Thank you, Mr Hartley!

I hadn't intended to write a blog this week, but somehow needs must.  Let me begin with a pictue:

Here's my lounge ... or a corner of it.  You'll see I live amidst quite a large collection of books: this is only one section of it!  When I exchanged my computer for a new laptop this autumn, I retained the screen as an extension display.  It now sits opposite my armchair, from where this picture was taken.  I have no TV, but watch catch-up programmes through the computer, so this makes watching them more comfortable.

Many of the books, I confess, I haven't read.  One of these is one that I bought because it is one that we studied at school, L P Hartley's 'The Go Between'.  It's a romantic drama, set in Edwardian times, and a dramatisation of it appeared on TV earlier this year.  The book's opening words came home to me with some force this week, prompting this blog-post,  "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

I've spent much of the last two weeks going through two drawers of my filing cabinet, reviewing, sorting, removing stuff that either is no longer required or relevant to current life, or which should never have been kept in the first place.  I hadn't intended to do it in the run-up to Christmas, but it became a necessity when something I do want to keep couldn't be squeezed into place!

As the exercise has progressed I've found myself re-living past times, discovering things I'd totally forgotten, and drifting back to events that happened ten, twenty ... in one case almost forty years ago!  And out of it all has come a sense of perspective.  I now see many situations that, had they been met by the present me, would have been dealt with differently ... or might not have been confronted at all!

When I was briefly working in the USA at the millennium, I learned a deep truth, that any attempt to re-create an English way of doing things in California is doomed to failure from the outset.  It is a different country, with its own culture, ways of living, and doing all sorts of things.  As a complete set of behaviours they work, just as the corresponding complete set of English behaviours work in and of themselves.  As the saying goes, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'.  (Sorry for the geographical confusion there!)

Another thing that I attempted this week was to scan onto my computer a two-page document that I'd found in one of those files.  I haven't needed to use OCR software for many years, and the program on my laptop is not the same as the one I used long ago.  However I tried, a single page was all I could get it to cope with.  I even tried removing the program completely and re-installing it!  Still only one page could I manage.  I gave up, copied page one, copied page two, and added one to the other through the word processor.

I woke up this morning with a sense of contentment.  As I look back through the lens of this week at the past year, I realise that the plans I had a year ago for the next two years will never be fulfilled as I saw them then.  The same ends - more or less - have been achieved in a shorter time frame.  Life as I imagined it over twenty years ago just didn't happen.  Things turned out dramatically differently from the way I had expected.  And while I wouldn't want to go through some of those experiences again, the me that has emerged is more rounded, more capable in many ways, with a greater sense of achievement, although in ways that didn't even cross the horizon of my imagination then.  I realise that there are many things I'm not able to do, but I know there is contentment in those that I can.

So today I say 'thank you' to Mr Hartley and his century-old wisdom, and my Christmas prayer for all my readers across the world is that they may find the same contentment in their own lives that I know today.

The Printed Page ... and Beyond!

Well, it's been a good week for learning how to do retirement.  As a result, there are few eventful things to record, so they stand out just that much bolder, and command full attention here.  Someone commented that I've been more present this week on Facebook ... that's another consequence of having a non-work week with an almost blank diary.

Something I learned from Facebook was that this was International Book Week.  One was encouraged to "Grab the closest book to you; turn to page 52, and post the fifth sentence."  The post I had spotted then continued with a sentence containing a clue of its source, Dickens' Bleak House.  Another follower of this trend posted something from 'popular fiction' (not a genre with which I find any affinity).  Willing to take part, however, I reached for the end book on the shelf next to my desk, and followed the formula.  I do wonder what people made of a reference to King James issuing a religious declaration of not shedding blood 'so long as the Catholics remain quiet'! The book I had picked up was one of many that I've bought when the opportunity arose, but am yet to read, The Gunpowder Plot - Terror and Faith in 1605 by Antonia Fraser.

