When Nothing Much is Happening ..

I decided that, with no other plans for this non-working week, it would be a good opportunity to clean the flat.  I've developed a great aversion to house- work over the years (never trained right as a lad, in my adult opinion); so long as everything is in its place, I'm inclined to leave the hoover in its place too.  In fact after seeing my then dwelling for the first time some years ago, one lady commented, "It's dirty ... but tidily dirty!"  But after some while, there were a lot of things not in their places ... especially things for which the proper place is the recycling bin, like five-year old catalogues, and even older railway timetables.  It was time for action!

As a tempter, I resolved to clean one room per day, which more or less worked out, and the job is now done.  I can hear sympathetic readers (the others have probably closed this bulletin already in disgust) saying, "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?  Now try and keep it up from now on."  And you're quite right, of course; I can only say I'll do my best.

Alongside this feverish unaccustomed domestic activity, I also started out taking a walk each afternoon, but this was thwarted on day three when the rain told me, "go home - there's no point getting wet just for the sake of it!"

There was also much feverish activity on the admin front, as I sought to make important and long-term decisions about funding my retirement when it is finally phased in ... all this being prompted by setting up a realistic budget for next year.  After an extended evening's work constructing a spreadsheet, I went to bed exhausted, only to wake up a couple of hours later convinced that the whole effort was wasted because of a flaw in the thinking behind it: a flaw so basic as forgetting that, although sharing a pasture, tax years and calendar years are not the same beast.  The next day found me doing exactly the same exercise ... but properly, this time!

During last week I discovered that my printer wasn't working as it should, and as I explored possible reasons, it occurred to me that a lack of bespoke ink might be the difficulty, so I placed an order.  Meanwhile, as I dabbled further with the problem, I hit on the true remedy, and fixed it.  Hence the order for ink dropped off the radar, and the other afternoon a delivery driver (not from my company, thank goodness!) tried to deliver the parcel, only to find me in the bath!  No embarrassment was involved, I'm pleased to report; once dressed, I happily collected the card he'd put through the door, and drove across the town to collect the ink, which is now stored ready for use in due course.

The weekend promises to be a busy one, too.  Tomorrow I'm planning to visit my native Norfolk, to watch an FA Vase tie, and on Sunday our church is holding its annual pets service, so anything could happen there!  Sobriety returns in the afternoon, when there is a bereavement service for those who have lost loved ones during the past year, and a little later, at the other side of the town, the bellringers will gather for this year's final attempt to ring a quarter peal (1,260 changes, taking about three-quarters of an hour's intense concentration).

Back in at the Deep End

The week began with harvest festival at the church.  A new choir had been formed during the summer, which I had readily joined, and this was our first 'outing'.  The service was followed by a simple lunch for about 120 ... no small task for the catering team, who did an excellent job!  In the afternoon - across the town - the bellringers attempted a quarter peal, which was unsuccessful, although not before over 1,000 changes of good ringing had been achieved.  A healing service in the evening rounded off a very busy day.

After two weeks of 'retirement', courier work this week came as more of a shock than any time since my reharnessing after Easter.  And there was no gentle easing into it, either.  After a couple of hours' wait (which allowed me to marshall my thoughts about entering to my various records all the stuff I'd collected at the record office on Friday), my first job was to Pontefract. This was a repeat run of one I'd done during my last working week, albeit that had been late in the day, so the road-busy-ness pattern was different. Returning about 4.0pm, I thought the day would be at and end, but I had to think again when I realised that the job that had appeared on my screen was for delivery that day, rather than Tuesday, and a run to Greenford neatly knocked out my attendance at bell-ringing practice.

This week has included a bit of most things that have made up my courier carreer, the cancellation of my evening plans being only the first.  Next came the 'single job in a day', when Tuesday's job - to Cheltenham General Hospital - didn't begin until 11.0, so once more I had a morning at the keyboard, this time setting-up my newly installed computer Bible program. Wednesday's task was pre-announced, so I had the chance to research it online first.  It took me to Jarrow, a place I had first visited over 24 years ago, as part of a 'Medieval Monks and Monasteries' course at Durham University.  In fact this destination - reached midway through a day best described as 'a 6-hour car-wash' - was a small engineering works only a few hundred yards from St Paul's Church, where the Venerable Bede had started his ministry towards the end of the seventh century.

Thursday's experience was at the opposite end of the spectrum.  I had phoned in as usual at 8.0, but having heard nothing by 2.15pm, by which time I had entered all my family history data and finalised my budget for 2016, I decided to ring again.  I was told that I was their only driver (but wondered, perhaps ungraciously, whether I might have been overlooked completely).  My suspicions were strengthened five minutes later when I received a call suggesting that, if I were willing to help out with a local job then, I could get a 'decent' job for the next day.  The local job was to take some printed circuits to Newmarket; the 'decent' job turned out to be from Hertford (one of two that another driver was collecting) to Manchester airport ... for 9.0 am delivery!

Not having any idea what the effect of the morning rush-hour might be, I decided to allow almost an hour, and left home at 5.0.  It worked.  I arrived at 8.50, found the right office and made my delivery.  Returning to the van, I called the local City Sprint office.  Contrary to my expectations, I wasn't told to hang around while they waited to see what might come in; my next challenge was issued immediately, a collection near Crewe for an organisation in Melton Mowbray that, although I had never been there, I had registered many years ago as being one with whom I had had dealings in a past employment.  My next phone in was nowhere near so productive ... so I headed home, thinking that early start had merited an early finish.

