There's a story - probably apocryphal, but you never know - about an American tourist who looked out of the coach window, and down at his itinerary, and then said to his companion, "It's Thursday; this must be Belgium." It's that same fogginess through which I'm peering today, as I see filled shopping bags on my kitchen worktop and think to myself, "It's Sainsbury's; this must be Saturday!"
The week began with a kind of forced holiday. Last Saturday as I drove to church for the regular monthly coffee morning, I noticed that my battery warning light was flashing. I spun around the penultimate roundabout and went instead to the garage, confident that there would be someone there who could tell me how serious this was. It was serious. The battery wasn't charging, and the only power I had until they could replace the alternator was the fast-diminishing charge that it presently held. I decided that I'd leave the van at the garage on my way back from church, rather than use it over the weekend and risk being stranded somewhere. At least the garage is only ten minutes' walk from home. Consequently I walked to church on Sunday, had a lay-in on Monday, and only ventured forth when the garage called me mid-afternoon to say all had been fixed.
No sooner had I got home and phoned the office to say that I was no longer the proverbial 'cowboy without a horse', than the week took off. Within an hour I'd been given a job to an industrial estate on the outskirts of Peterborough, and on the way received instructions for a 7.0 collection the following morning for Norwich. The pattern for the rest of the week was set when, on the way back from Norwich I was given a job for Reading, and before I'd picked this up a further call suggested that once I'd done so, I might like to collect three boxes from a firm of advertising agents in nearby Hitchin for Newport. As darkness fell on Tuesday, therefore, I was delivering custom-made festive garlands to a cafe franchise in a supermarket 170 or so miles from home.
I stopped for a rest and a meal at Membury services, but not before I was asked if I'd be able to make a 7.30 collection in Letchworth on Wednesday morning. This went to Haverhill - a regular run - and the day looked like being a tame follow-up to the previous day's exertions. From Haverhill I returned via the office for the weekly paperwork exchange, and then home for about an hour, which neatly coincided with my landlord's agent's quarterly visit. I hadn't met this particular member of staff, who usually admits herself with the office key. On this occasion, with her key poised over the keyhole, she was somewhat startled by my arrival. Introductions were made and, after a brief but pleasant exchange, I bade her farewell and sat down to open the Christmas cards that we had collected from the doormat on entry.
Three local jobs then quickly came my way, the third of which was a return run from Haverhill to the place where the day had begun in Letchworth. I had barely returned from that when dreams of an evening to catch up on admin were shattered. Would I please visit a local company in Letchworth and collect an urgent job to go to Redditch. When I arrived there, and found that SatNav took me to the far end of an industrial estate, trying to direct me to drive through the fence at the end, memory kicked in, and I remembered a rainy lunchtime (which later research told me was exactly a year ago) when I'd made that same discovery. I knew where to find the correct destination, and just made it as the last member of staff was about to leave. A meal in the truck-stop at Rugby, and the need to negotiate a local road closure for night-time maintenance, brought the day to a conclusion at about 10.0 again.
Thursday began in a more normal manner, and after a late breakfast and a little admin I rang the office as 'available' at about 9.30. Within a few minutes I was asked to go and meet another driver across the town, who would give me a job to go to a warehouse near Ely for a well-known London store. I had been home less than an hour when I was called to collect from a factory in Flitwick, to go to Stoke Mandeville. I'd taken a few minutes to save what I was doing on the computer, and shut this down, so when the phone went again to ask how far I'd got, I had to admit that I'd only just finished entering the address on my sheet, and was about to start the engine. That was perfect, as it happened, for I was asked to visit a warehouse in Letchworth first, and collect a couple of items for a hospital in Malpas, a repeat of a job I'd done less than three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the diversion to Stoke Mandeville made it somewhat later when I got to Newport this time, and when I arrived at Magor services their restaurant had closed.
I decided to press on and stopped at the next services, Leigh Delamare, where I arrived about 8.40pm. Good, there were still people eating in the restaurant, and as I approached the servery I could see there was food in the bins. I did have to wait a while for a member of staff to appear, however, and when she arrived the lady said, "Sorry, we're closed; we close at 8.30." She didn't seem aggressive in her manner, though, and I pressed my need, explaining that I'd just had a long and arduous journey to the hospital in Newport, and - I pointed to my jersey, bearing the name 'Letchworth Couriers' - I had over 100 miles further to travel to get home. She undertook to speak to her supervisor. I repeated my tale of woe to the supervisor, a younger and more positive woman. I pointed to the steaming food beside us at the counter. She explained that they were closed, and she couldn't take any money from me because they had cashed up for the day. I offered to hand her the appropriate amount of cash to look after so that she could process it the next day. This counted for naught, and the discussion continued. Meanwhile the elder lady (how common sense comes with age!), realising no doubt, that the food before us would shortly be chucked into the bin, was filling a plate with sausages and chips. "Do you want beans?" she interjected, opening the lid to reveal a gooey mess with few actual beans present. "How about peas?" I told her peas would be lovely. She had clearly taken over from her supervisor, who stared, helpless, at what was going on. I reached for my pocket to pay; they repeated in chorus, "No, we can't take any money." and the elder lady added, pushing the plate to me, "That's all right, love, go on."