The literary theme continued later in the week, when I scoured the BBC's i-Player for something to watch over dinner, and discovered a film version of L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between.  I watched the first half that night, and saw the rest of it yesterday evening.  I remembered the salient points of the plot from reading the book at school, where it was part of a lesson bearing the loose title 'General English'.  This was the headmaster's brainchild for the cultural development of all those in the sixth form who weren't taking English at A-level and, so far as I recall, consisted of nothing more than reading a 'modern classic' around the class.  Other books we tackled included The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, and A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

Last night I dreamed about some of the characters in The Go-Between.  I suspect this might have been due to the conjunction of the origin of my knowledge of the book, and the single item in this week's diary, which has been executed this afternoon ... a class reunion of some of those with whom I passed through high school, including some who had suffered that same reading exercise.  Considering that a few of us hadn't seen each other 'in the flesh' (as opposed to seeing pictures on social media) for upwards of 45 years, it was quite remarkable that more "Now, who are you?" wasn't expressed than was actually the case!

There had been such an event fifteen years ago, but on that occasion the organiser had been unable to track me down, so I wasn't present.  Apparently the talk then was of professional achievement; today there was more focus on the extent of life-threatening illnesses, and our plans for making the most of our retirement.  The once-active sportsmen among us were now talking of 'a seat in the stand' rather than 'being selected for the football team this week'; and golf has now taken the place of cricket in many lives.  Although the lady was never mentioned, I found my thoughts drawn to a comic sketch performed by Joyce Grenfell, the words of which were placed in the mouth of one 'Lumpy Latimer', who had been living in Kenya ... 'although you have to call it Ken-ya now'!

Other achievements this week have included some preliminary preparations for what may be this year's last 'serious' outing in the motor-caravan.  This will be to a site in Cambridgeshire, popular for anglers.  I hasten to add that this is not my own interest; I chose the venue for the prospect of tranquillity and maybe a little fenland walking.  I have a number of things to deal with that require a few less distractions than regularly present themselves at home.  I wonder how many will have been progressed significantly by the time I return!

Looking up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Off the Pitch!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's in a Community?

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

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

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

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

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

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

All up One End

My cousin recently observed that her uncle (my father) possessed a skill that neither of us has ever seen anywhere else.  He would stand the loaf on its end, butter the open surface, and then cut off the buttered slice, without changing the orientation of the loaf.  This operation would be repeated, almost mechanically, until the required number of slices had been achieved.  In this same vein, I recall an early attempt, under his tuition, to make a sandwich.  He presented me - aged about five or six - with two of the aforementioned buttered slices, together with a knife and a jar of mum's homemade jam.  After watching my efforts for a minute or so, he seized the knife and, with a mixture of amusement and frustration, commented, "Ya'r got it all up o' one ind, boy!"  And looking, I could see with shame that he was quite right, for at one end of the slice was a thick layer of jam, while at the other there was naked butter, just as it had left his skilled hand a minute earlier.

That's a fair reflection of the last week.  I have often commented that one aspect of the courier life that I enjoy is its unpredictability.  This is nearly always the case.  The exception is when a day comes when nothing happens: the phone is dead.  I commented recently on just such a Tuesday.  This week began with a standing start: after my ferry trip the previous Friday, I rang in on Monday, tongue in cheek, to say I was 'back from Belfast and could I go on the list, please.'  About an hour later, the controller rang to say that, since I was at the bottom of quite a long list, he was giving me a fairly long local job to keep me busy while I waited.  I was sent to the village of Manea, in Cambridgeshire.  More accurately, I was sent to March, but found that my destination was not even in this nearby village, but to somewhere out in the wilds of fenland, that just happened to claim Manea as its postal address.

Once I saw the address, I recalled having gone there once before, so I knew at least the nature of the building I would be visiting, instead of spending - as I had on the earlier occasion - half an hour driving up and down the road looking for an almost invisible name, before driving up to a luxurious modern house, to deliver to the garage conversion in the back garden. I can justify describing this job in some detail, because it proved to be my one job, not just for Monday, nor for Monday and Tuesday, but for the first three days of the week!