Just as the premature counting of unhatched chickens is decried, I had looked forward too early to a lazy evening.  Before I had reached even the neighbouring county, let alone home, my screen had been visited by two more jobs, one to Leicester Royal Infirmary, and the other to a major industrial site in Nottingham.  By the time I had stopped at a truckstop for an evening meal I had clocked up a sixteen-hour day ... and the week wasn't over yet!

Yesterday began with a short but futile attempt to achieve the usual weekend routines.  Then, shortly after lunch, I set off on a personal journey.  The first destination was to attend a football match in Bury St Edmunds ... part of the annual 'Non-league Day' celebration ... and then I paid a long overdue visit to my son and his wife, the excuse for this being to hand over my old computer which he had undertaken to coax on the next steps of its career.

At last comes the weekend rest ... all too short, I fear, before an early alarm heralds tomorrow's breakfast gathering!

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!

More Interest!

I described last week as 'interesting'.  This week was possibly more so; I leave it to my readers to decide which meaning they apply to the word this time.  Monday was a good day.  When I received a mail order delivery on Tuesday evening, the driver saw my uniform as I answered the door and asked me about working for CitySprint.  'How many jobs do you get in a day?' he asked.  He has to take well over 100, as a multi-drop driver, and only gets paid for the ones he actually delivers.  I told him 'anything from one to eight', and used Monday's experience as an 'average' illustration.

I began with a visit to a tiny village near Oundle, where all the houses are in 'Main Street', and have names instead of numbers.  As usual, I found the right one on my way back through the village, and delivered to the man who had waved to me as I went past on my first pass.  On then, to Grantham and District Hospital, a neat and modern place, much of which is on a single floor.  By late morning I was almost home again, and given two more jobs, one from Letchworth to Welwyn Garden City, and the other from Stevenage to High Wycombe.  I think it was while driving round the M25, that I was asked to collect some white goods in Hemel Hempstead on my way home, for delivery in Hereford for 8.0 the next morning.  I had nearly got to High Wycombe when a change of plan was announced.  In my present location, I was the only chance, the controller decided, of achieving a collection that afternoon from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, to be returned that evening to our depot in Letchworth.  Any fear of an early start the next morning was cast aside, and I went to bellringing practice as usual, where there were many old faces, some of whom hadn't been there for a considerable time.

Tuesday started off in fine form, as I hoped for a long job to make up for losing Hereford.  A collection from Bedford for Milton Keynes was complemented by a pick-up in Flitwick on the way back for exchange at Elstree film studios, and return to our customer.  Now, Tuesday morning was subject to sporadic but heavy rain showers, and as I passed Toddington Services on my way back to Flitwick, my windscreen wipers decided to take a holiday.  In fact one part beneath the surface had had enough, after going to and fro for a quarter of a million miles.  I completed my delivery and then made my way to the garage, seeking restoration of rain-shifting services. Sadly, the required part couldn't be delivered until the following morning, but one of the staff was able to arrange a temporary 'fix', using the wiper mechanism from his own car to keep me going.  Wednesday, therefore started on time in the morning, but consisted only of a handful of very local jobs, until I attended the garage in mid-afternoon for the job to be completed.

As I reported to the office my status as once more available, I was asked if I'd like an 8.0 am collection in Letchworth on Thursday.  This was a job to Gloucester that had been requested by the Swindon office.  I accepted this, and duly presented myself at a factory opposite my home at the required hour.  Unfortunately (the job having been arranged by their customer), they weren't aware that I would be calling so early for the goods; these were already packed, but I had to wait some while for the paperwork to be completed.  Once this job had been delivered, I called Swindon, with a fair hope, I thought, of getting more work from them.  I wasn't disappointed, and a few minutes later they called me back with a pick-up in Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham, for central Birmingham.  In the afternoon, the triangle was completed by a job from the Warwick office, collecting in Nuneaton, for delivery in Harlow.

I had called the office on my way home to explain my situation, because this delivery couldn't be made until the following morning.  However, the message wasn't passed on in its entirety, because when I received a call about an hour later, it was to ask if I fancied a trip to Wales ... that evening! I pointed out that, while this would be quite acceptable (it would compensate nicely for the work I'd lost through the wiper malfunction earlier in the week), I wouldn't be home early enough to contemplate an 8.0 delivery almost thirty miles from home the next morning!  "Leave it with me." I was told.

When there's a willing driver to do a potentially awkward job, there's usually a way, and someone was coerced to make the Harlow delivery yesterday morning.  I took the goods to the depot and made my way to our customer in Hitchin.  Since venturing to North Wales in my motorhome in June, I've decided to pick up once more the Welsh tutorial that I'd abandoned some forty-five years ago and, as I drove up to the customer's premises, I realised that I could now form an appropriate sentence.  There are building works going on in the yard, so I stopped where I could be seen some distance from the door, and got out of the van.  As the customer walked over with the expected lightweight parcel, I greeted him with "Yr wyf i yn mynd i Gymru!"  I had to stifle my smile at the man's face: something between shock and amusement.  "Are you Welsh, then?" he asked.  I explained, but decided not to translate, leaving him to think that it was something more elaborate than 'I'm going to Wales.'