After three late nights, two of them following early starts, I was glad of what seemed to be a gentle Friday. I rang in as available around 10.0, and was fairly swiftly sent to St Albans and Hounslow, the latter resulting from a collection at a farm-workshop in a tiny Hertfordshire village I'd never heard of. Home once more, I turned to my desk, where my printer had developed a rebellious streak and wasn't doing what it was told. With this still unresolved, I received a call for a local job to the middle of Hitchin. Then came the 'killer blow' of the week. Before I'd returned from this, I was called to collect some metal from Biggleswade that was required urgently in Thame; while still on the way there came another call, suggesting that I take this via Houghton Regis, where I could collect an envelope destined for a village only five miles away from Thame, and as I was on my way between these two collections, a third call announced a job going from Letchworth to Aylesbury. We agreed that this last one would add so much to the overall journey as to be a non-starter, and it was given to another driver.
The final job of the day, the envelope, was addressed to 'The Grange', which proved to be at the far end of a narrow lane. The journey to find it was surprisingly easy, until I turned into the lane. Round the first bend, I found myself face to face with a large saloon which must have emerged from one of the only two houses along the lane. With nowhere to turn round, of course, my only option was to reverse to the corner. Sadly my only option was to reverse to the corner, which isn't easy when the headlights of the car in front advance a yard-and-a-bit for every yard you reverse before it. Some people seem unable to consider the difficulties of driving a vehicle whose only rear vision is in side mirrors, into which one has to look forward!
As Christmas draws near, I can expect another week of this; at least I know that it will begin with no men's breakfast at the church - I shall be on my way to Bristol!
Saturday, 14 December 2013
Saturday, 7 December 2013
More Bread and Butter
It's been another of those busy weeks when most of the work has been fairly short-range, but with a couple of longer jobs to bulk it up. Monday started with a trip from Royston to Long Eaton, with a little job from a nearby village to Huntingdon on the way . . . but then it finished, because by the time I'd returned home it was almost dark, and time to look to the next day. The evening's ringing was quite fun, though.
Tuesday was almost similar. Coventry was the morning's destination, but the factory I visited was right beside the eastbound A45. In quieter times, it had had an entrance from the main road, but this has long since been locked, and grass has grown all round the gate. Instead access is now from a local road, involving a detour of several miles once I'd passed the beautiful art deco front of the building. Again home well into the afternoon, but two complementary jobs to Luton finished the day nicely, and I was also allocated an early start for the following morning.
6.00am found me at a depot in Shefford, to collect some kerbstones - special ones with inspection 'lids' - to deliver to the site of what appears to be quite a substantial extension to Bristol Parkway station. It was the preliminary to quite a long day, because when almost home I was diverted onto a local job, and then on to a strange pairing of Haverhill with Thetford that kept me out until about 9.30pm, by the time I'd enjoyed a Little Chef curry on my way home.
Thursday was quite revealing (apart from being rather wet!) After a delivery in Stewartby - a strange village whose history I have yet to learn, but is, I believe, all tied up with the former brick-making industry - I was off to Birmingham, where I delivered to an inner-city factory. As I took a sharp left-hand turn into the street, I was quite intrigued by a small estate of modern houses on the side opposite me. I then saw two Victorian warehouses on the near side, with a narrow passage between them, and the name of my target company on a board on one side of the opening. Driving down was no real problem, and the heavy rainfall made it essential, to get as close to the destination as possible. I did have misgivings about reversing out into the street afterwards, though. I needn't have worried.
As I discovered when I examined the location on Google Earth in the evening, the site is triangular, with one point being the entrance into which I now drove. The opposite side of the triangle is formed by a large building, the far side of which faces the Birmingham Canal. My delivery was to the factory on the left, and after he'd moved their lorry from in front of it, the man who greeted me indicated that I should drive right inside. I should think it was half the size of a football pitch, with a roof almost entirely of glass, so it was quite light and airy. A delivery that I had first viewed with trepidation proved to be a doddle!
