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!
Showing posts with label hospitals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospitals. Show all posts
Saturday, 7 March 2015
Saturday, 21 February 2015
A Curate's Egg of a Week!
Yes, it's been a right mixture this week. In particular, good at the edges and bad in the middle. Monday was definitely a good day. It began with a 'regular' delivery to Pinewood Studios, after which there was time for coffee before I was sent to pick up two jobs in Stevenage, one to Cambridge, and the other to Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon. The one to Cambridge was to a laboratory that I hadn't been to for some years, and it brought to mind an amusing exchange on that previous occasion. As she received the box I had brought her, the young lady mused, "OK, What have we here?" While she examined the paperwork, I announced that we never know what we are carrying: "It could be anything from eggs to alligators!" After what I think must have been just the right delay, I added, "mmm ... I'm not sure about the eggs, though." Seeing the bemused and rather puzzled look on her face, I explained that only a few weeks before I had been sent to a shop in Romford to collect 'a box', which was securely tied, had airholes in it, and made noises. When I delivered it, I asked what it was that I had brought, and was told that it contained two baby alligators!
Talking of humour, rural octogenarians are perhaps one of the richest sources. It was at Hinchingbrooke that I found myself walking down a corridor behind an elderly gent pushing his wife in a wheelchair. As I overtook them, I heard the lady ask her beloved, "I'm not too heavy for you to push, am I, John?" Quick as a flash, John replied, "No, dear, but that's a heavy old chair, though!"
After these amusements, I took a drinks delivery to a small pub in Attleborough, which brought the day's returns up to a most acceptable level, which was as well, for Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with annoyingly local jobs, and are best forgotten. So, too, is Thursday, although it did begin with an interesting visit to today's equivalent of a stately home, for which the modern term is - according to the board outside - 'classically styled detached villa'. This was on the outskirts of Maidenhead, where I found the actual building just about complete, and now awaiting a balustrade on the sweeping staircase in the main hall, and all the other interior floorings, fixtures and fittings. The stone above the portico reads '2015', so it's clearly intended that it will be finished this year, although it looks far from it at present.
By the time I came around the M25 on my return, the rain was just starting, and I was asked if I would do a pick-up in Welwyn Garden City on my way past to go to Dunstable. Naturally, I said this was OK, but when I got there I began to regret my willingness to co-operate. 'Dunstable' was elaborated as 'Toddington Services', and when I asked, "North- or South-bound?" I was told "both." I was then loaded with forty cases of soft drinks, duly segregated into two separate deliveries, and sent on my way. I think that it took about two hours to drive the 22 miles, locate the delivery point, attract someone's attention, unload and transfer the goods to the required location, and then cross the motorway and repeat the whole process again ... in the rain. By the time I left I was not the 'happy bunny' I prefer to be! And to crown it all, having returned home about 2.0 pm, there was no further job that afternoon. The only consolation was the later announcement that I could start Friday with a nice gentle run to Southend-on-Sea.
This was indeed pleasant, and provided a welcome contrast to the foregoing. My load was ten 25-litre containers of 'fluid', being taken to a small shop, with a parking bay right outside, in a street that wasn't too busy. I have no idea what sort of 'fluid' it was; I was simply thankful that the consignee was willing, with good humour, to carry all ten containers from the pavement into the shop. There was even a glimpse of the sea as I drove away.
Our church had decided that, on the Fridays of Lent, our normal monthly practice of a day's prayer and fasting would become a weekly event for those wishing to take part. It was therefore somewhat ironic, as I drove out of Southend on my way home, that the controller rang and said. "Pull over and have some breakfast ..." He had a pick up for me at an industrial estate in Basildon, but not for about an hour. I was pleased, though, to drive to the estate, listen to the end of a play and watch the antics of a robin and two brace of sparrows in the tree opposite. It proved a relaxing prelude to what was to follow. Having made my collection I was nearly back to Letchworth with it, when another call asked me to meet another driver, who had a chilled box to be taken on to Newmarket as soon as I had delivered my own consignment. By the time I had done this, it was about 2.0, and I could see the day ending as had the one before.
Not so. Within an hour or so, I was given two more jobs that seemed made for each other. One was from Letchworth to Northolt, the other a pick-up near Potters Bar to go to Twickenham. As I drove down the A1(M) to make the second collection, I realised that on one screen of my PDA the destination was given as TW11, but on the other it was TN11. I rang in to have this clarified, and soon afterwards the TN11 was changed to match. However, when I made the collection, I found that it was addressed to a firm in Sevenoaks! By then it was too late to have any hope of making both deliveries by the required 6.0 pm, whichever sequence I might adopt, so I sought advice from the office. After a delay of about 40 minutes, another driver met me, and we exchanged the Sevenoaks delivery for a film to be taken to a cinema in Croydon.
I made my delivery in Northolt, and SatNav then decided that the fastest route to Croydon - it was Friday evening, remember - would be an almost straight line on the map. I can't recall exactly which boroughs I passed through; many of the roads were familiar, many weren't. Some were the perfect operation of the Repeating Genie, for they were the same that I'd used last Friday morning when going from Pinewood Studios to make further deliveries in Thornton Heath and Wimbledon. I'm not a particular fan of London: in fact, when I started this work nearly thirteen years ago, I had previously driven only a handful of times anywhere within the M25! I was very glad in those early days to be stopped by a red traffic light, so I could check on the map which road I needed. Now with SatNav, however - complain about it though we might - things are totally different. With no worries at all about where I was going, all I had to think about was the traffic around me, and driving through inner London on a winter's evening was magical!
It was a long day; I didn't get home until about 10.50pm. But it was different, and in many ways the best ending for a week that would otherwise have been very 'flat.'
Talking of humour, rural octogenarians are perhaps one of the richest sources. It was at Hinchingbrooke that I found myself walking down a corridor behind an elderly gent pushing his wife in a wheelchair. As I overtook them, I heard the lady ask her beloved, "I'm not too heavy for you to push, am I, John?" Quick as a flash, John replied, "No, dear, but that's a heavy old chair, though!"
After these amusements, I took a drinks delivery to a small pub in Attleborough, which brought the day's returns up to a most acceptable level, which was as well, for Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with annoyingly local jobs, and are best forgotten. So, too, is Thursday, although it did begin with an interesting visit to today's equivalent of a stately home, for which the modern term is - according to the board outside - 'classically styled detached villa'. This was on the outskirts of Maidenhead, where I found the actual building just about complete, and now awaiting a balustrade on the sweeping staircase in the main hall, and all the other interior floorings, fixtures and fittings. The stone above the portico reads '2015', so it's clearly intended that it will be finished this year, although it looks far from it at present.
By the time I came around the M25 on my return, the rain was just starting, and I was asked if I would do a pick-up in Welwyn Garden City on my way past to go to Dunstable. Naturally, I said this was OK, but when I got there I began to regret my willingness to co-operate. 'Dunstable' was elaborated as 'Toddington Services', and when I asked, "North- or South-bound?" I was told "both." I was then loaded with forty cases of soft drinks, duly segregated into two separate deliveries, and sent on my way. I think that it took about two hours to drive the 22 miles, locate the delivery point, attract someone's attention, unload and transfer the goods to the required location, and then cross the motorway and repeat the whole process again ... in the rain. By the time I left I was not the 'happy bunny' I prefer to be! And to crown it all, having returned home about 2.0 pm, there was no further job that afternoon. The only consolation was the later announcement that I could start Friday with a nice gentle run to Southend-on-Sea.
This was indeed pleasant, and provided a welcome contrast to the foregoing. My load was ten 25-litre containers of 'fluid', being taken to a small shop, with a parking bay right outside, in a street that wasn't too busy. I have no idea what sort of 'fluid' it was; I was simply thankful that the consignee was willing, with good humour, to carry all ten containers from the pavement into the shop. There was even a glimpse of the sea as I drove away.