The job itself was not difficult, although it would have been easier in daylight.  It was to a private house in a one-street village, where a group of new houses have been given a separate name.  SatNav - misguidedly helpful as ever - decided that this was another street, running parallel to the real one.  It tried to find me the right lane to use to get there, as a result of which I now have an intimate knowledge of several inapplicable garage drives. Fortunately the parcel's recipient had heard a slow-moving van passing to and fro, and opened her door!  The rest echoes the history of many previous late-night jobs; I was home and snug in bed by about 3.30 am.

The protracted nature of Thursday meant that Friday began at lunchtime, and I confess I was not expecting anything exciting.  Au contraire, the controller was most relieved to take my call.  He was runned off his feet, and didn't even need to call me back to request a collection in Hitchin for a hospital in Nottingham, and a pick-up in Biggleswade for a factory in Newark on the way.  A leisurely drive to places I'm familiar with, on a sunny afternoon at the end of the week was ... delightful!

Today has seen a bit of tidying up, before going to watch a football match. We all stood in silence for a minute before the start in memory of players Matt Grimstone and Jacob Schilt of Worthing Utd. and the others killed in the Shoreham Airshow tragedy last weekend.  In keeping with the last match I saw, two weeks ago, the team I support - in this case Biggleswade Town - was one goal down soon after the start, but on this occasion things livened up in the second half.  There were four more goals, at least three yellow cards, two sendings-off, one saved penalty, and the result was a 3-2 home win.  Oh, and the man sitting next to me won a prize in the raffle ... the nearest I've been to a prize in years!

Now for another 'retired week', beginning with a family visit for the Bank Holiday.

A 'Winter Holiday' Week

I've chosen my title for this week's blog in recollection of of times when - in certain industries at least - holidays had to be taken within set periods of the year.  My dad, for example, was entitled to a week in the summer and a week in the winter.  While it was a valuable break from the hard work of the other fifty weeks, the winter week was always a bit flat for him.  Once he'd done what he needed to get the garden straight, I don't think he knew what to do with the rest of the time.

For me, this week has been dominated by three things ... one of which shouldn't have been a dominant item in the first place.  I agreed to use my van to take some of the inevitable post-holiday club 'clutter' from the church to the local dump: one van-load would save a number of car trips, so it made sense.  At least it did until I got there on Monday morning.  There I learned that a new permit scheme for all vehicles other than cars had been in force since the beginning of the year.  I was annoyed, because I had been there within the last few months to dispose of an item I'd replaced in the home, and had been admitted without let or hindrance.  I therefore knew nothing of the permit scheme.  The permit is free, but needed to be applied for on line ... from an office in Liverpool!  I made the application immediately, of course, but I'm still waiting for the permit to arrive!  The cardboard, meanwhile, has been 'parked' in the motorhome.

Last weekend, I noticed that there was a small puddle of oil beneath said motorhome, so another task on Monday was to have this checked over.  Now that I've got all the equipment I think I need to make proper use of the vehicle, I felt it would be a good point at which to check the overall weight against that permitted according to the official plate in the cab, so I also incorporated a trip to the nearest public weighbridge, where I learned I have about half a tonne capacity to spare!  The garage cleaned the bottom surfaces and told me to run it for a few days and return.

Ducks doing what ducks do best

On Tuesday, therefore, I sought somewhere interesting to visit not far from home, and discovered a nature reserve near Tring called Cottage Lake, which fulfilled both purposes i.e. a journey in the vehicle, and the ideal of time away from work: relaxation.  When I returned to the garage on Thursday, there was no sign of a leak, so apart from keeping an eye out, all seems to be well.

Then there's the matter of the laptop.  I decided it was time to replace my computer, which is getting a bit tired and, since it's a desktop machine, it puts me at a disadvantage when I go to meetings or for research, in that I need to use a less capable intermediate device.  Following good advice, I ordered on line, thinking it would be in my hands by now.  Sadly there was a problem with the credit card ... well actually a card-user interface difficulty, i.e. I had made an error when I filled out the order document on line ... and the simplest solution was to let that order lapse and re-order it 'properly' later.  I was waiting until this morning, therefore, for confirmation of the order and provision of a delivery date in order to know that all is well at last.

When things aren't going well, I find I tend to think of times long ago, and the other morning I recalled an office where I'd worked some 45 years ago.  In particular, I recalled a typist at that establishment who had a comparatively uncommon surname, and I wondered how easy it would be to find anything out about her now.  I have to praise findmypast.co.uk (although I did complain heavily about their new website last year).  Within little more than half an hour I'd traced the girl's marriage, the birth of her daughter, and a recent address and, thanks to Google Maps, I had found a picture of the neat dwelling that she and her family have occupied for the last thirty-odd years.  Fantastic!

This weekend has seen the first encounters in a competition that will end next May with two top football teams meeting at Wembley ... yes, it's the extra-preliminary round of the FA Cup.  As on the Friday evening of the comparable weekend two years ago, I ventured into Norfolk to support my native team, Diss Town in their efforts.  Sadly, as on that previous occasion at Thetford, today's match ended in a home win, but what a different Diss team set foot on the park at the Elgood Fenland Stadium.  The eighth minute goal that determined the result was very much against the run of play, even up to that early point in the game.  All through the ninety minutes, whenever there was a loose ball, there seemed to be an orange shirt to meet it, and most of the activity seemed to be in the Wisbech half.  The only - but crucial - thing Diss seemed to lack was finishing power.  So many shots landed directly in the goalkeeper's hands and, while not denying that man's power and skill, he didn't have a lot of work to do.

