative to RTE's History Show about my two Irish first cousins, once removed, who lost their lives in WWI.

After meditative music at Sunday evening's church service, I was reminded of a tape I acquired about 25 years ago at Taizé, and I wondered whether I had ever included this in the few tapes that I'd managed (in a burst of enthusiasm that followed my acquisition of the appropriate software) to put onto my computer.  I found that it was not, but a 'split' day on Thursday enabled me to rectify this deficit, and then on Friday a similar opportunity was used to tidy up the filing of the 276 tracks that I have now computerised in this way. Given the large box of tapes that are still sitting in my bedroom, this is only the tip - and perhaps not even that - of that particular iceberg!

Friday ended the week with a double burst of emotion.  I had been sent with two kegs of ale to a pub near King's Lynn, arriving there just after 6.0pm.  On my way home, I patronised a kebab stall spotted while passing a market place, and then parked in a lay-by on the A10 to enjoy this in the sunshine.  As I did so, a wave of 'end of week' nostalgia came over me, thinking of the relaxing day ahead of me, and the general feelings of 'Friday completeness' of many weeks in my past life.  And then, as I journeyed on once more, came the BBC-Radio2 programme to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of D-Day.

Albemarle P-1442 (Picture courtesy
of the Imperial War Museum)

My own commemoration had taken place on Thursday evening, for it was during the night of 5/6th June that my eldest first cousin had died.  He was part of the crew of Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle P1442, one of a flight of four such planes that had been seconded from their Derbyshire base to take part in Operation Overlord.  They took off from RAF Hampstead Norris in Berkshire at twelve minutes to midnight.  Theirs was the only one of the four not to return.  So on Thursday evening, just before bedtime, I raised a glass to his memory.

This afternoon I have been reviewing the collection of correspondence, internet downloads and other paraphernalia that I have collected over the years, to piece together the full story of P1442 and, when time permits, I intend to provide a decent account on this blog.  It's a story that deserves a post all to itself, however, rather than swamping one of these normal weekly offerings!

Asparagus, Whisky & their Friends

It's certainly been an interesting week.  First of all, may I express the hope that all my readers had a Happy Easter (whatever that term might mean for you).  Aside from the religious observation, mine was a good one on the home front, for two reasons at least.  Firstly, during the break I managed to complete the transcription of a lecture that was started well before Christmas, and had stuck there on my desktop begging unsuccessfully for my further attention.  Secondly, came the family history research (that I've mentioned here more than once) following a link from my cousin in Seattle just before Christmas, which I brought to a conclusion over the holiday weekend, enabling me to send off some reports to her.

On Bank Holiday Monday, I had planned a football trip to Suffolk to watch my native Diss Town play a mid-table team in what could have been a critical 'get-out-of-relegation-trouble' match.  Midway through the morning I had a call from the office, noting that I had said that I might be available for work if required, and instead of my supporter's scarf I donned my courier uniform, to take some asparagus samples to the office of a well-known supermarket in Bradford.  I think I was fortunate to miss the match, which I later learned resulted in a 3-1 defeat, after being ahead by their one goal at half-time!

Tuesday saw a return to the more usual level of work, with just a trip to Northampton, and afterwards I began the intense phase of planning for my holiday, noting what I want to see, what can be planned with what else, when attractions are open, and so on.  Later I went to the office for my weekly paperwork session, and was handed details of a job which took up the whole of the next day.  One of our customers is in the interesting business of promoting the blending of whisky, by means of sponsored evening gatherings of afficionados.  Like other advertising events, we service these by taking appropriate materials to the venue one day, and collecting them the following day to return to the organiser.

St Cyprian's Church, Edge
Hill, Liverpool

Wednesday's job, therefore, was to take whisky and associated equipment to a bar in the centre of Liverpool, only five minutes' walk from the famous Cavern Club.  It's some while since I've been to the centre of the city, and the drive in along the A5047 has been dramatically uplifted visually in recent months.  New houses and a bright and eye-catching health centre now replace row upon row of empty, boarded-up terraces.  I was intrigued to find that the impressive Victorian church of St Cyprian remains standing in the middle of this flattened landscape. Research tells me that it is Grade II listed, was de-consecrated in 2006, and is likely to be redeveloped in conjunction with student accommodation.
 