Our church had decided that, on the Fridays of Lent, our normal monthly practice of a day's prayer and fasting would become a weekly event for those wishing to take part. It was therefore somewhat ironic, as I drove out of Southend on my way home, that the controller rang and said. "Pull over and have some breakfast ..." He had a pick up for me at an industrial estate in Basildon, but not for about an hour. I was pleased, though, to drive to the estate, listen to the end of a play and watch the antics of a robin and two brace of sparrows in the tree opposite. It proved a relaxing prelude to what was to follow. Having made my collection I was nearly back to Letchworth with it, when another call asked me to meet another driver, who had a chilled box to be taken on to Newmarket as soon as I had delivered my own consignment. By the time I had done this, it was about 2.0, and I could see the day ending as had the one before.
Not so. Within an hour or so, I was given two more jobs that seemed made for each other. One was from Letchworth to Northolt, the other a pick-up near Potters Bar to go to Twickenham. As I drove down the A1(M) to make the second collection, I realised that on one screen of my PDA the destination was given as TW11, but on the other it was TN11. I rang in to have this clarified, and soon afterwards the TN11 was changed to match. However, when I made the collection, I found that it was addressed to a firm in Sevenoaks! By then it was too late to have any hope of making both deliveries by the required 6.0 pm, whichever sequence I might adopt, so I sought advice from the office. After a delay of about 40 minutes, another driver met me, and we exchanged the Sevenoaks delivery for a film to be taken to a cinema in Croydon.
I made my delivery in Northolt, and SatNav then decided that the fastest route to Croydon - it was Friday evening, remember - would be an almost straight line on the map. I can't recall exactly which boroughs I passed through; many of the roads were familiar, many weren't. Some were the perfect operation of the Repeating Genie, for they were the same that I'd used last Friday morning when going from Pinewood Studios to make further deliveries in Thornton Heath and Wimbledon. I'm not a particular fan of London: in fact, when I started this work nearly thirteen years ago, I had previously driven only a handful of times anywhere within the M25! I was very glad in those early days to be stopped by a red traffic light, so I could check on the map which road I needed. Now with SatNav, however - complain about it though we might - things are totally different. With no worries at all about where I was going, all I had to think about was the traffic around me, and driving through inner London on a winter's evening was magical!
It was a long day; I didn't get home until about 10.50pm. But it was different, and in many ways the best ending for a week that would otherwise have been very 'flat.'
Saturday, 7 February 2015
One a day, and Sussex by the Sea!
After a week off, whether holiday (as some might have thought) or the start of phased retirement (as indeed was the case), it's always a slow build-up back to normal levels of activity, and this was no different. The situation is complicated by the usual slow build-up of 'normal activity' after the new year anyway. But there was at least some highlight to each day, above a background of what I call 'bread and butter', local work.
Monday found me utilising my Dart-charge account for the first time in nearly two months, as I went to Swanscombe for a customer in Ashwell, whose goods were delivered to a delightful modern office building, aptly named 'The Observatory', for it offered excellent views in every direction.
The next day was a definite 'damp squib' work-wise, because the highlight was being stuck - along with thousands of others - on the M1 for several hours owing to an accident not very far from home, at junction 13. It was feared that there had been a fatality, but the TV news bulletin that evening suggested that there were two serious injuries only. It seems that a lorry had crossed the central reservation and taken out a car. I wondered later whether the lorry might have come from the Bedford direction, and perhaps the driver had been confused by the new layout of the junction. It's certainly esoteric - I don't know of another like it - with lots of subordinate junctions on either side of the motorway, quite apart from those that actually interact with it.
Wednesday began with a straightforward collection from a distribution centre along the A14 at Thrapston. As I approached the gate, I recalled the confusion that I had had to overcome on my one previous visit. When the security official had booked me in, and told me where I should go to make a collection - as he'd done on that other occasion - I explained that I had then found I needed to be 'over there' ... and I pointed in the opposite direction. Adopting a welcome relaxed and co-operative attitude, the official said he wasn't really bothered where I went: it was my choice. Since it was nearer the gate, I went where I had gone before and began my 'I hope I'm in the right place ...' script. It worked, in within minutes I was back on the road.
The week's fourth highlight, like the second, was not to my advantage, although unlike that accident, this one was predictable. I was called on my way back from a delivery in Reading by another depot, who suggested - quite logically - that I might like to do a pick-up in St Albans for a destination in Stevenage on the way. Unfortunately this was a collection of samples from the renal unit at the hospital. Not surprisingly, these require special secure carriage and, although I have received the necessary training, the little box I'm provided with for this purpose wouldn't have accommodated even one of these large containers ... and there were at least ten! There was no alternative but to ring in and get another driver, suitably equipped, to make the collection.
Friday was more like a 'normal day'. It started with the collection of some bespoke export packaging in Letchworth. As I was leaving the town, bound for Berkshire, the controller rang: how much room did I have? There was one small box to be collected in Tring, for the south coast. This was the 'first overlap'. I collected the box, and then made my way to a private estate - automatic gates at every entrance - near Slough to deliver the empty boxes. The men there had anticipated a much larger vehicle; I had brought them four boxes, they were expecting about fifty. They explained that this house had been sold for £10 million (!) and that the new owners had just arrived. There seemed to be no real anxiety, however, and as I left one said to the other, "we'll have an easier day with just four boxes to fill!"
Then came the 'second overlap' for, as I drove around the M25, making for Rustington, near Littlehampton, with my box from Tring, I had a call from the Guildford office. They had spotted me heading in their general direction, and wondered if I would be interested in a collection in Guildford going to St Leonards-on-Sea. I told them I couldn't see why not, and after collecting a small box there I had the treat of a cross-country journey to the seaside. The sunshine was almost summer-like (if you didn't look at the dashboard thermometer!) and I learned just how long is 'Good old Sussex by the Sea'. It was a very pleasant journey indeed, ending with another Dartford crossing, after which I was home about 6.40pm.
Monday found me utilising my Dart-charge account for the first time in nearly two months, as I went to Swanscombe for a customer in Ashwell, whose goods were delivered to a delightful modern office building, aptly named 'The Observatory', for it offered excellent views in every direction.
The next day was a definite 'damp squib' work-wise, because the highlight was being stuck - along with thousands of others - on the M1 for several hours owing to an accident not very far from home, at junction 13. It was feared that there had been a fatality, but the TV news bulletin that evening suggested that there were two serious injuries only. It seems that a lorry had crossed the central reservation and taken out a car. I wondered later whether the lorry might have come from the Bedford direction, and perhaps the driver had been confused by the new layout of the junction. It's certainly esoteric - I don't know of another like it - with lots of subordinate junctions on either side of the motorway, quite apart from those that actually interact with it.
Wednesday began with a straightforward collection from a distribution centre along the A14 at Thrapston. As I approached the gate, I recalled the confusion that I had had to overcome on my one previous visit. When the security official had booked me in, and told me where I should go to make a collection - as he'd done on that other occasion - I explained that I had then found I needed to be 'over there' ... and I pointed in the opposite direction. Adopting a welcome relaxed and co-operative attitude, the official said he wasn't really bothered where I went: it was my choice. Since it was nearer the gate, I went where I had gone before and began my 'I hope I'm in the right place ...' script. It worked, in within minutes I was back on the road.
The week's fourth highlight, like the second, was not to my advantage, although unlike that accident, this one was predictable. I was called on my way back from a delivery in Reading by another depot, who suggested - quite logically - that I might like to do a pick-up in St Albans for a destination in Stevenage on the way. Unfortunately this was a collection of samples from the renal unit at the hospital. Not surprisingly, these require special secure carriage and, although I have received the necessary training, the little box I'm provided with for this purpose wouldn't have accommodated even one of these large containers ... and there were at least ten! There was no alternative but to ring in and get another driver, suitably equipped, to make the collection.
Friday was more like a 'normal day'. It started with the collection of some bespoke export packaging in Letchworth. As I was leaving the town, bound for Berkshire, the controller rang: how much room did I have? There was one small box to be collected in Tring, for the south coast. This was the 'first overlap'. I collected the box, and then made my way to a private estate - automatic gates at every entrance - near Slough to deliver the empty boxes. The men there had anticipated a much larger vehicle; I had brought them four boxes, they were expecting about fifty. They explained that this house had been sold for £10 million (!) and that the new owners had just arrived. There seemed to be no real anxiety, however, and as I left one said to the other, "we'll have an easier day with just four boxes to fill!"