Today also marks the 70th anniversary of VJ-Day.  I had felt that I wouldn't be observing the occasion at all, apart from pondering over my researches concerning the uncle whom I grew up being told that I closely resembled, and who died of malaria while a PoW working on the Burma Railway.  This morning, however, as I drove into town, I happened to notice a gathering by the war memorial.  Putting two and two together, I walked back after parking the van, and was able to join in a short service of commemoration.  Having been unable to take part in the ringing of bells for the occasion, owing to a mis-match of other commitments among the ringers, I felt this more than compensated.

"When you go home, tell them of us and say,  

For your tomorrow, we gave our today."

                                                            -  Kohima Epitaph

Friday Night and Saturday Morning

It's been quite an exhausting week.  With four early mornings, three late nights, two of them following a continuous day on the road, and one night tormented by some kind of allergy - I notice the rape is in flower - I was glad yesterday evening to settle down briefly at Beaconsfield Services.  After eating my Carvery Express (the healthier alternative to KFC, only marginally more expensive, and far less messy on the fingers!), I cradled my coffee and examined the world as it bustled to and fro all around me.

There's one in every week, and I've lost count of the times I've noticed something intangibly 'special' about them.  At last I've grasped the nettle of trying to set down in words that special whatever-it-is about Friday afternoons.  I use that term with some elasticity, of course, because there is great variety in the times at which people leave off ... something I regularly have to take note of if I want to make a successful delivery!  But whether it's lunchtime, or 3.30, 6.0 or - as in my case yesterday - 9.35, that point of stopping work at the end of the week has a special quality.  It has the power to make the transition, in the words of the ubiquitous Mars Bar advert, from the world of work to the world of rest-and-play.

I grew up in a world where, to my young eye, there seemed to be little distinction between these three phases of life for the working man.  After 'proper work' was over more jobs could easily be found at home.  The garden would need attention, or something had to be done in the shed; there was coal to be brought in for the fire, or wood to chop.  With luck there might be an hour or so to look through the newspaper, or watch TV, but it was likely that this pleasure would be overtaken by sleep in the armchair.

And then came the end of the week.  In my father's case it was Saturday lunchtime, for the normal working week of forty-eight hours couldn't be fitted into five days.  I well remember the glow that seemed to fill the house once lunch - on the table immediately upon his homecoming ... just like the evening meal during the week - had been eaten.  At the age of about eight or nine, I would follow him to the bathroom and watch the progress of the weekly shave, marvelling that he could wield that razor (with its blade that I was expressly told not to touch because it was so sharp) up and down his throat with such carefree abandon.  Now, many years later, I make just the same moves with the same nonchalance.

I was looking forward to my weekly walk with him into the town, perhaps to stand on the market place while he chatted to some friend or other, maybe to make some small purchase from one of the shops, but almost inevitably to finish up at the football ground, where I was infused with an interest that had stayed latent until about four or five years ago when I suddenly felt a Saturday 'tickle' to rekindle it again.  If we happened to arrive after half-time we could get in free, because the man at the ticket stall would have shut his window.  Otherwise I think it was 6d for adults and 3d for children.  I was more interested to see who else was there that I might know than to watch the game, but there was a feeling of excitement nonetheless, and the homeward journey would always be paused at the market stall to buy some chips to take home for tea.

Diss Town played in the Norfolk & Suffolk League in those days; for the the bigger and better teams there was the Eastern Counties League, and for the smaller ones the East Anglian League.  After I ceased to be interested in the world of football, the two smaller of these leagues merged to become the Anglian Combination of today, with its many divisions and reserve divisions, of which only the premier division figures at step 7 in the national pyramid.  Diss by then had moved up to the Eastern Counties League, where now they seem to flit between the premier and first divisions.

When I moved into the world of work, I began to see a different format to Friday afternoons, but all with that same 'glow'.  Wherever I've worked, there has been a particular atmosphere that surrounds people leaving behind their workplace behind them.  I carry with me an image - partly real, partly an imagined stereotype - of men and women, young and old, streaming from a factory gate to rows of back-to-back houses, or walking in ones and twos down a country lane to a solitary row of cottages or post-First World War 'homes for heroes', each one looking forward to time with their family or friends, and to whatever the weekend holds, be it routine or special.

For a lot of my time I've been fortunate to work where or when the economy was strong, and there seem always to have been calls for people willing to work overtime on Saturdays.  As an office-worker, I was rarely called to do so myself, but sometimes it was nice to go in at the weekend to catch up on something, and on such occasions the feel of the place was totally different. At one factory, I would often see on a Monday morning that men from last week's evening shift, working normally from 2.0 till 10.0, sometimes with overtime each night until midnight Monday to Thursday, had left off at 10.0 on Friday only to arrived again at 7.0 on the Saturday morning for another five or six hours.  I was filled with a mixture of admiration for their stamina, and sheer wonder at their home life.  Looking back now, though, I realise that, with small children preventing their wives from taking up paid employment, the extra hours, along with the shift work itself, would have made such a difference to a young family.

In the history of mankind, the weekend has occupied only a tiny place; but for those of us who have enjoyed the privilege of this break from constant work for an employer or at a business, it has become precious.  It feels an unalienable right, and I think it does us good from time to time to reflect on what a great benefit it represents in the lives of us all.

Looking up!