Yesterday, too, was interesting - although in a completely different way. Two familiar jobs began the day, first to Pinewood Studios and then over to Suffolk to a factory on a former airfield near Beccles. Returning home about 4.00, I could be forgiven for thinking that, on past performance, the working week was now over. Not so. An hour later, I was asked to collect a small consignment of wine to go to a nearby luxury restaurant-cum-golf course. I arrived in darkness, but SatNav took me to the very door. The problem was that they had already received their wine delivery. This was for an event taking place in another part of the estate. I tried in vain to locate this, following one path and then another in the darkness. Then suddenly, a young lady on a golf buggy drove up and asked if I needed any help. My explanation was greeted by an expression of delight, "You're a life-saver! That's for us - shall I lead the way?" "I'm usually told that when I visit a hospital," I retorted gently, but my problem was solved and I was more than happy to accept the offer.
On the home front, I have been pleased this week to renew my electronic acquaintance with a distant cousin in the USA. She has furnished me with some more details of our common ancestry, so once a few regular chores are out of the way I shall look forward to digging into these with a view to extending my family tree by a few more twigs.
Tuesday was almost similar. Coventry was the morning's destination, but the factory I visited was right beside the eastbound A45. In quieter times, it had had an entrance from the main road, but this has long since been locked, and grass has grown all round the gate. Instead access is now from a local road, involving a detour of several miles once I'd passed the beautiful art deco front of the building. Again home well into the afternoon, but two complementary jobs to Luton finished the day nicely, and I was also allocated an early start for the following morning.
6.00am found me at a depot in Shefford, to collect some kerbstones - special ones with inspection 'lids' - to deliver to the site of what appears to be quite a substantial extension to Bristol Parkway station. It was the preliminary to quite a long day, because when almost home I was diverted onto a local job, and then on to a strange pairing of Haverhill with Thetford that kept me out until about 9.30pm, by the time I'd enjoyed a Little Chef curry on my way home.
Thursday was quite revealing (apart from being rather wet!) After a delivery in Stewartby - a strange village whose history I have yet to learn, but is, I believe, all tied up with the former brick-making industry - I was off to Birmingham, where I delivered to an inner-city factory. As I took a sharp left-hand turn into the street, I was quite intrigued by a small estate of modern houses on the side opposite me. I then saw two Victorian warehouses on the near side, with a narrow passage between them, and the name of my target company on a board on one side of the opening. Driving down was no real problem, and the heavy rainfall made it essential, to get as close to the destination as possible. I did have misgivings about reversing out into the street afterwards, though. I needn't have worried.
As I discovered when I examined the location on Google Earth in the evening, the site is triangular, with one point being the entrance into which I now drove. The opposite side of the triangle is formed by a large building, the far side of which faces the Birmingham Canal. My delivery was to the factory on the left, and after he'd moved their lorry from in front of it, the man who greeted me indicated that I should drive right inside. I should think it was half the size of a football pitch, with a roof almost entirely of glass, so it was quite light and airy. A delivery that I had first viewed with trepidation proved to be a doddle!
Yesterday, too, was interesting - although in a completely different way. Two familiar jobs began the day, first to Pinewood Studios and then over to Suffolk to a factory on a former airfield near Beccles. Returning home about 4.00, I could be forgiven for thinking that, on past performance, the working week was now over. Not so. An hour later, I was asked to collect a small consignment of wine to go to a nearby luxury restaurant-cum-golf course. I arrived in darkness, but SatNav took me to the very door. The problem was that they had already received their wine delivery. This was for an event taking place in another part of the estate. I tried in vain to locate this, following one path and then another in the darkness. Then suddenly, a young lady on a golf buggy drove up and asked if I needed any help. My explanation was greeted by an expression of delight, "You're a life-saver! That's for us - shall I lead the way?" "I'm usually told that when I visit a hospital," I retorted gently, but my problem was solved and I was more than happy to accept the offer.
On the home front, I have been pleased this week to renew my electronic acquaintance with a distant cousin in the USA. She has furnished me with some more details of our common ancestry, so once a few regular chores are out of the way I shall look forward to digging into these with a view to extending my family tree by a few more twigs.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Waiting ...
It goes without saying, perhaps, that in this line of work there can be a lot of waiting. For example, it was long understood that, if we got to the place of loading at the appointed time, and were kept waiting more than 20 minutes, then we would get paid 'waiting time'; similarly if, after arriving at our destination, we were kept waiting before the goods were unloaded and signed for, anything in excess of this magic 20 minutes would be paid for. There are some occasions when access to a loading bay is delayed by a rigid queuing system, and we might have to wait for the unloading of other, much larger, vehicles.