Then came the 'second overlap' for, as I drove around the M25, making for Rustington, near Littlehampton, with my box from Tring, I had a call from the Guildford office. They had spotted me heading in their general direction, and wondered if I would be interested in a collection in Guildford going to St Leonards-on-Sea. I told them I couldn't see why not, and after collecting a small box there I had the treat of a cross-country journey to the seaside. The sunshine was almost summer-like (if you didn't look at the dashboard thermometer!) and I learned just how long is 'Good old Sussex by the Sea'. It was a very pleasant journey indeed, ending with another Dartford crossing, after which I was home about 6.40pm.
Saturday, 10 January 2015
New Year ... Same old Life!
I find this every year. As the summer fades into autumn, I realise that instead of - in this case - 2014 feeling new while 2013 is still familiar, my outlook has gradually transformed so that 2014 is the familiar one, and this new prospect, 2015, is being felt just over the horizon. So, as the 'old year' has drawn to its close, the image of the new one has become stronger until at last, with a great cheer, the sound of the pipers, and copious amounts of alcohol - not forgetting a lump of coal, if you can find one - it's HERE!
Now it has become reality and, having spent my first week back on the road, I can say that it feels little different from the old one; I expect it's the same for most working people. For a start, I'd forgotten just how slack the first proper week of the new year is for the courier industry. After the first few years I'd been doing the work, it was expected, and the big question would be 'how long before it picks up?' Somehow, in 2015, this phenomenon had slipped my mind. It wasn't until I looked back from Wednesday morning that I realised that this week is just like other years, and by the end of it, I find I've earned less than four days' income in five days. How long, I wonder, will it last in this year of gradual recovery?
Other things, too, haven't changed. There was a good slice of hospital confusion to mirror the same from before Christmas. I was asked to take something from Lister in Stevenage to Addenbrooke's in Cambridge; this combination comes up quite often and, although not having the precise detail, I went out of habit to the ward where I usually collect specimens for the laboratory in Cambridge. After quite a wait, I learned that they had nothing for me. Whilst waiting, I reflected how - unlike my work - the 'feel' of this workplace has changed ... in complete accord with the current news bulletins. No longer are there two or three nurses (I use the term in my ignorance to include various other grades on the ward) at the ward desk, beavering away, and exchanging the odd word of conversation. One person only was present, and she busily engaged on the phone. Others pass quickly to and fro, far too intent on what they're doing to divert their attention to resolve my presence.
I sought clarification of my mission from the office, was eventually called back by another depot, who had taken the job in the first place, with the bald comment, "have you tried pathology?" I hadn't, of course, so did so, only to find two other drivers there, each apparently quite clear what they were doing, and the laboratory staff scratching around (or so it seemed to me) to find something that I might be expected to take. It was most unsatisfactory, and unsatisfying.
Another thing that has been by no means uncommon in the past, was an evening collection that could be transformed into an overnight job. It was 8.0 pm when I was called by the night controller and offered a job to Trowbridge. It could be collected in nearby Royston at 10.0 pm, and had to be at its destination by 7.30 the next morning. In the intervening hour or so, I calculated that, by the time I were to get back home it would be 10.30, and I should have to set the alarm for 4.30 if I were to avoid the early morning traffic and be sure of meeting the deadline. I could remember going to Trowbridge for this customer before; I googled the likely consignee, hoping that I would recognise a name from the results of my search of the industry and the town's name. I was in luck, and it took only a phone call to establish that they did run a 24-hour operation, and that the night shift personnel would be able to receive the goods. So, once loaded, I made my way straight there, delivered, and was home and in bed by 5.0 am. Though short, my sleep was uninterrupted by fears of missing the alarm, and any anxiety about the job to be done, and I surprised myself by the length of time later in the day that I was able to keep driving without getting drowsy.
Just to make me feel at home in the new year, it seemed, there was an evening when I delivered a vanload of drinks to a public house, albeit on Thursday instead of Friday. And to round things off there was a job that was too big for the van. In this case, that wasn't strictly true, but the pallet that had been used only had loading holes down the long sides, which meant that the length of the pallet would have to fit across the width of the van ... which it didn't. Apparently this particular establishment only have pallets of this design, but I usually only collect from them in individual units, so the problem hadn't arisen before. At least I hadn't remembered the one previous occasion, until the fork truck driver asked me to watch out that he didn't touch the door steadies of the van with the pallet as he offered it up to see if there were room for it between the wheel-arches. It was then that I recalled that earlier experience, my resulting anger and the furious attempts I'd made to straighten the bent article sufficiently for the door of the van to close!
But it hasn't been a week without some good points. I've been able to make good use of the gaps between jobs, even down to the minute, measuring all sorts of aspects of the interior of my newly-acquired motorhome, and making appropriate plans for an extended shopping expedition today to get some of the necessary items to equip it for more adventurous use than seeing it parked outside my window!
Now it has become reality and, having spent my first week back on the road, I can say that it feels little different from the old one; I expect it's the same for most working people. For a start, I'd forgotten just how slack the first proper week of the new year is for the courier industry. After the first few years I'd been doing the work, it was expected, and the big question would be 'how long before it picks up?' Somehow, in 2015, this phenomenon had slipped my mind. It wasn't until I looked back from Wednesday morning that I realised that this week is just like other years, and by the end of it, I find I've earned less than four days' income in five days. How long, I wonder, will it last in this year of gradual recovery?
Other things, too, haven't changed. There was a good slice of hospital confusion to mirror the same from before Christmas. I was asked to take something from Lister in Stevenage to Addenbrooke's in Cambridge; this combination comes up quite often and, although not having the precise detail, I went out of habit to the ward where I usually collect specimens for the laboratory in Cambridge. After quite a wait, I learned that they had nothing for me. Whilst waiting, I reflected how - unlike my work - the 'feel' of this workplace has changed ... in complete accord with the current news bulletins. No longer are there two or three nurses (I use the term in my ignorance to include various other grades on the ward) at the ward desk, beavering away, and exchanging the odd word of conversation. One person only was present, and she busily engaged on the phone. Others pass quickly to and fro, far too intent on what they're doing to divert their attention to resolve my presence.
I sought clarification of my mission from the office, was eventually called back by another depot, who had taken the job in the first place, with the bald comment, "have you tried pathology?" I hadn't, of course, so did so, only to find two other drivers there, each apparently quite clear what they were doing, and the laboratory staff scratching around (or so it seemed to me) to find something that I might be expected to take. It was most unsatisfactory, and unsatisfying.
Another thing that has been by no means uncommon in the past, was an evening collection that could be transformed into an overnight job. It was 8.0 pm when I was called by the night controller and offered a job to Trowbridge. It could be collected in nearby Royston at 10.0 pm, and had to be at its destination by 7.30 the next morning. In the intervening hour or so, I calculated that, by the time I were to get back home it would be 10.30, and I should have to set the alarm for 4.30 if I were to avoid the early morning traffic and be sure of meeting the deadline. I could remember going to Trowbridge for this customer before; I googled the likely consignee, hoping that I would recognise a name from the results of my search of the industry and the town's name. I was in luck, and it took only a phone call to establish that they did run a 24-hour operation, and that the night shift personnel would be able to receive the goods. So, once loaded, I made my way straight there, delivered, and was home and in bed by 5.0 am. Though short, my sleep was uninterrupted by fears of missing the alarm, and any anxiety about the job to be done, and I surprised myself by the length of time later in the day that I was able to keep driving without getting drowsy.
Just to make me feel at home in the new year, it seemed, there was an evening when I delivered a vanload of drinks to a public house, albeit on Thursday instead of Friday. And to round things off there was a job that was too big for the van. In this case, that wasn't strictly true, but the pallet that had been used only had loading holes down the long sides, which meant that the length of the pallet would have to fit across the width of the van ... which it didn't. Apparently this particular establishment only have pallets of this design, but I usually only collect from them in individual units, so the problem hadn't arisen before. At least I hadn't remembered the one previous occasion, until the fork truck driver asked me to watch out that he didn't touch the door steadies of the van with the pallet as he offered it up to see if there were room for it between the wheel-arches. It was then that I recalled that earlier experience, my resulting anger and the furious attempts I'd made to straighten the bent article sufficiently for the door of the van to close!