I suspect it's been that way since the stone age.  As the days pass, and the sunshine - when it happens - gets warmer, we see more and more signs of spring, and we realise that the dismal days of winter are behind us.  In my case, there have been other signs of the passage of time.  Apart from my transition into retirement, I recall a couple of years ago when our firm moved into new offices on an industrial estate about five miles away.  For those of us who live locally, this meant an additional ten unproductive miles per day, and there were a few mutterings.  Then it was realised that we could be more useful if we stayed at home, nearer to the customer-base and, happily, so it proved.  Last week saw the next move, as the office sorted itself out in another new location.  This time it's to a modern unit here in Letchworth, and the layout is very much in keeping with other CitySprint offices I've seen in the last few months, with the control room on the upper floor.  Whether the staff enjoy going up and down the stairs all day is another matter!

The week began for me with a prompt start.  Having located the new office and delivered some outstanding paperwork, I was out on a job by 8.0, on my way to collect in a nearby village for an equally rural delivery near Dunmow. The day was completed by a pair of jobs to Slough and High Wycombe, which were delayed by a motorway accident.  Tuesday was off to a slow start but eventually I was sent to Buckingham.  After my return came a collection in Cheshunt for a customer in Buntingford.  I'm always surprised how much my van will carry.  This challenge accentuated my surprise, as two trolleys were wheeled out, one with three large boxes, the other with four!  With one standing on end, these just filled the van, and also nonplussed the consignee, who had requested delivery to his home, only to find that these seven boxes filled the hallway and virtually prevented him going upstairs! As ever, I have no idea of the contents; I only hope he was able to deal with them before domestic upset ensued!

I've written here before about my suspicions concerning the balance between the recovery of work levels after the new year break and the possibility of uneven allocation of jobs.  On Tuesday afternoon, after unrewarded availability since 2.30, I gently rejected an invitation at 4.0 to collect the next morning's delivery to Pinewood Studios, and after the controller said he'd find someone else and respected my decision to wait for something better, I wondered if I'd put my foot in it.  Not so; about half-an-hour later another call brought me two 8.0 a.m. collections.  One was in Stevenage for St Albans, and the other in Welwyn Garden City for Abingdon.  Both the controller and I were aware that the Stevenage pick-up was from an office that opened at 7.30, and the staff there had three small boxes all ready for collection when I arrived.  A nice early start like that meant that I was home in time to do other work afterwards, so when I arrived at church in the evening for a Lent study gathering (admirably complemented by an optional evening meal!), I was in a good mood!

My good mood was maintained the next day, with another early duo, this time to St Albans and Aldershot, followed by a couple of local jobs.  I'd just got home from these, when the controller asked if I was able to do a hospital run from Stevenage to Cambridge.  Of course I was, and this was rather mirrored by the first job I did on Friday morning, this time between hospitals in Hitchin and Sawbridgeworth.  Along with this came another job to Billericay and, as I made my way along the A127 on the last stretch of that journey, I was spotted on the computer screen by the controller at Brentwood, who asked if I were interested in deliveries for him in Colchester and Braintree.  I was pleased to be asked, and enjoyed the trip in the sunshine.

Luckily, although it was the first of the two to be collected, I noticed that the Braintree job was 'for delivery by 16:00', while the other was more urgent. So I was in the middle of Colchester when I received another job, this time for collection in Brightlingsea.  Coincidence - or was it that Genie, since Colchester appears on my radar an average of two or three per year? - dictated that this delivery was in the next street to the one I'd just made. Even after that, the Braintree delivery was well within the time limit, and I was warmly received by the receptionist in the showroom of a new development on the outskirts of the town.  The day closed with a transfer to the office in Hemel Hempstead, and I thought this might be the end of the week, but with lots of work today, my help was sought in clearing up a very local job at 8.0 this morning, covering a distance of just two miles between one depot and another of the same customer.

This has enabled me to fit in the conclusion of an experimental re-orientation of my bedroom, aimed at making better use of the heater, which is in one corner of the room.  As in so many rooms, the distribution of electrical sockets in that room has never suited precisely where they were needed.  For years now, I have had an extension lead stretching across the floor, under the bed, and waiting to trip me up if I'm either exceptionally tired at night, or still half asleep when I get up.  Now, I've re-sourced the supply from a different socket located behind a cupboard on the other side of the room.  To do this, of course, I had to empty the cupboard to move it out - inevitably prompting incidental cobweb removal - fit the plug of the extension lead, and then replace and refill the cupboard: a classic case of a two-minute job taking an hour!

Pleased with my success, I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and walk up to the local football ground, where the reserve team were playing a side from a nearby town.  Sadly, although the team is called 'the Eagles', they played more like sciatic sparrows, rather in the schoolboy 'kick the ball anywhere' mode that I recall from my own young days.  It's wrong of me, I know, to be so cutting without making allowances for the fact that this match was four to six leagues lower than those I usually watch, but I found it less than satisfying, and so left after the interval.  I did enjoy the walk home, though, and can now look forward to another few days of fine spring weather stretching into next week.  What will it hold, I wonder? ... watch this space!

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!

What's in a Community?

I've been thinking a lot this week about communities.  It all started on Saturday, as I returned from watching a football match in a nearby town. During my eight-mile drive home, I thought about how much I'd enjoyed the game, and then recalled that the winning team - like many these days - was drawn not from the local community but from a pool of known talent that is transferred from team to team as finances and careers in the sport rise and fall: as skills wax and wane.  By then I was passing through a large village, and passed a couple of men outside the pub, chatting over a late afternoon drink.  I remembered the meal I'd shared with my son a couple of weeks ago, while watching another football match on TV, and I realised what a place sport has in community life, whether it is live, as I'd just enjoyed, or secondary as we'd experienced on that occasion.  I found myself regretting what seemed to be the single shortcoming of my present lifestyle: the absence of a village ambience.