Productivity-wise, Tuesday's solo had been a bit of a let-down, but Thursday, satisfactory of itself with three reasonable local jobs, had gone some way to restoring the benefit of a 'bonus' bank holiday assignment.  I was feeling a little smug, with a clear desk and the challenge of finding something worthwhile to occupy the rest of the evening when, at about 7.45 pm, the phone rang.  "I've got an interesting job here <pause>" is usually an accurate but demanding introduction, and this was no exception.  It consisted of collecting what was described as 'five noses' (but which actually looked like any other metal fabrication loosely packed in a cardboard box) from a factory on the outskirts of Leicester, and then delivering these to an address near Coventry at 7.30 the next morning.  Given the relative distances, and the lateness of the hour, regular readers will not be surprised that I decided against undertaking the two middle legs of this four-part assignment.

At 10.00pm, with a confidence born only of authority, I entered the darkened factory in Wigston and made my way through the dimly-lit building to the sound of machinery at the far end.  Eventually I discovered two men who were 'machine-minding', although the casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking he had interrupted a tea-break.  One of them, clearly expecting me, led the way to the afore-mentioned cardboard box, collected my signature on the accompanying document, and carried it out to my van.  I then drove the 31 miles to the destination, found a convenient car park right opposite the gate, and attempted the second challenge - sleep.

After my cold and only partially successful bid for success in this endeavour, the dawn revealed the fact that there were in fact three factories on this site, and by 7.30 two of them were showing signs of activity - but not the one I was interested in.  They don't start until 8.0, and both they and I were puzzled at my instruction to be there half-an-hour earlier than that.  The delivery made, I gladly took my leave and sought fuel for both body and vehicle, before heading home.

By late morning, refreshed in body and spirit, I was about to ring in with these tidings, when an incoming call sent me on the first of a sequence of four jobs, to Swavesey, near Cambridge.  The second was to a pharmacy in Tottenham, not far from the Spurs' ground, and the other two were both to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford - a smart and efficient place that involved quite a bit of walking to get from one requisite department to the other.  Suffice to say that I was glad to get home, and slept well this morning!

Ups and Downs

All weeks have their ups and downs, and this one has been no different. Somehow, though, I've been more aware of them this week.  Maybe it's just a side-effect of the new financial year.  It's not obvious, of course, just what's an 'up' and what's a 'down'.  Take an exchange I had last Friday with a friend on social media.  I was bemoaning the prospect of a late homecoming, and the knock-on effect of having to make a choice the next day between family history research and watching a football match, because now there wouldn't be enough time to do both.  It was assumed that there would be a good (financial) outcome, nevertheless, and reference was made to 'gold' and 'silver' weeks - expressions that I've already defined here.  I quashed the idea that this would be a 'gold' week, because I'd travelled nearly 2,000 miles, and answered the obvious question (what would be golden mileage?) with a lower figure. My suggestion that this mileage would probably result in a 'silver' week also proved to be incorrect, because in making it, I'd failed to take into account the fact that there had been little 'doubling-up' of jobs to increase the productivity of each mile driven.  So, ups and downs aren't easy to identify.

Another confusing factor in this general discussion, is the pleasant nature of some jobs compared to others.  For example, I always like going to Scotland because of the challenge posed by the distance, the lovely scenery, and not least the very novelty element, since such opportunities are quite rare.  The same criteria also apply, if to a slightly lesser extent, to Wales; and Ireland has the additional excitement of the ferry crossing too.  But jobs to Scotland and Wales aren't good in the sense of productivity, unless they are combined with a second job, because otherwise the rate per mile is rock bottom for all that distance, which is often a high proportion of the week.  On the other hand, a boring day taking two jobs around the M25 in the morning, and then a couple of jobs into Essex in the afternoon, might well be sufficient to meet the day's target - but would that day be good or not; would it be an 'up' or a 'down'?

So, what has this week been like?  Monday was a good day in many ways.  It started with an early collection in Royston and an unhindered run down to Ashford, Kent, and then, without stopping, four more jobs followed concluding at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds.  The last three of these jobs had overlapped, and so their productivity was high, too.