But it hasn't been a week without some good points. I've been able to make good use of the gaps between jobs, even down to the minute, measuring all sorts of aspects of the interior of my newly-acquired motorhome, and making appropriate plans for an extended shopping expedition today to get some of the necessary items to equip it for more adventurous use than seeing it parked outside my window!
Friday, 19 December 2014
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.
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!
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 |
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!
Saturday, 8 November 2014
New Lamps for Old
Yes, it won't be long until the panto season! But Aladdin and his stories bear no real relation to my tale this week. It has been a week - more than ever before, I think - of two very different halves.
But first, why that title? Well, there have been many new things lately. The take-over at the end of July brought a whole new way of working, and with it not just the use of the much-grumbled-about PDA. (When I reached a delivery the other day, my finger misjudged its stab as I tried to tell the beast that I'd arrived. I took ages to get out of a completely alien screen; when I went inside with my package, my tale of woe met with wit as well as sympathy, "I just thought you were never going to get out of the van!") Now that our self-billing invoices come online on Thursdays instead of a paper document on Mondays, I'm having to adjust to a new financial discipline as well.
In August and September, there seemed to be far more work, and it was easy to ascribe this to the new régime, too. This made October's abyssmal performance feel far worse than simply a return to the mediocre levels of the spring. Early this week, realising that in two days I'd earned scarcely more than one day's expected income, I totted up that in the last three weeks I'd done only three jobs that were more than 100 miles in length, compared to 29 in the previous eleven weeks since the take-over. I began to wonder whether I had been singled out for punitive treatment!
I chewed this over during my daily quiet time next morning, and found a sort of perspective about it, realising that, as a consequence of attentions focussed elsewhere, my work had been largely absent from my prayers lately. Now, I'm fairly sure that Dave, my controller, is not a 'God-botherer'; I'm not so sure of the extent to which he is or is not 'God-bothered'! He rang me as I was returning from yet another local job that afternoon, to ask if I would be able to do a couple of jobs that evening. In my acceptance, I decided to advise him of that statistic. He sounded quite shocked, and shortly afterwards rang me back to add another hospital delivery to the one that he had already instructed, along with the relief of someone who had locked himself out of his van ... this an all-too-common occurence for this customer, of whom I've written here before!
Thursday morning began quite tamely, returning the afore-mentioned van key, and then deliveries in Hemel Hempstead and Uxbridge. As I drove through Uxbridge, about a mile from my second delivery, the phone rang. I was given a job I'd done a few weeks ago, collecting some computers from a training session in a hotel near Gatwick airport, and taking them to another one in the chain for a similar session the next day. This wouldn't be until after 3.0 pm, but I was being told now since it would save my travelling if I were to go straight there. It was about 11.0, and I received this news with mixed feelings. A couple of idle hours, but then a good job; a good job, but overall a very long day.
I hadn't gone far after making my delivery when the phone rang again. This time it was the Reading office, offering me a complex, but in the event an undemanding and interesting job. I collected seven deliveries of car parts from a logistics firm in Slough, passed four of them on to other drivers, and then delivered the other three, finishing only three miles from the hotel, just on 3.0! What better way to fill idle hours? Then came the planned delivery of the computers to Manchester, hampered by motorway traffic, but otherwise uneventful, from which I returned home at 3.15 am.
In the last three weeks, when there was a lot of waiting time, I had begun making tentative plans for retirement. Having seen and heard many instances of resulting torment and trauma, I've no intention of this being an overnight life change. Instead, I'm planning a gradual transition, and incorporating within it the acquisition of a motorhome, so I've been looking at what is available within my budget. There's a vast spectrum of possibilities, and some very attractive models which I don't feel I can justify for just one person. As I've considered these, I've come to realise ways in which this vehicle will not be merely a 'toy' for holidays, but that its arrival will herald a whole new life-pattern.
As if to underline this train of thought, I listened this week to a sermon podcast based on the parable of new wine and old wineskins from St Matthew chapter 9, and it seems that in order to accommodate the 'new wine' of the motorhome, I shall have to renew the 'wineskin' of my lifestyle.
Time will tell, and no doubt this blog will report in due course!
But first, why that title? Well, there have been many new things lately. The take-over at the end of July brought a whole new way of working, and with it not just the use of the much-grumbled-about PDA. (When I reached a delivery the other day, my finger misjudged its stab as I tried to tell the beast that I'd arrived. I took ages to get out of a completely alien screen; when I went inside with my package, my tale of woe met with wit as well as sympathy, "I just thought you were never going to get out of the van!") Now that our self-billing invoices come online on Thursdays instead of a paper document on Mondays, I'm having to adjust to a new financial discipline as well.
In August and September, there seemed to be far more work, and it was easy to ascribe this to the new régime, too. This made October's abyssmal performance feel far worse than simply a return to the mediocre levels of the spring. Early this week, realising that in two days I'd earned scarcely more than one day's expected income, I totted up that in the last three weeks I'd done only three jobs that were more than 100 miles in length, compared to 29 in the previous eleven weeks since the take-over. I began to wonder whether I had been singled out for punitive treatment!
I chewed this over during my daily quiet time next morning, and found a sort of perspective about it, realising that, as a consequence of attentions focussed elsewhere, my work had been largely absent from my prayers lately. Now, I'm fairly sure that Dave, my controller, is not a 'God-botherer'; I'm not so sure of the extent to which he is or is not 'God-bothered'! He rang me as I was returning from yet another local job that afternoon, to ask if I would be able to do a couple of jobs that evening. In my acceptance, I decided to advise him of that statistic. He sounded quite shocked, and shortly afterwards rang me back to add another hospital delivery to the one that he had already instructed, along with the relief of someone who had locked himself out of his van ... this an all-too-common occurence for this customer, of whom I've written here before!
Thursday morning began quite tamely, returning the afore-mentioned van key, and then deliveries in Hemel Hempstead and Uxbridge. As I drove through Uxbridge, about a mile from my second delivery, the phone rang. I was given a job I'd done a few weeks ago, collecting some computers from a training session in a hotel near Gatwick airport, and taking them to another one in the chain for a similar session the next day. This wouldn't be until after 3.0 pm, but I was being told now since it would save my travelling if I were to go straight there. It was about 11.0, and I received this news with mixed feelings. A couple of idle hours, but then a good job; a good job, but overall a very long day.
I hadn't gone far after making my delivery when the phone rang again. This time it was the Reading office, offering me a complex, but in the event an undemanding and interesting job. I collected seven deliveries of car parts from a logistics firm in Slough, passed four of them on to other drivers, and then delivered the other three, finishing only three miles from the hotel, just on 3.0! What better way to fill idle hours? Then came the planned delivery of the computers to Manchester, hampered by motorway traffic, but otherwise uneventful, from which I returned home at 3.15 am.
In the last three weeks, when there was a lot of waiting time, I had begun making tentative plans for retirement. Having seen and heard many instances of resulting torment and trauma, I've no intention of this being an overnight life change. Instead, I'm planning a gradual transition, and incorporating within it the acquisition of a motorhome, so I've been looking at what is available within my budget. There's a vast spectrum of possibilities, and some very attractive models which I don't feel I can justify for just one person. As I've considered these, I've come to realise ways in which this vehicle will not be merely a 'toy' for holidays, but that its arrival will herald a whole new life-pattern.
As if to underline this train of thought, I listened this week to a sermon podcast based on the parable of new wine and old wineskins from St Matthew chapter 9, and it seems that in order to accommodate the 'new wine' of the motorhome, I shall have to renew the 'wineskin' of my lifestyle.
Time will tell, and no doubt this blog will report in due course!
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Strike a Light!
I've been thinking about light this week; and that, of course, includes lights, and more philosophical enlightenment, too.
On Monday and Tuesday I wasn't working. Instead my attention was focussed on a hospital appointment on Tuesday afternoon, when I underwent a colonoscopy procedure. As you may know, this involves a camera, and normally cameras don't operate without light. There was also light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, when the doctor announced at the end of it that he had found nothing. Until that moment, I hadn't realised how anxious I had been about this beneath the surface, but suddenly there came a feeling of great relief, as if someone had switched on a great light!