On Wednesday afternoon, I was sent soon after lunch to collect a parcel to be taken to Nottingham but, when I was within a mile of our customer, they rang to say that, in their opinion, it would be too late to get it there that day, and could they have a call at 9.0 the next morning, please.  Muttering grimly to myself about their estimate of how long it would have taken me to get to Nottingham, I returned home.

So it was that on Thursday, bright and early, I collected this parcel and sped northwards.  I won't deny my pleasure at being called when just over half-way there to be told that there was another job I could run onto afterwards, and when I called in having made the delivery, I was delighted to learn that this second job involved a cross-country journey to Cannock to collect something for one of our customers in Luton.  I was home early in the afternoon, feeling that this day at least had been quite reasonable.

After catching up on my iPlayer tele-viewing, I was relaxing at bedtime when the phone rang.  "I don't know what sort of week you've had ... ," began the night-controller.  I immediately thought, "You fibber, you know fine well that it's been a very quiet week!" but quietly waited for him to continue.  "How do you fancy going to Swansea ... now?"  I rapidly recalled Wednesday and Tuesday, and told myself there was only one answer.  I dressed once more in my uniform, and set off for this Bedford customer, who had an urgent consignment for DVLA.  Having been up since early the previous morning, I realised soon after passing Ross-on-Wye that if I didn't stop soon for a nap, I might not reach my destination at all, but not much more than an hour later, I resumed my journey, and made the delivery at 4.50 am.

Friday's breakfast was an absolute joy.  I knew there was a café somewhere on the northbound side of the A40 near Monmouth, but wasn't sure exactly where.  In fact there are two, but I stopped at the first one, bearing the unusual name 'High Noon'.  The place has just changed hands; the shop has been modernised and now it's the turn of the restaurant.  Half the eating area has been screened off, and the remainder is partly cluttered with rolled-up carpet, stacked chairs and tables.  However, the food was great, freshly cooked before my eyes, and as I sat by the window in the morning sunshine I could look at the brightly-lit hillside on the opposite side of the road.  I later discovered that this is called the Doward, and beyond it runs the River Wye, which there forms the boundary with Wales.

I returned home at midday, and went straight to bed for as long as my body needed.  Not much more than an hour had passed before I was awake again - daytime sleep is an art I've never acquired - and trying to decide whether I wanted to work again or not.  I think the fact that I was aware that there was a decision to be made was evidence that the answer was 'no'.  This was supported by the fact that, by the time I'd pottered around for a couple of hours I was feeling distinctly more awake, and decided to call the office after all.  I was asked if I would be OK for another job should one come up, to which I replied, 'nothing too far,' which was quite acceptable.  About an hour later, I was asked if I'd like to go and collect a job for delivery yesterday morning in Lancashire, which suited me fine, giving me the rest of Friday to unwind, but at the same time providing further compensation for the 'lost' days earlier in the week.  I'd just returned from this collection when another call invited me to pick up something for delivery on Monday, and gave me further instructions for a job to be collected on Monday morning as well, so next week will at least set off on the right foot.

My journey to Heywood was not without incident.  I'd been given a 9.0 - noon delivery window, and set off soon after 6.0, thinking to get some breakfast at the Markham Moor truck-stop on the way.  To my surprise, this was closed, and as I'd already noted, there were no roadside burger vans operating either.  I had spotted one café open on the southbound carriageway, and had almost resigned myself to making my delivery first and having 'brunch' there on my return, when a flag-flying burger van loomed into view at Barnsdale Bar.  Thus sustained, apart from SatNav's route not quite coinciding with what I had researched the previous evening, there were no further snags until the final crossroads, when I almost collided with a car coming at right angles to me to the junction.  Fortunately, there was no impact, no screeching of brakes, and no damage apart from to my nerves.