Eventually, as was ever the case, the payment system became ill-used, and waiting time was regularly claimed by some drivers on certain jobs, whether applicable or not, so a ruling was made that all waiting time had to be signed for on our delivery sheets. However, there was often no one available who was willing, or felt authorised, to do this, and in the face of all these difficulties, coupled with the fact that some customers refuse to pay it anyway, I have long since not bothered to claim it, whatever the circumstances.
In any case, this kind of waiting is small compared to the time when we can be waiting for the next job, and one bonus of my present situation, working from home, is that I can use my waiting time on something productive, from ironing to writing short stories, from reading to digging into my family history.
This week there have been a number of noticeably long periods of waiting other than waiting at home. On Wednesday afternoon, for example, I had collected a couple of large boxes from a customer to be sent by airfreight to their clients in far-off lands. The first had to be taken to forwarding agents in Uxbridge, where I followed the usual instructions to wear hi-viz clothing and enter a door marked 'All drivers report here!' Inside I found myself along with two other drivers in a small wire cage, through which we could see the warehouse staff busily going about their business, and at the same time totally ignoring us. After a few minutes, one of the others said, with characteristic irony, "They're funny things, these hi-viz jackets - they make you completely invisible!" Eventually it became apparent that out of all the staff present, only one was dealing with incoming goods, and it was well over half an hour before I was unloaded and on my way again.
As it happened my next job was to collect something left for me at the customer services desk in a Tesco superstore. Here both the customer services staff and I were the victims of 'Chinese whispers'. So far as I was concerned, I was collecting an envelope, which is what I told the already very busy staff behind the counter. Not being aware of such an item, they searched high and low for an envelope that might have been left with a previous shift for collection; phone calls were made to staff in other likely departments; the assistant manager of the store was also involved ... all to no avail. All I could tell them by way of assistance was the name and business of our customer, on behalf of whom I was collecting; I had no idea what was in the envelope, and therefore had no idea of the size.
An hour after my arrival, following extensive searches and enquries within the store, a phone call to my office, and others to our customer, from them to Tesco, and back down the chain, I emerged with not an envelope, but a hard, black A3 folder containing just a few paper notes. Apparently 'folder' had been interpreted as 'manila folder', and then 'folder or envelope', and so on. Eventually I learned that our customer's sales rep, to whom I delivered the item, had left this behind in error earlier in the day, and only discovered its loss some miles away when he arrived at his next call.
Friday morning brought more 'on-the-job' waiting. I was up early, having been deputed to arrive at a company in Waterbeach at 6.30 am to collect goods for our customer in Royston. My arrival - at half-past on the dot - caused something of a sensation. Yes, goods for our mutual customer had been processed during the night, but since they had no idea I was coming, let alone that early, the paperwork wasn't ready, and indeed the member of staff responsible wouldn't arrive until 7.0! As it happened, he was early, and prepared to get straight onto the task, and soon after 7.0, I was loaded and on my way. It gave me an unusual opportunity to admire the cleanliness and tidy organisation of a factory, and compare it favourably to those within which I've worked in the past.
Today brings me happy memories connected with a totally different sort of waiting. Tomorrow sees the start of the Christian season of Advent: a different sort of waiting - both preparation for Christmas, and a time of looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Almost thirty years ago, when I was studying German, my teacher recommended that those of us who were interested might benefit from paying a visit to St Michael's Church Hall in the centre of Cambridge. Here, for many years, it had been the practice of the city's Lutheran community to hold an annual 'Advent Fair'. It was, you might say, the 'original version' of the sort of Christmas paraphernalia that Prince Albert introduced to Victorian England (like our adored Christmas tree!) I went along to it at least two years, and it was as good as she had foretold.
To visit what on any other day was just a bare church hall was, on that occasion, like stepping into a foreign wonderland. There were presents and decorations to buy; there were pine decorations, the scent of which was quite intoxicating; and lovely cakes and sweetmeats, too. ... Oh, the variety of fare to eat, both savory and sweet, was truly remarkable. The event concluded with a short service conducted partly in English and partly in German, as were the carols that we sang. I visited Cambridge again in the mid '90s with an idea of going there again, but the hall was closed. I think the Lutherans have their own church building now, and presumably if the event still happens, it would be there. Nothing, however, can replace for me that special atmosphere, with the medieval stonework and Gothic windows as a backdrop.
Ah, well! Back to the twenty-first century!
Eventually, as was ever the case, the payment system became ill-used, and waiting time was regularly claimed by some drivers on certain jobs, whether applicable or not, so a ruling was made that all waiting time had to be signed for on our delivery sheets. However, there was often no one available who was willing, or felt authorised, to do this, and in the face of all these difficulties, coupled with the fact that some customers refuse to pay it anyway, I have long since not bothered to claim it, whatever the circumstances.