After a relaxing bank holiday weekend (made more so by typical bank holiday weather, which greatly discouraged any going out!), on Tuesday morning I found myself once again in that mid-Bedfordshire countryside, passing through two villages on my way to deliver in a third.  In one, I saw a large open space where, on sunny summer weekdays, as well as at the weekend, it's quite likely there'll be a cricket match in progress.  My delivery was to a pleasant cottage opposite the church; I've been there a number of times, and always marvel at the many antique items that clutter the yard.  It would be a little boy's exploratory heaven!  I wondered about the owner and his history, presuming him to be a former businessman, now able to indulge a passion for such things while spending his retirement in these very pleasant surroundings.

A particularly straight road led through the third village, and from some way off I could see a postman walking from house to house with his deliveries. There was no one else to be seen; it was calm and the quiet was interrupted only by my passing van.  And yet, was this place the idyll I had first imagined? I could see no shops; the nearest doctor was probably some miles away, and for someone without a car, what public transport would be available?  I had seen no school, but towards the end of the school holidays, I hadn't seen any children either.  Without children, where was the vitality of the village?  I noticed some building going on at the edge of the village, but would these be executive dwellings for wealthy people seeking a country retreat in their middle age?  Or would they be the affordable homes that would make it possible for the village's own young people to remain there to strengthen the community?

Today I was offered the chance of a delivery in Norfolk - something I rarely turn down - and loyalty to my native county earned its reward.  I found myself driving through Breckland's narrow lanes (with passing places!) between high hedges, with an occasional gap through which you can see for miles across arable land, meadows, and in the distance are more hedges. Between the few market towns are lots of villages, one after another, each with its shop, a pub sometimes indicating a declining clientele by its need for a lick of paint, its medieval church, and the houses: some of red brick, some of flint, but many more built of a combination of the two.

The former station at East Rudham,
which saw its last train in 1967 after
closing to passengers 2nd March 1959

Many a village has a Station Road which shows no sign of station nor relic of railway, until suddenly, in the middle of the countryside a steep incline is encountered and here is a house by the site of a level crossing, showing those unique characteristics that denote a former station, that served a number of villages and yet wasn't really in any of them.  Some of these sites have retained one or both of the original platforms, but between them now is a footpath instead of sleepers and rails, and in the middle distance a barred gate, beyond which is someone else's section of the former railway.

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!

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!

The Annual Fishy Week!

My actions the other night would have seemed strange to the casual observer. I put some receipts at the back of my desk, placed a paperweight upon them and muttered, "Lowestoft Fish."  Readers might be interested in, or at least amused by the explanation.

Many years ago now, in the days when my accounting career began - against a rural Norfolk background - my week included a number of routine jobs that needed to be done every day.  Similarly, there were other tasks that were weekly in nature, and depended upon those daily jobs being completed first.

At the end of the financial year in that pre-computerised age, one of the most boring, seemingly interminable, and yet one of the most significant challenges was the evaluation of the end-of-year stocktaking.  It fell to me to insert a price on every item of every stock sheet, so that others could then calculate the cost of each line, and the total value of each sheet.  Those of greater seniority would then compile the grand total and feed it into the preparation of the company's accounts.

One day my boss came into the office, spotted a great heap of stock sheets on the side of my desk, and asked, with feigned innocence, what I was doing.  My reply, listing those daily and weekly tasks that comprised my normal work, was met by a firm, polite, but embarrassing reprimand, stating in no uncertain terms that my single priority had to be pricing stock sheets . . . "until they're all done!"  Baulking no rebuttal, he turned on his heel, and went out.

Minutes later, his anger cooled, the boss returned, and in his hand was a flat box, rather like those seen sometimes by a supermarket check-out, having been emptied of their former contents of fruit and vegetables.  He asked me to place the regular work that I'd been doing into the box, along with anything else from my desk that related to the new financial year.  The box was then placed prominently on top of the filing cabinet and I, together with the rest of the office staff, were instructed that all new-year work that came into the office was to be placed there, and not attended to until the stock evaluation had been completed.

The box was white, and on its side, in bright green letters that linger in my memory even now, were the words, 'LOWESTOFT FISH'.  The expression quickly became a part of office vocabulary, and the box stayed with me when I moved a couple of years later to take charge of my own department in the company, where I took great pride in passing on the lesson I'd learned.

Ten years or more later, fortunes had changed, and I found myself in another situation.  Meanwhile, Keith, my former boss, had also left that company and by then was working as an accounting 'temp.'  In that capacity, he came to work for me and, during the few weeks that we again shared an office, we also smiled over the history of 'Lowestoft Fish'.

Even now, although I have no box nor the need for one, and the valuation of stock sheets is a thing of the past, I recall those days with a kind of pleasure, still remembering that I have to complete last year's accounts - at least to a draft stage - before I can process transactions relating to my new financial year.

So, how has the new year begun for me?  This week has felt good.  It began with a planned trip to a hospital in Newcastle on Monday, and then came another (less-) early start for Sunbury-on-Thames on Tuesday, matched by a late finish, which began in the mid-afternoon with a delivery to a bar near Cambridge bus station.  Afterwards came an attempt to find the main theatre in the maze of Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, followed by unusually slow service at the nearby Little Chef.  Wednesday was a relaxing day, with two deliveries to chemists' shops in south Essex, and a couple more local jobs in the afternoon.