The sky on Thursday evening was riven with more lights, as lots of fireworks were let off to mark Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. I was a little apprehensive, since I had to get up early yesterday morning, but fortunately my bedroom is on the opposite side from the 'noisy quarter', and I was undisturbed.
You may think it strange, but I like driving in the evening, at night, or in the early morning. For one thing it's usually more peaceful, but often there is beauty to be seen, too. I remember one night driving home from Scotland along the A68, where a straight road on the map is actually so up and down that at times it looked as if I were driving straight at the full moon. On another occasion, I had set off early for a destination up the A1, and was able to delight in the sunrise over my right wing-mirror.
Yesterday's early departure was for Avonmouth and Weston-super-Mare, but the illumination wasn't provided by sunrise, but by a car on fire on the hard shoulder of the M25. Now when I say on fire, it wasn't just a plume of smoke, although that was there as well; there were flames shooting high into the sky, and the heat was quite intense as I passed in the second lane. It looked - thankfully - as if driver and passengers were safely standing by another vehicle some way off.
As dawn was breaking my mind was on a totally different kind of light ... or rather the lack of it. The news bulletins reported the story of the requirement by the EU of an additional contribution of £1.7 billion from the UK, according to the headlines because of our increased productivity. The main item revealed that this was actually the result of revised calculations under terms agreed nearly twenty years ago, but you wouldn't think so to hear some of the politicians interviewed, who were quick to make party capital out of the news. Terms like 'an extra tax', 'an illegal tax' were heard; later bulletins reported our PM bemoaning the short notice - which I feel is valid - but then going on to grumble about being asked to pay more anyway, when in previous years we benefitted from a rebate ... which presumably was not so objectionable. At least the interviews in this morning's news programme were more reasoned and understanding of what is going on. However, I do wish this country would for once get a grip on the fact that it is PART OF EUROPE, instead of always belly-aching about THEM and US as two sides of a constant battle!
While controversy reigns, let's turn back to the hospital I visited at the beginning of the week, where I couldn't have received better treatment ... as has always been the case. What a shame that nurses and other public sector employees were taking industrial action last week about pay. I confess to a degree of enlightenment there myself: I hadn't realised that these people earn so little that they can't afford to keep their families. I suppose, because my income fluctuates as much as it does, I've lost any feeling for seeing the same figure week after week, knowing that it won't change until the next annual review. Over the past quarter, for example, my highest weekly income was more than twice the lowest; and the lowest figure wouldn't have been enough to meet the monthly rent on my flat, let alone cover my business expenses - of which fuel alone is nearly £8,000 a year! I guess it's all a matter of balance.
And having got all that off my chest, I notice it's time to change the clocks back to GMT tonight! It sort of puts things into a greater perspective, somehow ... and gives us a bit more light in the mornings!
On Monday and Tuesday I wasn't working. Instead my attention was focussed on a hospital appointment on Tuesday afternoon, when I underwent a colonoscopy procedure. As you may know, this involves a camera, and normally cameras don't operate without light. There was also light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, when the doctor announced at the end of it that he had found nothing. Until that moment, I hadn't realised how anxious I had been about this beneath the surface, but suddenly there came a feeling of great relief, as if someone had switched on a great light!
The sky on Thursday evening was riven with more lights, as lots of fireworks were let off to mark Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. I was a little apprehensive, since I had to get up early yesterday morning, but fortunately my bedroom is on the opposite side from the 'noisy quarter', and I was undisturbed.
You may think it strange, but I like driving in the evening, at night, or in the early morning. For one thing it's usually more peaceful, but often there is beauty to be seen, too. I remember one night driving home from Scotland along the A68, where a straight road on the map is actually so up and down that at times it looked as if I were driving straight at the full moon. On another occasion, I had set off early for a destination up the A1, and was able to delight in the sunrise over my right wing-mirror.
Yesterday's early departure was for Avonmouth and Weston-super-Mare, but the illumination wasn't provided by sunrise, but by a car on fire on the hard shoulder of the M25. Now when I say on fire, it wasn't just a plume of smoke, although that was there as well; there were flames shooting high into the sky, and the heat was quite intense as I passed in the second lane. It looked - thankfully - as if driver and passengers were safely standing by another vehicle some way off.
As dawn was breaking my mind was on a totally different kind of light ... or rather the lack of it. The news bulletins reported the story of the requirement by the EU of an additional contribution of £1.7 billion from the UK, according to the headlines because of our increased productivity. The main item revealed that this was actually the result of revised calculations under terms agreed nearly twenty years ago, but you wouldn't think so to hear some of the politicians interviewed, who were quick to make party capital out of the news. Terms like 'an extra tax', 'an illegal tax' were heard; later bulletins reported our PM bemoaning the short notice - which I feel is valid - but then going on to grumble about being asked to pay more anyway, when in previous years we benefitted from a rebate ... which presumably was not so objectionable. At least the interviews in this morning's news programme were more reasoned and understanding of what is going on. However, I do wish this country would for once get a grip on the fact that it is PART OF EUROPE, instead of always belly-aching about THEM and US as two sides of a constant battle!
While controversy reigns, let's turn back to the hospital I visited at the beginning of the week, where I couldn't have received better treatment ... as has always been the case. What a shame that nurses and other public sector employees were taking industrial action last week about pay. I confess to a degree of enlightenment there myself: I hadn't realised that these people earn so little that they can't afford to keep their families. I suppose, because my income fluctuates as much as it does, I've lost any feeling for seeing the same figure week after week, knowing that it won't change until the next annual review. Over the past quarter, for example, my highest weekly income was more than twice the lowest; and the lowest figure wouldn't have been enough to meet the monthly rent on my flat, let alone cover my business expenses - of which fuel alone is nearly £8,000 a year! I guess it's all a matter of balance.
And having got all that off my chest, I notice it's time to change the clocks back to GMT tonight! It sort of puts things into a greater perspective, somehow ... and gives us a bit more light in the mornings!
Saturday, 5 April 2014
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.
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.
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Getting it into Perspective
A few weeks ago I expressed my surprise that this year has started as well as it has. I have a system - a sort of code - by which I rate each week's activity. Each week I record the miles driven, how productive those miles have been and the total amount I've earned, and each of these is monitored against the budget I set at the beginning of the year. If the total earned and the profitability of the mileage are better than budget, then I designate that week as 'silver'; if I've managed that with the added benefit of driving fewer miles than budget, then the week is a 'gold' one. So two silvers and two golds in the first five weeks of the year, when things usually fall flat after Christmas, was a noteworthy achievement.
I'm not complaining; there have been a number of big expenses lately. Some were expected, like new spectacles, and the annual tax disc for the van (I believe that, in its wisdom, our government has now changed the way this is to be administered, and this will probably be the last actual disc I buy - but the tax will, of course, continue!). Other expenses came out of the blue, like a couple of major repair items for the van, and a new set of tyres, so the unexpectedly good weeks have been a blessing.
Now things are back to what passes for normal, not just in the level of work, but in the mixture of easy jobs and those that make you think 'why on earth can't they give me the full story at the beginning?' I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a particularly uncomfortable time at Heathrow airport, for example. This week has included three more bewildering jobs, and I hope I won't bore my readers with too much fine detail. But before these depressing elements, I have to record too that Tuesday was a dream day. I left quite soon after breakfast to collect three small but heavy wooden boxes from a firm in Hoddesdon, to go to Bolton. On the way, in a direct line as it were, I picked up some metalwork in Luton to deliver in Smethwick. I eventually arrived at Bolton just before the factory there was about to leave off, and enjoyed the most tasty lamb hotpot at the truckstop at Markham Moor on the way home.
If you don't like it when things go wrong, here's where you switch off. A lot of our work involves visiting hospitals, and I've lost count of the number of different ones I've been to. A fairly basic pattern is common to most of these jobs - either we are delivering something fairly mundane that goes to the general receiving area, sometimes designated 'goods in', just as in a factory setting, or else 'stores'; or we are delivering priority equipment required within hours for an operation, in which case this goes straight to the theatre. In the latter case it seems acceptable, whether strictly correct or not, that we park in the 'drop-off' zone near to the main entrance, and can quickly walk through the building to the required department.