On my return I followed up a brown tourist sign I'd spotted as I entered the town, marked East Lancs Railway.  This proved to be a viable preserved railway, offering a public service as well as a tourist/enthusiast attraction.  Had it not been for a darkly clouded sky and a desire to catch up with things on the home front, I might well have stayed longer, and taken a £13.50 return trip to the other end of the line.  It was as well that I'd also decided against a detour to watch a football match (the new season started yesterday for most leagues), for there were road problems to contend with too.  I diverted from the A1 in order to avoid one significant delay, but a road closure on the alternative route sent me on a wild trek through the Nottinghamshire lanes before eventually regaining my route after a longer delay than I'd tried to avoid. 

I was glad to return to my weekend domesticity, and I'm now wondering whether the next week will be quite so lop-sided!

Phew!

Love, a child, is ever crying:

Please him and he straight is flying,

Give him, he the more is craving,

Never satisfied with having.

I'm fairly sure that my mum never read these lines by Lady Mary Wroth (c.1586-1652), but my memory tells me that she might have done, for she would often say to me, "Son, you're never satisfied!"  Things haven't changed.  After chuntering for weeks about the paucity of work, and being unaware of any regular lull at this time of year, this has unquestionably been a 'good' week.  But it's been too hot, and quite frankly, after 2,441 miles ... I'm exhausted!

The details are simple. Monday, Basildon; Tuesday, Glasgow; Wednesday, Woodchurch; Thursday, Haverhill, and then Wakefield; Friday, Belfast.  Just seven jobs (there were two to Basildon) and no, I didn't know where Woodchurch is, either, but I do now - it's part of Upton, plonk in the middle of the Wirral, behind Birkenhead.

Amongst it all there have been human stories, too.  First of all, I'd got halfway down the A1(M) on Monday afternoon with a box of shopfittings, when a phone call bade me return because another job had come in for Basildon.  'We're getting it collected for you - you can meet up with the other driver in Stevenage to pick it up.'  This sounded straightforward, but after I'd waited for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, I realised that it would have been quicker to go all the way to Letchworth and collect the goods myself.  I'll know who not to trust another time!  However, the end result was two jobs only a couple of miles apart, so it was a reasonable start to my week.

I had already been given a job for Tuesday, which I collected at Stansted airport on my way home.  This was the transfer of some archives for morning delivery at a place of secure storage on the outskirts of Glasgow.  I decided that there would be adequate time for a 'normal' Monday evening, so I snatched an hour's sleep before going to bellringing practice, and then left from there for my delivery.  I had planned to stop at the truck-stop outside Carlisle for a few hours' more rest and then breakfast, confident that there would still be time to get to my destination by the required 9.0.  However, I didn't bargain for the A66 to be closed for road-works.  Instead of a comfortable sleep followed by a civilised breakfast, I found myself heading cross-country from north Yorkshire to Glasgow, where I arrived embarrassingly early.  I did find a café open on the estate for breakfast though, and when the office staff turned up to receive my delivery, they were very helpful.  By then, of course, the A66 was open again so, after a hot day driving into the sun, I was back in time to hand in my week's paperwork before our office closed.

Wednesday began much as the preceding two weeks, with the computer and family history.  It was after lunch when I was sent to collect some goods for a hospital on the Wirral, but quite enjoyed the drive up there, wondering where it would be possible to get a meal after my delivery.  It was also an eventful journey, first avoiding one road where there had been an accident, and then another where there is always queuing traffic at that time of day, and all the time seeing my arrival time drift from the initial 5.15 to 6.0, then 6.30.  I finally got to the Arrowe Park Hospital about 6.50.  As I left the motorway, I had called the rep who had arranged the delivery to explain my delay, and from him learned that the equipment was wanted for a hip operation the following morning.  I handed the box over to the theatre staff, who knew it was on its way, and returned to my van to find a lovely text message from the rep, telling me I was 'a legend' and thanking me for my efforts.  It's nice to be appreciated, but more so, and rare, for this to be in writing!