I was glad, too, to be back by the early evening, because our ringing practice was rather special.  The lady who, for many years, had been the verger, caretaker, and general 'go-to' person at the church where we ring, died recently and her body had been brought into the church that evening in readiness for the funeral the following day.  It had been her wish that ringing should continue as it ever would, but after our practice we gathered in the church together with the clergy, the widower and a handful of parishioners, and joined in the simple service of Compline, standing around the coffin.  It was not at all eerie, but a wonderfully solemn and quite moving occasion, for we had all known her, and it seemed a fitting opportunity for a last farewell. RIP Jean.

The only other 'good' day this week was one of those that are not so productive, but merely enjoyable.  On Wednesday I took some air conditioning equipment to an electronics firm on the outskirts of Blandford Forum in Dorset, and delighted in the drive across Salisbury Plain, and past Stonehenge.  In the afternoon, after returning home, I experienced a totally different sort of 'up and down', when I tripped as I returned to the van after paying for fuel, and fell between the pump and the wing of the van.  I'm amused, looking back, to realise that, after assessing the minimal personal damage, my next thought was for the fact that the keys that I'd been holding in my hand had scratched the wheelarch.  I told the van, 'Sorry,' and wiped the scratch with my finger, before getting to my feet.  It wasn't until Thursday afternoon that I realised that my elbow was hurting, and imagination suggested that I might have chipped a bone, because my self-examination at the time hadn't revealed any external cuts.  Later, since elbows are among the most difficult bits of the body to look at, I used a mirror, and discovered a small cut just on the bit of the elbow that I would lean on against the arm-rest in the van, or on my desk.

And finally this week, another 'up-and-down' example, already familiar to any of my readers who, like me, are keen on family history.  In a less than successful attempt to deal with the problems of increased popularity, the well-known company findmypast has now released a totally new website to enable access to its growing range of data sources for genealogists.  Unfortunately thousands of its customers, including me, have found this to be virtually unusable.  The changes seem to be geared to providing a single entry point for many different kinds of database.  The result is that they've made searches much more difficult, rather than easier.  For example, last night I spent an hour and a half trying unsuccessfully to find someone on a census - an exercise that would probably have taken a quarter of the time, and likely to have been successful too, using the old system that is now, unfortunately, irretrievable.

Grouse over - climbs down from soapbox.  More news next week, which will begin with another of those 'enjoyable unproductive jobs' . . . to Rhayader in the middle of Wales!

In Reflective Mode

Should that heading say 'mode' or mood'?  I'm not sure, although I'm not much given to moods these days.  I tend to think of the year, even life itself, passing through different stages, each with its own range of experiences and reactions to them.  As the temperature has crawled up to the dizzy heights of 10°C, the sweatshirt spends more time folded on the seat beside me, spring is in the air, and the year enters what I think of as an outward-looking season.

Plans are being made for summer holidays, and it's often now that dreams of moving house regain the momentum they had before someone suggested 'don't worry about it now, during the winter'.  Not that I'm planning to move, but my neighbour is considering such a step, and it's a good illustration of the way thoughts and ideas apply themselves to a broader canvas at this time of year.

Today it was late morning when I made a quite regular delivery to a factory in Haverhill, and it was somehow emotive to gaze around the deserted workroom as I waited for my documents to be signed.  In contrast to the time I worked in manufacturing in the '70s and '80s, many such businesses now stop work for the weekend at Friday lunchtime, and the chat I fondly remember about 'what are you doing this weekend?' has shifted forward a few hours, and is already being put into practice by Friday afternoon.

Once the general thought of my past had taken root, it wasn't a great leap to find myself pondering on the time I spend researching my family history.  It's the sort of hobby to which there is never an end.  There just isn't a point where you can say, "there, I've finished it!" because, wherever you draw your metaphorical 'fence', there's always someone at the periphery whose parents, or spouse, or children have fallen beyond the present boundary, and could be the excuse for shifting the fence outward one more place ... and so on.