In any case, this kind of waiting is small compared to the time when we can be waiting for the next job, and one bonus of my present situation, working from home, is that I can use my waiting time on something productive, from ironing to writing short stories, from reading to digging into my family history.
This week there have been a number of noticeably long periods of waiting other than waiting at home. On Wednesday afternoon, for example, I had collected a couple of large boxes from a customer to be sent by airfreight to their clients in far-off lands. The first had to be taken to forwarding agents in Uxbridge, where I followed the usual instructions to wear hi-viz clothing and enter a door marked 'All drivers report here!' Inside I found myself along with two other drivers in a small wire cage, through which we could see the warehouse staff busily going about their business, and at the same time totally ignoring us. After a few minutes, one of the others said, with characteristic irony, "They're funny things, these hi-viz jackets - they make you completely invisible!" Eventually it became apparent that out of all the staff present, only one was dealing with incoming goods, and it was well over half an hour before I was unloaded and on my way again.
As it happened my next job was to collect something left for me at the customer services desk in a Tesco superstore. Here both the customer services staff and I were the victims of 'Chinese whispers'. So far as I was concerned, I was collecting an envelope, which is what I told the already very busy staff behind the counter. Not being aware of such an item, they searched high and low for an envelope that might have been left with a previous shift for collection; phone calls were made to staff in other likely departments; the assistant manager of the store was also involved ... all to no avail. All I could tell them by way of assistance was the name and business of our customer, on behalf of whom I was collecting; I had no idea what was in the envelope, and therefore had no idea of the size.
An hour after my arrival, following extensive searches and enquries within the store, a phone call to my office, and others to our customer, from them to Tesco, and back down the chain, I emerged with not an envelope, but a hard, black A3 folder containing just a few paper notes. Apparently 'folder' had been interpreted as 'manila folder', and then 'folder or envelope', and so on. Eventually I learned that our customer's sales rep, to whom I delivered the item, had left this behind in error earlier in the day, and only discovered its loss some miles away when he arrived at his next call.
Friday morning brought more 'on-the-job' waiting. I was up early, having been deputed to arrive at a company in Waterbeach at 6.30 am to collect goods for our customer in Royston. My arrival - at half-past on the dot - caused something of a sensation. Yes, goods for our mutual customer had been processed during the night, but since they had no idea I was coming, let alone that early, the paperwork wasn't ready, and indeed the member of staff responsible wouldn't arrive until 7.0! As it happened, he was early, and prepared to get straight onto the task, and soon after 7.0, I was loaded and on my way. It gave me an unusual opportunity to admire the cleanliness and tidy organisation of a factory, and compare it favourably to those within which I've worked in the past.
Today brings me happy memories connected with a totally different sort of waiting. Tomorrow sees the start of the Christian season of Advent: a different sort of waiting - both preparation for Christmas, and a time of looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Almost thirty years ago, when I was studying German, my teacher recommended that those of us who were interested might benefit from paying a visit to St Michael's Church Hall in the centre of Cambridge. Here, for many years, it had been the practice of the city's Lutheran community to hold an annual 'Advent Fair'. It was, you might say, the 'original version' of the sort of Christmas paraphernalia that Prince Albert introduced to Victorian England (like our adored Christmas tree!) I went along to it at least two years, and it was as good as she had foretold.
To visit what on any other day was just a bare church hall was, on that occasion, like stepping into a foreign wonderland. There were presents and decorations to buy; there were pine decorations, the scent of which was quite intoxicating; and lovely cakes and sweetmeats, too. ... Oh, the variety of fare to eat, both savory and sweet, was truly remarkable. The event concluded with a short service conducted partly in English and partly in German, as were the carols that we sang. I visited Cambridge again in the mid '90s with an idea of going there again, but the hall was closed. I think the Lutherans have their own church building now, and presumably if the event still happens, it would be there. Nothing, however, can replace for me that special atmosphere, with the medieval stonework and Gothic windows as a backdrop.
Ah, well! Back to the twenty-first century!
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Looking Forward and Back
This is the sort of job, as many have observed, where you just don't know from one day to the next what you'll be doing, or where; nor, for that matter, how long it will take you. It's also the sort of job where, sometimes, you get to the end of the week and, looking back, you can't remember where on earth you've been, what has filled those last five days, and so on. This was just such a week.