I was consequently up later than normal on Thursday, so I wasn't surprised to be given a local 'filler' job just before lunchtime.  This was a fairly regular collection from Haverhill for one of our customers in Letchworth.  Having noted that the temperature was up to 32.5 degrees at one point on my way back, I would have been quite content to sit in my shady lounge for the rest of the day, but this wasn't to be, and at about 4.15, I was asked to collect a heavy metal tank from a fabrication firm opposite the garage in Letchworth where my van is maintained.  This was to go to an address in Wakefield, where there would be a nightshift ready to receive it.  After a meal on the way north, I arrived at a respectable 9.15 to find SatNav directing me to a neat close of comfortable residential properties!  I searched for a while for the correct location - without success - and then rang the night shift manager who, I had been told, would have to come and open the gates for me.  Not for the first time, both I and the receiving personnel had been misled.  He wasn't expecting a delivery, and when I'd followed the muddy track he described, I found the gates wide open and looking as if they'd been so for quite a while!  I was glad, though, that the apparent need to be admitted had provided me with the phone no.  Once I'd found someone with a fork truck, and the tank was safely in their yard, I made my gentle way south again, looking forward to a well-earned sleep.

The body-clock kicked in and woke me at 6.30, but was overruled, twice, and I eventually got up about 8.30.  My prayers were interrupted by a phone call, which I ignored, but before breakfast I responded to a text message asking me to ring the office, 'because I've got something to ask you.'  I'd expected some query about the previous night's delivery, but this wasn't the case.  A job was being picked up at that very moment, which needed to be in Belfast before the day were out.  It was gratifying to be told that I was the first one to be asked ... whether this were true or not. 

As I assessed my present situation, I recalled my prayer-time on Monday morning.  I'd remembered how tired I'd felt after my journey to Ipswich and Norwich last week, and reflected that I was getting out of the routine of longer journeys.  The announcement only a few hours later of the job to Glasgow had been something of an answer; this offer seemed like more of the same.  I said I could be in the office by 10.30 ... was that good enough?  It was and, while I fed and cleansed my body, and sorted out my equipment, ferry bookings were being made, so that when I arrived at the office, I could collect a small box and set off once more past the familiar surroundings of the A1, heading this time for Scotland, and the new Stena terminal at Loch Ryan.  It made a refreshing change to be travelling north through the hotter parts of the day, accompanied by commentary on the second day of the Test Match.

This was the first time I'd departed for Belfast from here, and at first I mistook the entrance to the Cairnryan P&O/Irish Ferries terminal for the one I wanted.  However, just in time I saw the green road-sign directing me to go further on.  Round a couple of bends there was the one I needed - bright and shining, and with its own roundabout, just like a new Tesco store.  After I'd negotiated the usual dilemma of being a freight vehicle but not HGV, I was checked in and didn't have long to wait before being ushered on board.

My destination, the offices of Belfast Evening Telegraph (and other newspapers), was in the city centre, and only about three miles from the port.  As is often the case, I'd passed the building before spotting a likely entrance, but traffic at 10.0 pm was minimal, so I could easily do a U-turn and leave the van in a 'pay-before-6.30' bay outside so as to explore on foot.  Luckily someone was standing outside the loading bay, and while I returned to collect my parcel from the van, he'd alerted the security man, who recognised the name on it, and signed for it immediately.  I was back at the port in time to join the queue to re-embark on the same boat that had brought me, instead of waiting in boredom for the 3.30 am sailing.  By the time this would have left, I was already making my way across Galloway, using the frequent lay-bys to avoid hindering the seemingly desperate progress of one HGV after another as they negotiated the agonising 100 miles from the port to the nearest motorway.