The big drain on the week's energy stocks began on Wednesday evening, when an 8.20 call invited me to collect some goods locally to be at Hexham General Hospital for 9.0am.  You can imagine how much - or how little! - sleep I had that night!  An early night on Thursday was also partly justified by the air pollution caused by someone moving the Sahara Desert, but I was OK by Friday morning for an interesting pair of jobs delivering to Corby and then collecting just outside March for a promotional firm in the local village of Anstey.  The week then finished with novelty.

I collected in Stevenage for an address in Redditch, with the advice that, although the firm to whom the package was going actually left off at 5.0pm, because they wanted to use it that evening, someone would stay on to receive it.  Unsurprisingly, there was a hold-up on the M1, so I phoned ahead to let them know when I would arrive, and during the course of my onward journey I received two separate texts to advise alternative delivery addresses. When I finally handed over my charge, conversation revealed that I had delivered a powerful blade that would shortly be utilised in cutting a trench in the M6, in connection with a road-widening plan!

The opening story of rural Norfolk is balance by my joyful experience this afternoon.  For the second time this season, I watched 'my' team, Diss Town, play football.  They turned out in their away strip against Haverhill Rovers.  I recalled that towards the end of last season I'd watched them play in this light blue strip and win 4-0, and wondered whether this might be a repeat performance.  Not quite, but I was quite satisfied to see them win 3-0, and gain three points against a team nine places above them in the league.

Back to Normal?

This week the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said, "The recovery has finally taken hold." From my lowly standpoint, I'm inclined to agree with him.  This week, for the first time for quite some while, I felt deprived of the benefits of working from home.  Although they did still exist, the minutes between 8.0 am and 6.0 pm when I actually did something productive on the home front were very few.  There's not room here for a whole diary, but let me pick out some of the highlights.

Monday found me in the centre of Norwich, wallowing in a whole festival of memories from (ahem!) well over 40 years ago.  My delivery was to the long-established family firm of Jarrold & Son.  Early in my working life I had a job at a shop just around the corner from them in Exchange Street.  Having just passed my driving test, I took great delight in driving the firm's van, but when it came to parking it in their garage, it was a different story.  The garage was down a narrow passage, and this was decades before I had learned the wisdom and technique of reverse entry!  The poor van suffered many a blemish, each one lowering my reputation by another notch!

As I left the 'fine city' by way of the Newmarket Road, I passed the Eagle Tavern, and the nearby Eagle Walk, at the end of which in the 1960s was a motor-cycle dealer.  Here I paid a visit one day, accompanied by a more knowledgeable friend, to equip myself with independent transport.  I discovered that, even then, the price for something really worthwhile was just beyond the limit of my resources.  What I liked was a 200cc. Francis-Barnett; what I came away with was a 175cc BSA Bantam, which had started life fired by a magneto, in other words it made its own electricity as the engine rotated.  A previous 'clever' owner had modified it to work with a battery, more like a car engine, and this modification gave me many a scary moment as it refused to work, letting me down sometimes at home, but equally at my destination, with no ready means of getting home again.  After I'd acquired a car, I sold the Bantam to a local dealer, who later told me that he'd never been able to get it working again, and had to re-build it in the original mode so that he could sell it!

Monday finished like the last two Mondays, with my 'invoice and paperwork' visit to the office being greeted with 'something else for the evening'.  Unlike the last two, however, this one was quite a bit longer.  It took me to a new destination, the Golden Jubilee National Hospital at Clydebank.  This seemed very well appointed inside, and as I left (about 2.30 am) and looked back at the floodlit elevation down the avenue through the car park, I said to myself, 'My word, - it looks like a palace!'  Research after my return reveals that it was built on the site of a former shipyard as a private hospital with adjoining hotel, and was acquired by the NHS as a completed unit in 2002 (thanks, Wikipedia!)

Wednesday (after a good night's sleep!) offered two pairs of jobs, one nearby, the other at a comfortable distance.  One of each pair was a return to somewhere that had proved difficult to find on the first visit - it's one of the advantages of doing the job for eleven and a half years that I now know where to go on these occasions.  In the morning I made a delivery to an 'office in a garden' which is situated at the end of a row of cottages in a south Cambridgeshire village.  Many Cambridge post codes were changed a few years ago, and we have a shrewd idea how to amend any that SatNav doesn't like, but it doesn't work when the original one had an error in it as well!  In the afternoon I went to Leicester, taking some veneer to a construction firm whose premises are at the far end of an industrial cul-de-sac at the end of a Victorian housing estate.  Fortunately, the road name struck a chord as I wrote it down, and once I was in the area, I knew what to look for.

I never cease to be amazed at the way my mind can switch from something I'm listening to, onto a completely different track.  As I listened to 'In Our Time' on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday morning, which this week featured Shakespeare's The Tempest, one of Melvin Bragg's guests observed that Prospero had been born on the island, and saw it as his own.  At this point my 'switch' clicked, and I remembered something I'd heard in a programme a couple of years ago.  Someone was interviewing a middle-aged southern European gentleman, who said with amusement, "My son's wife is expecting a baby; now that Croatia has joined the EU, it will be born in Europe.  My son was born in Croatia; I was born in Yugoslavia; My father was born in Italy, and his father in Austria.  We have lived in the same village for over a century."  How the shape of the continent has changed down the years.