Although I've done nineteen jobs in the week, only three of them have been beyond 70 miles distant: Slough on Tuesday morning was one of those jobs that, a few years ago was quite regular, and enjoyable. This time, however, I discovered that the receiving company has been taken over, and its premises are now a few streets away from where I had been before. Add to that the officious manner of the receiving staff, and it wasn't anywhere nearly so pleasant. Coventry, the next day, was much better. I always prefer to go north rather than south ... there's a distinct feeling of comfort, somehow, in heading away from the M25. Although nominally Coventry, it was actually to a factory owned by a nationally-known company and located on the outskirts of a small village between two motorways, the access to which was quite circuitous, which added to the interest.
The only major job of the week, on Monday evening, was probably also the most interesting of the week. That repeating genie, of which I've written often, seems to have changed his mode of working, and now offers the same pattern at the same time each week, instead of the same unusual location two days running. This week's Monday task was a carriage-forward job to a housing estate on the edge of Derby. I was loaded with a number of quite heavy boxes, and instructed to call the recipient when I got there. Finding myself outside quite a large block of flats, with no individual address, I had no alternative. In response to my call, a young man approached me from a side turning opposite the flats, and told me to follow him a few yards down the road, and round the to a block of garages behind the houses on the side of the road opposite from the flats. I felt distinctly suspicious but, after a prayer for safety, I did as I was bid. The young man explained that the consignee was indisposed, but had asked him to meet me and receive the goods. As a matter of discipline, we are advised against leaving goods other than at the address given when we collect them. However, there was something open about this chap's manner, and coupled with the fact that he knew approximately how much he would have to pay me - and had the not insignificant amount of cash in his pocket - I decided that this time it would be OK. I left him standing outside the garage, to which he had no key, to mind the boxes and await his friend.
The rest of the week, although nose-to-tail, has been relatively local, and having exhausted the regular collection of podcasts, I've been glad sometimes to drive in silence ... just thinking. With Christmas just around the corner, there has been much to think about, of course. The annual newsletter for distant friends and family; the Christmas card list; church activities and my part in them, and so on. I've also been thinking a lot about a short story that I'm writing, trying to complete it within the month of November, but wrestling with one flaw after another that has been revealed in the plot as it progresses.
Another thought, a recollection really, that came to me unbidden the other day, concerned an incident some years ago. I was driving in Letchworth one winter's evening, and had stopped to wait for traffic on a roundabout in the town centre. BANG! there came the sound and the feel of an impact, as someone drove into the back of the van. I know I have to stop when there's a collision; this time there was no need - I was stationary. I got out, fearing to inspect the damage; fearing too, the potential impact on my work. As I walked gingerly around the van, I was met by a chap of about twenty or so, of Afro-Caribbean appearance, emerging from a maroon saloon. He looked aghast at the front of his car. The bonnet was severely bent, and a sinister puddle of green fluid under the engine, getting bigger by the second, indicated a broken radiator. "Oh, my lovely motor!" he moaned, sheepishly.
I looked at my own vehicle - amazed at what I found. There was a rip, about half an inch long - little more, anyway, in the plastic skin of the rear bumper. Otherwise, everything was intact. The bumper of the van, of course, is the step of the door, and really solidly made to bear the weight of a man, and much more. I commiserated with my adversary in his loss, we acknowledged that the collision was his own fault, since he had taken his eyes off me to look at the roundabout, and, since I could do nothing to assist him, I carried on my way. I could sympathise with his predicament since, although this was more serious, the circumstances were exactly the same as my own first accident. This happened at a roundabout on the Norwich ring road, when I was driving the van I wrote about last week, that I found great difficulty in parking.
What goes around, comes around. The moral of the story, if there is one, is that, if you're angry with a white-van man, there are more effective ways of expressing your feelings than ramming his van!
Although I've done nineteen jobs in the week, only three of them have been beyond 70 miles distant: Slough on Tuesday morning was one of those jobs that, a few years ago was quite regular, and enjoyable. This time, however, I discovered that the receiving company has been taken over, and its premises are now a few streets away from where I had been before. Add to that the officious manner of the receiving staff, and it wasn't anywhere nearly so pleasant. Coventry, the next day, was much better. I always prefer to go north rather than south ... there's a distinct feeling of comfort, somehow, in heading away from the M25. Although nominally Coventry, it was actually to a factory owned by a nationally-known company and located on the outskirts of a small village between two motorways, the access to which was quite circuitous, which added to the interest.