By Saturday's dawn, my Tuesday morning plans were finally fulfilled, as I settled down on the car park at Carlisle for a welcome sleep before breakfast.  Thereafter, I stopped only for fuel at Scotch Corner and was home just about 1.0 pm.  I made straight for my bed, and after a couple of hours was able to start a new 'day' in weekend mode, albeit in mid-afternoon.

Dare I hope to ask, what will the next week hold?

Back to School

This afternoon I made a delivery in an urban area at around 3.0 pm.  As I approached my 'target', I encountered a phenomenon that has become an inescapable part of daily life for thousands (mainly young, mainly women) across the country - the School Run.  I felt I was lucky to have an unimpeded course, as I ran the gauntlet of a great variety of vehicles, from humble minis to family saloons, to prestigious four-wheel drives: each presenting a doting parent or grandparent to the school gate, and each ready to receive the addition of an excited junior occupant for the return journey.

How different from my own day, I reflected.  School days now are over by 3.0 - sometimes earlier, it seems.  My primary school day was from 9.0 till 3.45, and when I progressed to the local Grammar School, my friends and I weren't released until 4.0 pm!  At this point there was a mad dash for the buses, while those of us who lived closer to school blocked the roads with dozens of cycles, many badly ridden, or with riders who cared more for teasing their fellows than for the nebulous concept of road safety!

And while we're on the subject, let's give the old clock another twist, and go back to my parents' schooldays, during and just after the First World War.  I've no idea just what time lessons finished, but the school day was a long one, especially for some children.  There were no cars or buses for them.  It was a tiring walk of some miles both morning and evening, and it wasn't their school books or gym kit that they carried, but a crust or two of bread for their lunch.  Somehow, though, I don't see them as miserable.  There would have been games and shouts as they left the school I have no doubt, just as in later generations, with taunts to each other and the occasional joke at a teacher's expense.

The young crowd would progress along the road, and grow smaller with each passing junction, as a cluster of bodies would leave the main tribe to make for its own community.  As the numbers decreased, so the sound would fade too.  Cheers and laughter would increasingly give way to talk of the affairs of the neighbourhood, until, as one farm gate after another claimed its brood, the minds of the siblings turned to the doings of their own families, and one would ask another whether they thought a father's field had been ploughed, or a mother's washing dried (matters that could have a dramatic bearing upon the atmosphere in the house that evening!) or the likely state of grandma's cough.  And all too soon, the same groups would come forth, merge, and gather the following morning.

There was no anxiety over obesity or lack of exercise - what energy wasn't taken up in getting to and from school each day was soon consumed by chores or boisterous play at evenings and weekends.  And parents would be far too busy to even dream of taking and fetching the little darlings.  It was taken for granted that new starters would be taken by their older siblings, and if there weren't an older sibling, then there would be a near neighbour to show the way the first few times, and after that they were on their own.  Even in my own day, I was encouraged to make an arrangement with a boy down the road to cycle together to the Grammar School on the first day of term.  Of course, there weren't so many dangers in those days - of if there were, they weren't so publicised and demonised.

But reverse spectacles were always rose-tinted, and I suspect ever will be!

When I press the 'off' button

There are times on long journeys - and on short ones too! - when the chatter, or the music, or the serious talk coming out of either radio or mp3 player just don't satisfy, and I press the 'off' button.  Admittedly, it doesn't stay off for long, and I soon resort once more to the entertainment machine, but now and again it's nice just to be quiet and let the thoughts flow.

Often, I find, such times happen when I'm driving through the countryside, or when I've just been listening to something that has a 'pastoral' flavour.  At times like this I find that my thoughts turn back to my childhood in Norfolk, or to how I imagine my parents' life to have been in the twenties and thirties, or during wartime.

The town where I grew up had survived the war virtually unscathed - in material terms, anyway.  A stray enemy fighter had strafed the town centre one lunchtime, I believe, but there had been no intense bombing as in larger places up and down the country.  Inevitably there were human casualties of the war, including my uncle, who had died while working as a PoW on the Burma Railway.  But by the time of my boyhood (I am old enough to have had a ration card, but not old enough to remember it!) the town had recovered, and was getting to grips with the New Elizabethan age.  My parents took possession of a brand new Council House two weeks before their wedding, and my widowed mother was still living there when she died some 56 years later!