And so to yesterday, another very full day.  I began with a delivery to Coventry, ironically to yet another destination which I had difficulty locating when I first went there.  While still on my way, I was asked to make a collection in Milton Keynes on my way back, from Bletchley Park, "The home of the code-breakers" (as the sign on the road outside says).  I took this to the office, for someone else to deliver into south London, and after a few minutes' rest, I was sent to collect something in Letchworth for a firm in Shirebrook, Notts.  No sooner had I got this than the phone rang, sending me just around the corner to another customer who had something for Congleton - "and while you're in the area [so-and-so] will give you a job for Monday morning to Northampton".  As I made my way up the A1, the controller called again.  "When you've dropped the first one of those," he began, "call me, because I've got a collection in Oswestry - which isn't a million miles away!  That can be delivered tomorrow morning, if that's OK with you."  Such courteous phrases only come when he realises that he's asking something 'above and beyond the call of duty' ... and I'm pleased that they do come - I could imagine some people who would take such co-operation for granted, and look on it as a right to ask for it.

As I wrote here last weekend, I was planning today to go to the record office for some research before watching a football match further into Suffolk.  I think it was when I was asked to collect the second afternoon job, the one to Congleton, that I decided that, with no evening in which to prepare, and not too much sleep anyway, this plan wasn't going to happen.  In the event, having collected the goods from Oswestry about 9.30, I wasn't home until around 2.0 am, so this morning was taken up by a comfortable shopping trip, and the admin of the day before.  The journey to mid-Suffolk solely for a football match had been ruled out long ago, which was why I had intended combining it with a morning in the record office; instead I went to my local club, Arlesey Town, who had an FA Trophy tie against Marlow, which they won 2-0.

Normal again?  Watch this space!

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.

So, What is Normal?

After the much-trumpeted sequence of three day weeks, life got back to (sort of) normal with a bump when, on Monday morning, the phone rang at about 10.0. "Are you OK to do a 'screamer' to the QEII?"  QEII is shorthand for the Queen Elizabeth II hospital at nearby Welwyn Garden City; as to 'screamer' ... the next sentence informed me that someone was undergoing an operation there as we spoke.  I left all on my desk just as it was and departed, to collect whatever was in the red box I was given by our customer - as he too emphasised the urgency - and then to lose no time in getting to the hospital.  As I commented to a friend later, I hadn't realised that my van would actually do 97mph!  Needless to say, the return journey was far slower!

Courier life, I reflected on Tuesday evening, is a strange mixture of similarities and contrasts.  My second job on Monday was for the same customer, this time to a conference centre in the middle of Birmingham.  There was a degree of being passed from one gate to another, and from one person to another, in order to establish whether they wanted these goods ... and, if so, whereabouts.  Finally, I learned that they weren't actually needed until Friday, and I was asked to put them for now into a shed that was already almost full - presumably the other stuff there had also arrived early for the same event.  My final task on Tuesday evening, which prompted these thoughts, was a delivery at a salad firm in rural Hampshire, and the idea of travelling to a food company, along country roads in the dark, called to mind the job I did a couple of weeks ago to Scotland, which fitted the same description, albeit at the other end of the country.

As to the remainder of the week, there was little worthy of remark, either for location or circumstance; however, two details do linger in my mind.  On Thursday morning, I was sent to a remote destination in the Fens, between Spalding and Boston, to a food company with a Japanese name I'd never heard of.  Although the sign by the gate was made of cast-iron and announced the name "Blacketts Farm", as if it had stepped forward from the 1950s, what lay beyond the gate was an immaculate modern factory building with a separate office suite that looked for all the world like a residential bungalow of c. 2005.  As I approached the door, it was opened for me and a courteous, middle-aged receptionist greeted me with a broad smile that boasted both efficiency and welcome.

Fast-forward, then, to the last job of the week, which was sufficiently normal for late on Friday afternoon: a drinks delivery to a public house.  This one was to a tavern in an inauspicious area of Peterborough, just outside the city centre.  Mine hostess seemed to be in sole command, and was entertaining a trio of regulars, all of whom were surprised at my arrival with three kegs of ale and some assorted spirits.  With the welcome assistance of one of the drinkers, these were ushered through the front door and, far quicker than I had anticipated, I was on my way.  As I neared the end of the road, my gaze fastened upon the house at the junction. 

It was built of the same grey-white bricks that characterise the area, but stood apart from the terraces on either side.  With its tall bay, stretching from pavement to eaves and embracing both upper and lower lace-clad windows, and its neat black-painted woodwork, it seemed to live up to its name 'May Villa'.  This appeared above the date '1896' on a stone tablet on the wall, and was echoed on a glass plate suspended by two chains above the front door.  It brought to mind a street in a seaside town, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a 'Vacancies' sign in the downstairs window.  For a few minutes, in the fading evening sun, my thoughts drifted from the KFC meal I was about to enjoy in the (noisy) service station just off the motorway, to the pleasant seaside holidays of my early teens.

Today was, for many reasons, my first free Saturday for some while, and this morning I paid an overdue visit to my local tyre specialist, where I was greeted by the shock news that my van was in need of a new set of tyres.  To my amazement, the ones now replaced have seen me through 49,274 miles since early February, and for this deserve my grateful praise!  This afternoon I tracked down one of the FA Trophy Preliminary Round ties, and watched a fast-moving, but none-to-friendly conflict between Royston Town and Three Bridges.  I left early, put off as much as anything by the anti-referee shouting from the crowd, with the home team losing by three goals to one.