The only major job of the week, on Monday evening, was probably also the most interesting of the week. That repeating genie, of which I've written often, seems to have changed his mode of working, and now offers the same pattern at the same time each week, instead of the same unusual location two days running. This week's Monday task was a carriage-forward job to a housing estate on the edge of Derby. I was loaded with a number of quite heavy boxes, and instructed to call the recipient when I got there. Finding myself outside quite a large block of flats, with no individual address, I had no alternative. In response to my call, a young man approached me from a side turning opposite the flats, and told me to follow him a few yards down the road, and round the to a block of garages behind the houses on the side of the road opposite from the flats. I felt distinctly suspicious but, after a prayer for safety, I did as I was bid. The young man explained that the consignee was indisposed, but had asked him to meet me and receive the goods. As a matter of discipline, we are advised against leaving goods other than at the address given when we collect them. However, there was something open about this chap's manner, and coupled with the fact that he knew approximately how much he would have to pay me - and had the not insignificant amount of cash in his pocket - I decided that this time it would be OK. I left him standing outside the garage, to which he had no key, to mind the boxes and await his friend.
The rest of the week, although nose-to-tail, has been relatively local, and having exhausted the regular collection of podcasts, I've been glad sometimes to drive in silence ... just thinking. With Christmas just around the corner, there has been much to think about, of course. The annual newsletter for distant friends and family; the Christmas card list; church activities and my part in them, and so on. I've also been thinking a lot about a short story that I'm writing, trying to complete it within the month of November, but wrestling with one flaw after another that has been revealed in the plot as it progresses.
Another thought, a recollection really, that came to me unbidden the other day, concerned an incident some years ago. I was driving in Letchworth one winter's evening, and had stopped to wait for traffic on a roundabout in the town centre. BANG! there came the sound and the feel of an impact, as someone drove into the back of the van. I know I have to stop when there's a collision; this time there was no need - I was stationary. I got out, fearing to inspect the damage; fearing too, the potential impact on my work. As I walked gingerly around the van, I was met by a chap of about twenty or so, of Afro-Caribbean appearance, emerging from a maroon saloon. He looked aghast at the front of his car. The bonnet was severely bent, and a sinister puddle of green fluid under the engine, getting bigger by the second, indicated a broken radiator. "Oh, my lovely motor!" he moaned, sheepishly.
I looked at my own vehicle - amazed at what I found. There was a rip, about half an inch long - little more, anyway, in the plastic skin of the rear bumper. Otherwise, everything was intact. The bumper of the van, of course, is the step of the door, and really solidly made to bear the weight of a man, and much more. I commiserated with my adversary in his loss, we acknowledged that the collision was his own fault, since he had taken his eyes off me to look at the roundabout, and, since I could do nothing to assist him, I carried on my way. I could sympathise with his predicament since, although this was more serious, the circumstances were exactly the same as my own first accident. This happened at a roundabout on the Norwich ring road, when I was driving the van I wrote about last week, that I found great difficulty in parking.
What goes around, comes around. The moral of the story, if there is one, is that, if you're angry with a white-van man, there are more effective ways of expressing your feelings than ramming his van!
Saturday, 16 November 2013
Back to Normal?
This week the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said, "The recovery has finally taken hold." From my lowly standpoint, I'm inclined to agree with him. This week, for the first time for quite some while, I felt deprived of the benefits of working from home. Although they did still exist, the minutes between 8.0 am and 6.0 pm when I actually did something productive on the home front were very few. There's not room here for a whole diary, but let me pick out some of the highlights.
Monday found me in the centre of Norwich, wallowing in a whole festival of memories from (ahem!) well over 40 years ago. My delivery was to the long-established family firm of Jarrold & Son. Early in my working life I had a job at a shop just around the corner from them in Exchange Street. Having just passed my driving test, I took great delight in driving the firm's van, but when it came to parking it in their garage, it was a different story. The garage was down a narrow passage, and this was decades before I had learned the wisdom and technique of reverse entry! The poor van suffered many a blemish, each one lowering my reputation by another notch!
As I left the 'fine city' by way of the Newmarket Road, I passed the Eagle Tavern, and the nearby Eagle Walk, at the end of which in the 1960s was a motor-cycle dealer. Here I paid a visit one day, accompanied by a more knowledgeable friend, to equip myself with independent transport. I discovered that, even then, the price for something really worthwhile was just beyond the limit of my resources. What I liked was a 200cc. Francis-Barnett; what I came away with was a 175cc BSA Bantam, which had started life fired by a magneto, in other words it made its own electricity as the engine rotated. A previous 'clever' owner had modified it to work with a battery, more like a car engine, and this modification gave me many a scary moment as it refused to work, letting me down sometimes at home, but equally at my destination, with no ready means of getting home again. After I'd acquired a car, I sold the Bantam to a local dealer, who later told me that he'd never been able to get it working again, and had to re-build it in the original mode so that he could sell it!