Many of the shops in the town centre and local businesses still bore the names of their nineteenth or early twentieth century founders - some engraved into the facades of the buildings!  Names like E E Anness, W Gostling, Wallace King and W D Chitty; partnerships such as Aldrich & Bryant, Bateley & Stratton and Watson & Smith were part of the overheard conversation with which I grew up.  Even though many of the businesses had since been taken over by sons-in-law, or bought by new proprietors, they were still known by the names they had borne for decades.  Change came slowly to country folk - and probably still does!

My parents kept themselves to themselves.  Maybe this was because neither of them had been born in the town - although they had lived there for over twenty years when they married!  Whatever the reason, this isolation left its mark on me.  For good or ill, the outlook that my parents had on life shaped my own development.  It gave me a strong sense of independence and self-sufficiency, but I also found it difficult to mix with others ... and still do.  Although quite willing to pull my weight, I wouldn't describe myself as a 'team player'.  Some of the prominent families on our estate got together in the early 'fifties and formed an Association to enable the people who lived there to gather together socially for outings and the like.  One of their achievements was to obtain, and have erected on the green in the middle of the estate, a roundabout and a set of swings to provide a focus for the many children who were growing up there.  My parents had never joined the Association, and I was forbidden to play there.  There was a definite 'us and them' demarcation, of our own making.  It was many years before I realised this, and many more before I was able to get my mind completely around it - long after it had ceased to have any relevance for me!

And then something jerks me back to the present, and the radio goes on once more ....

The Nose has it

It wasn’t at all unusual.  The other afternoon I took a few sips of refreshing water as I drove home after a job.  Its flavour was just as water ever tastes, but this time as I put the bottle to my lips my nose detected a somewhat unpleasant odour.  Either the neck of the bottle or the cap was distinctly tainted with stale dishcloth. Yeukk!

Thus reminded that the sense of smell is the most powerful, and most able to evoke memories, I spent the next few miles in silent, and for the most part happy, recollection of significant smells of the past.  One of the earliest I remembered was that of fir resin, as exuded by a ‘real’ Christmas tree, and as I considered those early Christmasses in the home of my grandparents, where the family gathered regularly each year, I remembered too a time only a few years back when I had sought out a seasonal wreath, simply to fill my tiny flat with the ‘right’ smell for Christmas.

The other key thing about memory is, of course, that those things longest ago are those we remember most vividly.  I’ve never got to the bottom of why this should be.  In my smell-induced reverie, I brought forth a few more from childhood.  One was the smell of freshly baked bread.  The route from my home through the town to school was past the local bakery; nowadays such places are an increasing rarity in the high street, but whenever I find one, there is a great temptation to linger and take in deep breaths of nostalgia.

Another smell that is becoming rarer with the passage of time and with anti-smoking legislation is the pipe.  A few wielders of the trusty briar remain, however, and – depending what brand of tobacco they smoke – the aromatic clouds that engulf them can remind me of my own home, where my father regularly smoked Juggler, or perhaps of family holidays - occasions when my uncle, who rolled his own cigarettes during the rest of the year, took out his pipe and enjoyed Erinmore Flake.

Other smells I remembered were more natural, and potentially healthier too.  The other day we all enjoyed a most refreshing perfume as we sat in the office with the door open – that of fresh rain falling on grass and concrete after a prolonged dry spell.  Connected with this is another that reminded me of schooldays – the scent of grass clippings as they dry in the open.  Every week or two during the summer our school field would be cut by a large device pulled by a tractor.  The clippings were never gathered up, and when we played on the field afterwards we seemed to be surrounded by this smell, which grew more pungent in dry weather as they slowly rotted on top of the new growth underneath.

Now – where did I put that bottle of bleach?