The two hospitals I visited this week proved more difficult, frustratingly so, because they were both fairly local to our base. On Wednesday I made two separate deliveries to one that has recently undergone extensive re-modelling. My first delivery was addressed to the Treatment Centre, a new addition to its facilities. I approached the reception desk, only to be told that they couldn't accept any deliveries: I must go to the main hospital. I did as I was bid, and predictably got sent away with "If it's for the Treatment Centre, then you must take it to the Treatment Centre!" I rang the office for further information or instructions, and obtained the name of the lady to whom it was supposed to be delivered. Armed with this, I returned to the site of my first refusal, and after a phone call, was ushered to the lifts and thence to the theatre on the fourth floor.
An hour or so later, I returned to the same establishment, with goods for 'Theatres'. More sure of my ground, I went to the theatre in the main hospital, where, after pointing to a key word on the label, 'Surgi-centre', the staff there redirected me to the theatre in the Treatment Centre - just where I'd been before!
The last job of my week was to another hospital, with a box labelled 'Central Stores'. Unable to see a direction post for 'deliveries' as I drove onto this new-build site, I approached reception to see where I needed to go. "It's right round the back!" came the reply, so I followed the gesticulating arm, and drove round the back, only to find a number of patient services with their own entrances, and an even greater number of car parks, but no goods entrance of any kind. After further instructions from reception, assisted by a phone call, I discovered an unsigned turning that took me close to the perimeter of the site, correctly to the rear of the hospital, only to find that the receiving staff had left off for the weekend some two hours previously! Guess where I'll be headed first thing on Monday morning ....
Earlier in the day, I'd made a collection from a hotel. Now, more often than not - in fact, I might say, exclusively in my experience - a collection from a hotel is to recover marketing or display materials after a conference or sales gathering of some sort. Sometimes we might meet the personnel of our customer, who are only too pleased to hand the stuff over to us, hop into their luxury limousines and drive off. On other occasions, they have already left, after depositing the goods with reception or security staff for safe keeping until we arrive, sometimes not until the next day, according to instructions. So, early in the morning, I bounded up to the reception desk in this large Berkshire hotel and announced that I was collecting a couple of units for our customer P---. Blank faces abounded. No one knew anything about it. After a few fruitless enquiries, I was back in my van to call the person whose number I'd been given for just such a problem situation, were it to arise.
The line between the two mobiles wasn't great, but I managed to establish that I was in fact collecting two air conditioning units, and my understanding was that these were on a building site behind the hotel, where extensive renovations were being carried out, and could be found in container no. 3. I drove round the building and did indeed find a building site, with about eight or nine containers. One was clearly the site office, but was locked up. Enquiries led me inside the hotel to speak to someone who might know where these items were to be found. The man didn't know; but anyway, he said, if they were in a locked container, the people with the keys wouldn't be on site until the following day.
Once more, phone calls were exchanged from me to the office, reporting this apparent difficulty, from the office to the customer to see if other arrangements could be made, and from the person I'd phoned earlier to clarify to me his earlier instructions. It seemed that what I had understood as 'container no. 3' was actually the container that was being used as 'the canteen', where he had left these items for ease of access when they were collected. All that remained then was to get them into the van, and off to our customer. When I arrived, I was greeted with a smile. "I understand you've had some trouble ..." I started to explain. "That was Sam," said the man, as he unloaded the units onto a pallet. "He's our customer's customer; he ... " In order to express his disapproval of the man, he then described a personal contortion that doesn't belong here, but of which he said Sam would be quite incapable. So far as I was concerned, our customer was happy, and I drove away with a satisfaction that outweighed the foregoing frustrations.
Now all I have to do is get up early enough to get to that hospital again by start of business on Monday. At least I know where to go now ... !
I'm not complaining; there have been a number of big expenses lately. Some were expected, like new spectacles, and the annual tax disc for the van (I believe that, in its wisdom, our government has now changed the way this is to be administered, and this will probably be the last actual disc I buy - but the tax will, of course, continue!). Other expenses came out of the blue, like a couple of major repair items for the van, and a new set of tyres, so the unexpectedly good weeks have been a blessing.
Now things are back to what passes for normal, not just in the level of work, but in the mixture of easy jobs and those that make you think 'why on earth can't they give me the full story at the beginning?' I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a particularly uncomfortable time at Heathrow airport, for example. This week has included three more bewildering jobs, and I hope I won't bore my readers with too much fine detail. But before these depressing elements, I have to record too that Tuesday was a dream day. I left quite soon after breakfast to collect three small but heavy wooden boxes from a firm in Hoddesdon, to go to Bolton. On the way, in a direct line as it were, I picked up some metalwork in Luton to deliver in Smethwick. I eventually arrived at Bolton just before the factory there was about to leave off, and enjoyed the most tasty lamb hotpot at the truckstop at Markham Moor on the way home.
If you don't like it when things go wrong, here's where you switch off. A lot of our work involves visiting hospitals, and I've lost count of the number of different ones I've been to. A fairly basic pattern is common to most of these jobs - either we are delivering something fairly mundane that goes to the general receiving area, sometimes designated 'goods in', just as in a factory setting, or else 'stores'; or we are delivering priority equipment required within hours for an operation, in which case this goes straight to the theatre. In the latter case it seems acceptable, whether strictly correct or not, that we park in the 'drop-off' zone near to the main entrance, and can quickly walk through the building to the required department.
The two hospitals I visited this week proved more difficult, frustratingly so, because they were both fairly local to our base. On Wednesday I made two separate deliveries to one that has recently undergone extensive re-modelling. My first delivery was addressed to the Treatment Centre, a new addition to its facilities. I approached the reception desk, only to be told that they couldn't accept any deliveries: I must go to the main hospital. I did as I was bid, and predictably got sent away with "If it's for the Treatment Centre, then you must take it to the Treatment Centre!" I rang the office for further information or instructions, and obtained the name of the lady to whom it was supposed to be delivered. Armed with this, I returned to the site of my first refusal, and after a phone call, was ushered to the lifts and thence to the theatre on the fourth floor.
An hour or so later, I returned to the same establishment, with goods for 'Theatres'. More sure of my ground, I went to the theatre in the main hospital, where, after pointing to a key word on the label, 'Surgi-centre', the staff there redirected me to the theatre in the Treatment Centre - just where I'd been before!
The last job of my week was to another hospital, with a box labelled 'Central Stores'. Unable to see a direction post for 'deliveries' as I drove onto this new-build site, I approached reception to see where I needed to go. "It's right round the back!" came the reply, so I followed the gesticulating arm, and drove round the back, only to find a number of patient services with their own entrances, and an even greater number of car parks, but no goods entrance of any kind. After further instructions from reception, assisted by a phone call, I discovered an unsigned turning that took me close to the perimeter of the site, correctly to the rear of the hospital, only to find that the receiving staff had left off for the weekend some two hours previously! Guess where I'll be headed first thing on Monday morning ....
Earlier in the day, I'd made a collection from a hotel. Now, more often than not - in fact, I might say, exclusively in my experience - a collection from a hotel is to recover marketing or display materials after a conference or sales gathering of some sort. Sometimes we might meet the personnel of our customer, who are only too pleased to hand the stuff over to us, hop into their luxury limousines and drive off. On other occasions, they have already left, after depositing the goods with reception or security staff for safe keeping until we arrive, sometimes not until the next day, according to instructions. So, early in the morning, I bounded up to the reception desk in this large Berkshire hotel and announced that I was collecting a couple of units for our customer P---. Blank faces abounded. No one knew anything about it. After a few fruitless enquiries, I was back in my van to call the person whose number I'd been given for just such a problem situation, were it to arise.
The line between the two mobiles wasn't great, but I managed to establish that I was in fact collecting two air conditioning units, and my understanding was that these were on a building site behind the hotel, where extensive renovations were being carried out, and could be found in container no. 3. I drove round the building and did indeed find a building site, with about eight or nine containers. One was clearly the site office, but was locked up. Enquiries led me inside the hotel to speak to someone who might know where these items were to be found. The man didn't know; but anyway, he said, if they were in a locked container, the people with the keys wouldn't be on site until the following day.