I tell myself that, one day, I'm going to write it all up - the Great Family Story - and I do believe that that day will come: at the moment, I just can't see when that will be.  Apart from work, and the minutiae of daily life, there's always some project to soak up the 'spare' time.  At the start of last year, I found myself embroiled in a mammoth study of half a dozen families that bore my mother's maiden name.  They all lived, married and died in the same couple of Suffolk villages, but seemed to have few if any links to each other, as they would if they were all part of one great 'clan'.  I thought that would be over by the spring, but eventually it took until June or July to complete it to my satisfaction.

At the start of this year, another project has taken hold, prompted by an autumn e-mail out of the blue, as it were, from a fourth cousin in the USA. Suddenly, a line that had been quite minor and had long been 'dormant' in terms of research, has become the prime focus of my attention, as I follow up and extend the family tree that this cousin has generously made available to me.  Again, I thought this might take until about January, but it now seems likely that last year's precedent will be followed pretty closely.

Another line that my musings took today, was the fact that my researches into my mother's family seem to have far outweighed both in extent and in intensity those on my father's side.  I wondered why this should be, and I came up with a couple of fairly sound theories.  One concerns what, for want of any other term, I call the 'growing era' of each family.  My father was just over ten years older than his wife, and while she was the second child of her parents, he had nine elder siblings, seven of whom were still alive when he was born.  I have inherited a host of family photographs, the bulk of which were of mum's family.  Her parents were married in 1912, and by the time that she and her siblings were growing up, the box camera was there to record some of the events.  In dad's case, by contrast, his parents were married in 1892, and as well as the 20-year 'growing era' difference, raising a family of nine (for he wasn't the youngest!) would have left precious little either time or funds for an extensive pictorial record!

The second theory to explain this basic disparity in my researches is simply that, with dad out at work all day - and a five-and-a-half day week was the norm - he had less opportunity to impart family stories to me than mum did. Consequently, before ever I started research, I knew far more about her personal history than about his.  Hence there was already quite a firm 'mum-base' upon which to build, whereas on dad's side it's all been pretty much from scratch.

Enough of this rumination.  Work still continues apace, and I've already loaded my first job for Monday morning.  There will be more about that next week!

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!

Even on Holiday ...

Well, it's still holiday so, although it's nearly over, there are no exciting travel stories with which to enthral my readers this week . . . and only one that wasn't exciting!

At holiday times things are different - no work means no alarm clock, so I could get up when I woke up ... though there was no compulsion, and I flatly refused to do so one morning at 5.0 am!  It's not only been a season of celebration, but of tidying up loose ends.  Just before Christmas I checked my premium bonds, as I did some time mid-year (it's clearly not one of my priorities).  I discovered that, back in July, when I was busy getting angry about a couple of prizes that I'd never received, and making declarations and arrangements for payment to be made - at that very moment - I was winning another small prize that, in its turn, wouldn't arrive on my doorstep!  I wonder where they go.  Is there an attractive home somewhere for misguided Bond prizes? Today, after the same catch-up procedures, (and fortunately missing hailstones as big as peas) I paid the warrant into my bank.

I've had a chance to look back and note other things that happened during the year.  One of my friends spoke of carrying out a formal A to Z review, and I commented that E was for Enniskillen, where I was sent on a job during April. (You can read about it here.)  This was the town where my great-uncle settled in the late nineteenth century, and when I've finished the particular slice of family history that's gripping me at the moment I intend to assail the difficult peak of on line research into Northern Irish records.  The Republic is fine, and there are many pre-partition resources that cover the whole of Ireland, but the six counties post-1923 seem a closed book . . . so far as I've learned up to now, at any rate.

Today, as I walked to the bank, I reflected that there's another letter I could have added to my alphabet of 2013.  W is for walking-stick, for it was last summer that I started using one.  It's not that I'm really disabled, and in some ways it seems very embarrassing - almost play-acting - to carry it, but it does make walking just that bit more comfortable, and I can go to places that I'd no longer consider walking to without it.  I recall my mother complaining endlessly about an ankle that had been a trouble to her as long as I can remember.  Whether the problem was caused by some external assault in her youth, or had always been there I know not, nor do I know whether, if the latter, such problems can be inherited - I rather doubt it.  However, there is definitely a weakness in one of mine that is difficult to describe with the kind of precision that would warrant specific treatment.  It just aches if I walk very far, and with the stick I can walk further before that point is reached.