Once more, phone calls were exchanged from me to the office, reporting this apparent difficulty, from the office to the customer to see if other arrangements could be made, and from the person I'd phoned earlier to clarify to me his earlier instructions. It seemed that what I had understood as 'container no. 3' was actually the container that was being used as 'the canteen', where he had left these items for ease of access when they were collected. All that remained then was to get them into the van, and off to our customer. When I arrived, I was greeted with a smile. "I understand you've had some trouble ..." I started to explain. "That was Sam," said the man, as he unloaded the units onto a pallet. "He's our customer's customer; he ... " In order to express his disapproval of the man, he then described a personal contortion that doesn't belong here, but of which he said Sam would be quite incapable. So far as I was concerned, our customer was happy, and I drove away with a satisfaction that outweighed the foregoing frustrations.
Now all I have to do is get up early enough to get to that hospital again by start of business on Monday. At least I know where to go now ... !
Friday, 14 February 2014
Water, water everywhere ... and lots more besides!
I began this month by thinking about twos, and followed up last week with two hospitals. This week, apart from another hospital to add to my collection, I can bring you tidings from no less than three airports, with their varying stories.
The week began with a fairly undemanding Monday: a regular collection from Daventry for a customer in Royston, another from Bedford, and a couple more local jobs to Luton and Cambridge, and the joy in the evening to go bellringing for the first time in about three weeks. By Tuesday morning it was my privilege to be top of the list.
Called at about 9.30, I was despatched with a box of equipment to the theatre of Hereford County General Hospital. The journey was straightforward, and in places quite spectacular, with only one closed road to delay me, and superb views of the flooding around Worcester and Hereford, where the Teme and Lugg respectively had covered a number of fields in each direction. Respect for those suffering from this tragic situation combined with consideration for other road users to preclude the taking of any photos and, having left so early in the day, I was home again in time to be given a job for Wednesday morning.
On the face of it, this ought to have been a routine job. I was sent to Heathrow airport to collect some items for our customer in Hitchin. I'd been given the name of a contact and his phone no. - what could go wrong? My suspicions were aroused when I examined the address on the computer the previous evening. It appeared that terminal 2B is still under construction, and it was by no means clear where would be the point of access. I decided that I would phone my contact while still on the M25. It was well that I did, for instead of turning towards the airport, I was told that I needed to leave the motorway and head west! A subsequent U-turn then brought me to a control area adjacent to the motorway, where things began to liven up.
The problem was that the point of collection was 'airside', in other words I was subject to all the normal constraints that apply to passengers travelling on an aircraft . . . and not only me, but my van as well! After all the scanning - including the removal of boots - inspection and examination (I still haven't worked out why the contents of three bottles of plain water had to be poured out, while I was allowed to retain a container of screenwash!) I was given a sheet of driving instructions and, followed by a security vehicle, drove to another location on the airport where the same searches were carried out, this time including a body search! Eventually the security vehicle led me to the collection point which was, as I'd expected, on a building site. Minutes later the escorted journey was reversed, and soon I was heading back to home territory, some three-and-a-half hours after my arrival!
The week's excitement was just beginning; once this collection had been delivered (during that day's allotted downpour!), I was sent to Stansted airport, where disciplines were only a little less severe, to collect a pallet of goods that had arrived for one of our customers in Stevenage. Once these had been delivered, some of the boxes were labelled, prepared for despatch to their customer, and re-loaded onto my van, to be taken to Rochdale for 6.0 am delivery the next day.
During the course of this journey and the two local jobs that followed, I had become aware of an intermittent noise. Experience has taught me that noises can be expensive and shouldn't be ingored. So, after delivering a cooker this morning to a building site on the outskirts of Oxford, I phoned the garage. The staff there have always been understanding of my situation, and the immediate reaction was, yes, bring it in and we'll have a listen. Sadly, new brake parts were called for, but these were rapidly obtained and fitted, and I was back on the road - happily silent - within a couple of hours. Two local jobs completed my day, including a visit to the third airport of the week, at Cambridge, the co-operation of whose security and goods-in staff was a welcome contrast to the heavier formality of recent days.
After I'd exchanged the van for the comfortable surroundings of my lounge, I realised how tiring the week had been, with only five hours' unsettled sleep on Wednesday night, and the need for another early start this morning in order to make the requested 8.0 delivery. When the phone rang an hour later to enquire whether I'd like to match this week's hospital count to last week's, with a trip to Bristol this evening, I decided enough is enough, and echoed last Friday's positive 'No thanks.'
Now the weekend is off to a good start!
The week began with a fairly undemanding Monday: a regular collection from Daventry for a customer in Royston, another from Bedford, and a couple more local jobs to Luton and Cambridge, and the joy in the evening to go bellringing for the first time in about three weeks. By Tuesday morning it was my privilege to be top of the list.
Called at about 9.30, I was despatched with a box of equipment to the theatre of Hereford County General Hospital. The journey was straightforward, and in places quite spectacular, with only one closed road to delay me, and superb views of the flooding around Worcester and Hereford, where the Teme and Lugg respectively had covered a number of fields in each direction. Respect for those suffering from this tragic situation combined with consideration for other road users to preclude the taking of any photos and, having left so early in the day, I was home again in time to be given a job for Wednesday morning.
On the face of it, this ought to have been a routine job. I was sent to Heathrow airport to collect some items for our customer in Hitchin. I'd been given the name of a contact and his phone no. - what could go wrong? My suspicions were aroused when I examined the address on the computer the previous evening. It appeared that terminal 2B is still under construction, and it was by no means clear where would be the point of access. I decided that I would phone my contact while still on the M25. It was well that I did, for instead of turning towards the airport, I was told that I needed to leave the motorway and head west! A subsequent U-turn then brought me to a control area adjacent to the motorway, where things began to liven up.
The problem was that the point of collection was 'airside', in other words I was subject to all the normal constraints that apply to passengers travelling on an aircraft . . . and not only me, but my van as well! After all the scanning - including the removal of boots - inspection and examination (I still haven't worked out why the contents of three bottles of plain water had to be poured out, while I was allowed to retain a container of screenwash!) I was given a sheet of driving instructions and, followed by a security vehicle, drove to another location on the airport where the same searches were carried out, this time including a body search! Eventually the security vehicle led me to the collection point which was, as I'd expected, on a building site. Minutes later the escorted journey was reversed, and soon I was heading back to home territory, some three-and-a-half hours after my arrival!
The week's excitement was just beginning; once this collection had been delivered (during that day's allotted downpour!), I was sent to Stansted airport, where disciplines were only a little less severe, to collect a pallet of goods that had arrived for one of our customers in Stevenage. Once these had been delivered, some of the boxes were labelled, prepared for despatch to their customer, and re-loaded onto my van, to be taken to Rochdale for 6.0 am delivery the next day.
During the course of this journey and the two local jobs that followed, I had become aware of an intermittent noise. Experience has taught me that noises can be expensive and shouldn't be ingored. So, after delivering a cooker this morning to a building site on the outskirts of Oxford, I phoned the garage. The staff there have always been understanding of my situation, and the immediate reaction was, yes, bring it in and we'll have a listen. Sadly, new brake parts were called for, but these were rapidly obtained and fitted, and I was back on the road - happily silent - within a couple of hours. Two local jobs completed my day, including a visit to the third airport of the week, at Cambridge, the co-operation of whose security and goods-in staff was a welcome contrast to the heavier formality of recent days.
After I'd exchanged the van for the comfortable surroundings of my lounge, I realised how tiring the week had been, with only five hours' unsettled sleep on Wednesday night, and the need for another early start this morning in order to make the requested 8.0 delivery. When the phone rang an hour later to enquire whether I'd like to match this week's hospital count to last week's, with a trip to Bristol this evening, I decided enough is enough, and echoed last Friday's positive 'No thanks.'
Now the weekend is off to a good start!
Saturday, 8 February 2014
It Never Rains but ... and it's Still Raining!
In the town where I grew up there was a soft drinks company named Doubleday. Where that name came from I have no idea, but it comes back to me now as I review a few days of distinct ups and downs. Best, as always, to begin at the beginning. On Monday I had the usual enquiries from my friends at breakfast as to what I would be doing today, and unusually I was able to answer them positively. Normally if there's a definite answer, then I'm already on the road, and not there to give it. This Monday, however, I knew exactly where I'd be for most of the day, since the van was booked in for a service and MOT. A couple of years ago I had an argument with a bollard on one of Tesco's car parks and come off second best, with the result that I've been driving around with a headlight that was fully functioning but with a cracked glass. Gradually since that assault the interior has been gathering dust and damp, and has grown ever dimmer so, deciding that now should be the time to have a replacement, I was fairly sure that the whole sequence would take up most of the day . . . a day easily absorbed by my current family history project, once I'd completed my January accounts and submitted a VAT Return.
Tuesday and Wednesday were both good days, and went some way to compensating for the loss of income on Monday. Tuesday began early with a local collection for Northampton, and goods to bring back to our customer in Letchworth, followed after only a brief interlude by a couple of local jobs. I was nearly back from the second of these when I was diverted to collect from our office, where there is a small medical warehouse facility. Three items were then taken to the Russell Hall Hospital in Dudley - another journey made easier by having done the exact same job five months ago - resulting in a return home about 9.45 pm. I made straight for bed, resolving to do the daily admin when I got up.
As soon as I'd finished breakfast on Wednesday I rang in as available. It was about 8.30, and I anticipated having an hour or more to record the doings of the past day and read through the e-mails and social media that had accumulated since Tuesday morning. Not so. Within about five minutes came a call asking me to collect something urgent for Oxford from a healthcare firm in town. By the time I'd collected this, another job had come in for something to be taken from Welwyn Garden City to Didcot. The visit to John Radclife Hospital in Oxford resolved a doubt I'd expressed a couple of weeks ago as to whether or not I'd been there before. Clearly I hadn't, for I'm sure I should have remembered it, if only for the difficulty in finding the main entrance.
My goods were designated for the theatre, so having once found a reception desk and placed my enquiry I was distressed to learn that they had at least two operating theatres. Since I had no indication which one I needed, it was agreed that I should be sent to 'main theatre', and followed the directions to the main entrance, which I had already bypassed in ignorance in my original search. Once there, the staff were very helpful, and examined the goods I'd brought, in order to determine their application. On discovering that these bore the critical word 'paediatric', they sent me further afield to the Children's Theatre, escorted for convenience by a member of staff, whose swipe card could gain access through the otherwise securely closed doors. Once the delivery had been completed, I was then escorted in the opposite direction to recover my van at the main entrance. Taking into consideration the length of the corridors, and the speed and energy of my escort, I felt I'd had this week's workout by the time I set off for Didcot!
After negotiating an alternative route to avoid a road closed owing to floods, I had almost reached home when the almost dreaded call came, sending me immediately onto another job. This involved collecting a small bundle of timber from Hitchin for a public house just outside Nottingham. I'd just picked this up when another call announced that a customer in Letchworth had a small parcel for Leicester (which turned out to be a large box of plastic trays - bulky but lightweight). This was definitely two days in one, and by now the rain had settled in for the night, although it was still only about 3.0 pm. An accident on the M1 caused a diversion on the way up, and the road conditions made it slow going anyway, so I was getting a little anxious that all the staff would have gone home by the time I arrived at my destination. In the event the manager was looking out for me; the door opened just as I pulled up outside and, by the time I'd completed my paperwork after making the delivery, he had secured the premises and driven off himself!
On then to Arnold, where the Greyhound Inn is being refurbished. By good fortune I had the phone number for someone involved in the operation, and a quick call resulted in a door opening to indicate how access was to be obtained. Another late night ensued, and at 10.30, it was time for bed when I got home. When I got up on Friday morning I already felt tired, and decided that a couple of local jobs would satisfy me quite nicely to end the week. So this time, I didn't ring in after breakfast to say I was available. In fact, I didn't need to, because the phone had already rung before I'd finished my cereal!
Friday was already under way. I managed to squeeze in a little essential admin before I was sent to Luton, following which I was summoned once more for the next job before returning home. This time I collected from Stevenage for Rochford, to deliver to badly-identified premises on an industrial estate behind Southend airport. I confess, I didn't hurry home, was then conveniently given a job to start off next week, and felt confident in beginning my weekend routines. When the controller rang at 5.45, to ask if I would be able to do another job that evening, I was pleased at the way I confined my response to a polite but firm 'No,' following this with the advice that, since two late nights had robbed me of two evenings, I needed to catch myself up before embarking on a busy weekend.
And so it is; my busy weekend has already begun with a follow-up to that MOT: a tyre check that reveals the need for a new set of four!
Tuesday and Wednesday were both good days, and went some way to compensating for the loss of income on Monday. Tuesday began early with a local collection for Northampton, and goods to bring back to our customer in Letchworth, followed after only a brief interlude by a couple of local jobs. I was nearly back from the second of these when I was diverted to collect from our office, where there is a small medical warehouse facility. Three items were then taken to the Russell Hall Hospital in Dudley - another journey made easier by having done the exact same job five months ago - resulting in a return home about 9.45 pm. I made straight for bed, resolving to do the daily admin when I got up.
As soon as I'd finished breakfast on Wednesday I rang in as available. It was about 8.30, and I anticipated having an hour or more to record the doings of the past day and read through the e-mails and social media that had accumulated since Tuesday morning. Not so. Within about five minutes came a call asking me to collect something urgent for Oxford from a healthcare firm in town. By the time I'd collected this, another job had come in for something to be taken from Welwyn Garden City to Didcot. The visit to John Radclife Hospital in Oxford resolved a doubt I'd expressed a couple of weeks ago as to whether or not I'd been there before. Clearly I hadn't, for I'm sure I should have remembered it, if only for the difficulty in finding the main entrance.
My goods were designated for the theatre, so having once found a reception desk and placed my enquiry I was distressed to learn that they had at least two operating theatres. Since I had no indication which one I needed, it was agreed that I should be sent to 'main theatre', and followed the directions to the main entrance, which I had already bypassed in ignorance in my original search. Once there, the staff were very helpful, and examined the goods I'd brought, in order to determine their application. On discovering that these bore the critical word 'paediatric', they sent me further afield to the Children's Theatre, escorted for convenience by a member of staff, whose swipe card could gain access through the otherwise securely closed doors. Once the delivery had been completed, I was then escorted in the opposite direction to recover my van at the main entrance. Taking into consideration the length of the corridors, and the speed and energy of my escort, I felt I'd had this week's workout by the time I set off for Didcot!
After negotiating an alternative route to avoid a road closed owing to floods, I had almost reached home when the almost dreaded call came, sending me immediately onto another job. This involved collecting a small bundle of timber from Hitchin for a public house just outside Nottingham. I'd just picked this up when another call announced that a customer in Letchworth had a small parcel for Leicester (which turned out to be a large box of plastic trays - bulky but lightweight). This was definitely two days in one, and by now the rain had settled in for the night, although it was still only about 3.0 pm. An accident on the M1 caused a diversion on the way up, and the road conditions made it slow going anyway, so I was getting a little anxious that all the staff would have gone home by the time I arrived at my destination. In the event the manager was looking out for me; the door opened just as I pulled up outside and, by the time I'd completed my paperwork after making the delivery, he had secured the premises and driven off himself!
On then to Arnold, where the Greyhound Inn is being refurbished. By good fortune I had the phone number for someone involved in the operation, and a quick call resulted in a door opening to indicate how access was to be obtained. Another late night ensued, and at 10.30, it was time for bed when I got home. When I got up on Friday morning I already felt tired, and decided that a couple of local jobs would satisfy me quite nicely to end the week. So this time, I didn't ring in after breakfast to say I was available. In fact, I didn't need to, because the phone had already rung before I'd finished my cereal!
Friday was already under way. I managed to squeeze in a little essential admin before I was sent to Luton, following which I was summoned once more for the next job before returning home. This time I collected from Stevenage for Rochford, to deliver to badly-identified premises on an industrial estate behind Southend airport. I confess, I didn't hurry home, was then conveniently given a job to start off next week, and felt confident in beginning my weekend routines. When the controller rang at 5.45, to ask if I would be able to do another job that evening, I was pleased at the way I confined my response to a polite but firm 'No,' following this with the advice that, since two late nights had robbed me of two evenings, I needed to catch myself up before embarking on a busy weekend.
And so it is; my busy weekend has already begun with a follow-up to that MOT: a tyre check that reveals the need for a new set of four!
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