Things are different at holiday times, I said.  Church on Sunday was different, too.  The day began with breakfast in the church hall, where I was asked politely across a bacon roll whether I'd had a good Christmas.  After affirming that I had, and replying to the next question that, yes, I had stayed at home, I added that I would be going away the next day, in order to spend the New Year with my cousin.  "How far will you have to travel?"  I was amazed at the precision and the casual air with which I said, "Only 105 miles!"  Even in holiday mode the driver in me comes to the fore when called upon.  So too, I found do traffic problems abound at holiday times.  My homeward journey yesterday was somewhat in excess of that 105 miles, owing to a hold-up on the M1 that sent me halfway around Leicestershire to find a quicker route home than sitting in a traffic queue.

Am I pleased, then, that things will be back to normal on Monday?  Yes, on the whole, I think I am.  While all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (they say . . . and who are 'they', to know?), I'm sure the reverse is also true - it certainly is in my case, as you can tell by the foregoing waffle!

More Bread and Butter

It's been another of those busy weeks when most of the work has been fairly short-range, but with a couple of longer jobs to bulk it up.  Monday started with a trip from Royston to Long Eaton, with a little job from a nearby village to Huntingdon on the way . . .  but then it finished, because by the time I'd returned home it was almost dark, and time to look to the next day.  The evening's ringing was quite fun, though.

Tuesday was almost similar.  Coventry was the morning's destination, but the factory I visited was right beside the eastbound A45.  In quieter times, it had had an entrance from the main road, but this has long since been locked, and grass has grown all round the gate.  Instead access is now from a local road, involving a detour of several miles once I'd passed the beautiful art deco front of the building.  Again home well into the afternoon, but two complementary jobs to Luton finished the day nicely, and I was also allocated an early start for the following morning.

6.00am found me at a depot in Shefford, to collect some kerbstones - special ones with inspection 'lids' - to deliver to the site of what appears to be quite a substantial extension to Bristol Parkway station.  It was the preliminary to quite a long day, because when almost home I was diverted onto a local job, and then on to a strange pairing of Haverhill with Thetford that kept me out until about 9.30pm, by the time I'd enjoyed a Little Chef curry on my way home.

Thursday was quite revealing (apart from being rather wet!) After a delivery in Stewartby - a strange village whose history I have yet to learn, but is, I believe, all tied up with the former brick-making industry - I was off to Birmingham, where I delivered to an inner-city factory.  As I took a sharp left-hand turn into the street, I was quite intrigued by a small estate of modern houses on the side opposite me.  I then saw two Victorian warehouses on the near side, with a narrow passage between them, and the name of my target company on a board on one side of the opening.  Driving down was no real problem, and the heavy rainfall made it essential, to get as close to the destination as possible.  I did have misgivings about reversing out into the street afterwards, though.  I needn't have worried.

As I discovered when I examined the location on Google Earth in the evening, the site is triangular, with one point being the entrance into which I now drove.  The opposite side of the triangle is formed by a large building, the far side of which faces the Birmingham Canal.  My delivery was to the factory on the left, and after he'd moved their lorry from in front of it, the man who greeted me indicated that I should drive right inside.  I should think it was half the size of a football pitch, with a roof almost entirely of glass, so it was quite light and airy.  A delivery that I had first viewed with trepidation proved to be a doddle!

Yesterday, too, was interesting - although in a completely different way.  Two familiar jobs began the day, first to Pinewood Studios and then over to Suffolk to a factory on a former airfield near Beccles.  Returning home about 4.00, I could be forgiven for thinking that, on past performance, the working week was now over.  Not so.  An hour later, I was asked to collect a small consignment of wine to go to a nearby luxury restaurant-cum-golf course.  I arrived in darkness, but SatNav took me to the very door.  The problem was that they had already received their wine delivery.  This was for an event taking place in another part of the estate.  I tried in vain to locate this, following one path and then another in the darkness.  Then suddenly, a young lady on a golf buggy drove up and asked if I needed any help.  My explanation was greeted by an expression of delight, "You're a life-saver!  That's for us - shall I lead the way?"  "I'm usually told that when I visit a hospital," I retorted gently, but my problem was solved and I was more than happy to accept the offer.
On the home front, I have been pleased this week to renew my electronic acquaintance with a distant cousin in the USA.  She has furnished me with some more details of our common ancestry, so once a few regular chores are out of the way I shall look forward to digging into these with a view to extending my family tree by a few more twigs.

A Time to Remember

This week started much as the last, with a Monday that appeared to come to a natural end with the weekly paperwork 'ritual', and then provided me with another job in the early evening.  Last week I arrived at bell-ringing practice to announce proudly that I'd just saved part of St Albans from the agonies of a power-cut - I'd delivered the essential fuse unit to the contractors waiting by the roadside.  This week I bore no triumphant tale, so arrived just in time again, but quietly.  The greatest excitement of this Monday evening's delivery, to a store on Watford High Street, was being moved along by a couple of traffic wardens because the place where I'd stopped outside the shop - albeit at 6.30pm - was a disabled parking bay.

Tuesday was a day of repeats.  First came the regular run to Pinewood Studios for a company based opposite my home, and then the combination of another trip to Corby, to the same firm as I've been to a number of times recently, but on this occasion for a different customer; and then on to an electronics firm on the Hardwick estate at the edge of King's Lynn.  It was when I returned from this that the week took on a transparent hue (if that's not exactly an impossible metaphor).

One of the controllers had been asked to quote for a particular enquiry, and before he did so he was anxious to make sure that there was someone (I was his choice of the most likely driver) willing to undertake the job, should the quote be accepted.  The job was to service three consecutive evening events, delivering our customer's goods to the first one in the late afternoon/early evening, collecting them after the event, and taking them to the next venue ... and so on.  The first of these was to be in Inverness tomorrow.  Needless to say, the fact that I'm writing this blog now, instead of settling in to a B&B in Carlisle means that the quote wasn't accepted. However, the pleasure of looking forward not just to a Scottish job, but this time to three venues in one (Dundee and Aberdeen in addition to Inverness), not to mention the excitement of looking out possible B&B locations in these cities, made the remainder of the working week pale into insignificance.

As I waited to hear whether my plans and the anticipated enjoyment of these next few days would happen or not, I found myself taking less delight than usual in the work in hand (or under the wheels, in my case!), even though these last three days have included a return to an events company for whom I've not done a job for four and a half years, and who nearly always come up with interesting destinations (albeit this one was only to Luton), and a trip to Cirencester.  In fact, it wasn't until 5.30 pm on Friday that the 'no' option was confirmed, although by then I would've had to have collected the goods, so it was looking fairly obvious.

And so to Remembrance weekend.  I don't usually clutter this blog with weekend happenings, but I think this one is justified.  This year, I was asked to give one of the short Bible readings in church, which was no bother, of course, but it did tend to focus my attention - if such focusing were necessary.  For the second year running, I went along equipped with a note of those people whom I've identified in my family history exercises who died during the two World Wars, and I'd like to share some statistics with you.  I wonder how typical these are.

Out of the thirteen deaths, ranging in closeness from an uncle, through great uncles and various cousins to a fifth cousin twice removed, nine related to the First World War, and four to the Second.  Ten were soldiers, one served in the RAF, one in the Royal Navy, and one was a Second Officer in the Merchant Navy.  Out of the nine soldiers who died in World War One, no less than six died on the Somme.  I hadn't noticed until today that, out of those six, it was the one who served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who died on 1st July 1916 - just one of the 19,240 who died, out of the total of 57,470 casualties, on that worst day of Britain's military history.  I had read recently that it was the Irish divisions who were put to the forefront of the lines, and the cynic in me wonders whether it might have been a way of dealing with a potential problem on the home front, following the Easter Rising only a few months earlier.

Let me end on a lighter note; simply to observe that, after watching one of my local football teams, Biggleswade Town, reach the first round proper of the FA Cup the other week for the first time in their almost 140-year history, I listened with some sadness to the radio yesterday afternoon as they suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Stourbridge.  Now my attention turns to the Vase, and next weekend, when I'm planning to watch one of 'my' East Anglian clubs, Walsham-le-Willows, who entertain Haringey Borough in the second round.  If it's raining, of course, I might well find a reason to prolong my 'halfway' visit to the record office in Bury St Edmunds.  I should, perhaps, be ashamed that I am, after all, a 'fair-weather footie fan' ... but I'm not!

Bells are not the Only Clangers!

The week I started on the 'first shift', i.e. I had already been given a job for that morning.  However, it began with an 8.30 pick-up locally, so I was able to join my friends at church for breakfast first.  These two jobs took me to Langley, near Slough, and up to Henley-on-Thames, where I had fun getting into not one but two narrow drives, each of which proved to be the wrong entrance to my target, which I eventually found to be accessible from another street (Thank you, SatNav - see the repetition of this phenomenon below).

With no other activity on Monday, I was able to go ringing in the evening - something that is becoming an uneconomic, but enjoyable habit - where we practised Oxford Bob Triples.  This is a method that has pleasant memories for me because, in 1983, I rang in a quarter peal of it in honour of my father; it took place on the very day when, had he still been alive, his age would have been double my own.

Lodge House, Gisburn Park

After a barren afternoon on Monday, I prayed for a good job on Tuesday and, step by step, my prayer was answered.  At about 9.15, the controller rang to say that, at 10.0 there would be a job ready for collection in Stevenage for Bradford.  As I was just leaving home, another call came to ask if I were about to leave; the reply to my affirmative was to ask me to make a call in Letchworth on the way 'for something in the Blackburn area'.  This turned out to be a private hospital in Gisburn, only 31 miles over the hills from Bradford.  The weather was good, and the journey delightful.  When I got there I found that the hospital is in a large park, the entrance to which is guarded by a pair of lodge houses, "of beautiful Gothic architecture, richly ornamented with figures and pinnacles carved with the greatest taste from designs of a former Lord Ribblesdale." (description and picture from the excellent village website.)

Wednesday was something of a replay on a smaller scale, with deliveries in Leicester and Peterborough, and in some ways Thursday was the best day of the working week, reminding me that, though essential to its smooth running, money isn't the only important part of life.  Owing to a misunderstanding, my name wasn't added to the list when I got back at about 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon.  I was asked if I were available for anything else ... although there was nothing at present. Perhaps my rather cavalier reply was somewhat foolish as it turned out, "If anything comes in, try me."  The next morning, the phone was dead, until I called in at lunchtime to see how the land lay.  I was reassured that I hadn't 'fallen off the radar', but a couple of hours later the boss called to see whether I was working or not.  When I told him I'd been available all day, he was aghast, and not only sent me on a job right then to Colnbrook, but also asked me to collect something on the way to deliver the following morning in Thetford.  

Meanwhile I had made intense, if inconclusive, progress trying to distinguish the offspring of the two marriages of a certain great-great-great uncle, as the result of which another early visit is indicated to the record office when a Saturday morning offers itself.

Friday, therefore, began early and my delivery in Thetford was complemented by a freshly-cooked breakfast at the cafe on the industrial estate.  From this, I ran on to a local delivery in Sandy, and then back to East Anglia again for  a collection at Great Blakenham, just outside Ipswich.  I was home again - via the garage to sort out a blocked valve - by about 3.0 pm, and the weekend got off to a good start.

Yesterday was the day when there is activity in both the FA Trophy and the FA Vase.  It saw the exit of my 'local favourites', Biggleswade Town, from one competition and of my 'native team', Diss Town, from the other.  I missed both possibilities, for it was the ringers' annual autumn outing.  We rang at four churches in eastern Hertfordshire, ending at a fifth tower that was just over the border in Essex.  This latter proved somewhat elusive, since SatNav took us to the wrong side of a small hill, where we entered a private park thinking the church might be within the grounds.  It was fortunate that this was the last visit of the day, since quite some time was lost as we re-traced our steps to the road and thence to the right turning instead of the wrong.  This unusual level of activity, combined with a surfeit of fresh air, was quite tiring and I confess to indulging in an armchair snooze in the early evening.

Now, with the prospect of a few more showery days at the start of next week, I can wonder what work holds for me as I consider too which match to go and watch in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup next Saturday.