Monday finished like the last two Mondays, with my 'invoice and paperwork' visit to the office being greeted with 'something else for the evening'. Unlike the last two, however, this one was quite a bit longer. It took me to a new destination, the Golden Jubilee National Hospital at Clydebank. This seemed very well appointed inside, and as I left (about 2.30 am) and looked back at the floodlit elevation down the avenue through the car park, I said to myself, 'My word, - it looks like a palace!' Research after my return reveals that it was built on the site of a former shipyard as a private hospital with adjoining hotel, and was acquired by the NHS as a completed unit in 2002 (thanks, Wikipedia!)
Wednesday (after a good night's sleep!) offered two pairs of jobs, one nearby, the other at a comfortable distance. One of each pair was a return to somewhere that had proved difficult to find on the first visit - it's one of the advantages of doing the job for eleven and a half years that I now know where to go on these occasions. In the morning I made a delivery to an 'office in a garden' which is situated at the end of a row of cottages in a south Cambridgeshire village. Many Cambridge post codes were changed a few years ago, and we have a shrewd idea how to amend any that SatNav doesn't like, but it doesn't work when the original one had an error in it as well! In the afternoon I went to Leicester, taking some veneer to a construction firm whose premises are at the far end of an industrial cul-de-sac at the end of a Victorian housing estate. Fortunately, the road name struck a chord as I wrote it down, and once I was in the area, I knew what to look for.
I never cease to be amazed at the way my mind can switch from something I'm listening to, onto a completely different track. As I listened to 'In Our Time' on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday morning, which this week featured Shakespeare's The Tempest, one of Melvin Bragg's guests observed that Prospero had been born on the island, and saw it as his own. At this point my 'switch' clicked, and I remembered something I'd heard in a programme a couple of years ago. Someone was interviewing a middle-aged southern European gentleman, who said with amusement, "My son's wife is expecting a baby; now that Croatia has joined the EU, it will be born in Europe. My son was born in Croatia; I was born in Yugoslavia; My father was born in Italy, and his father in Austria. We have lived in the same village for over a century." How the shape of the continent has changed down the years.
And so to yesterday, another very full day. I began with a delivery to Coventry, ironically to yet another destination which I had difficulty locating when I first went there. While still on my way, I was asked to make a collection in Milton Keynes on my way back, from Bletchley Park, "The home of the code-breakers" (as the sign on the road outside says). I took this to the office, for someone else to deliver into south London, and after a few minutes' rest, I was sent to collect something in Letchworth for a firm in Shirebrook, Notts. No sooner had I got this than the phone rang, sending me just around the corner to another customer who had something for Congleton - "and while you're in the area [so-and-so] will give you a job for Monday morning to Northampton". As I made my way up the A1, the controller called again. "When you've dropped the first one of those," he began, "call me, because I've got a collection in Oswestry - which isn't a million miles away! That can be delivered tomorrow morning, if that's OK with you." Such courteous phrases only come when he realises that he's asking something 'above and beyond the call of duty' ... and I'm pleased that they do come - I could imagine some people who would take such co-operation for granted, and look on it as a right to ask for it.
As I wrote here last weekend, I was planning today to go to the record office for some research before watching a football match further into Suffolk. I think it was when I was asked to collect the second afternoon job, the one to Congleton, that I decided that, with no evening in which to prepare, and not too much sleep anyway, this plan wasn't going to happen. In the event, having collected the goods from Oswestry about 9.30, I wasn't home until around 2.0 am, so this morning was taken up by a comfortable shopping trip, and the admin of the day before. The journey to mid-Suffolk solely for a football match had been ruled out long ago, which was why I had intended combining it with a morning in the record office; instead I went to my local club, Arlesey Town, who had an FA Trophy tie against Marlow, which they won 2-0.
Normal again? Watch this space!
Monday found me in the centre of Norwich, wallowing in a whole festival of memories from (ahem!) well over 40 years ago. My delivery was to the long-established family firm of Jarrold & Son. Early in my working life I had a job at a shop just around the corner from them in Exchange Street. Having just passed my driving test, I took great delight in driving the firm's van, but when it came to parking it in their garage, it was a different story. The garage was down a narrow passage, and this was decades before I had learned the wisdom and technique of reverse entry! The poor van suffered many a blemish, each one lowering my reputation by another notch!
As I left the 'fine city' by way of the Newmarket Road, I passed the Eagle Tavern, and the nearby Eagle Walk, at the end of which in the 1960s was a motor-cycle dealer. Here I paid a visit one day, accompanied by a more knowledgeable friend, to equip myself with independent transport. I discovered that, even then, the price for something really worthwhile was just beyond the limit of my resources. What I liked was a 200cc. Francis-Barnett; what I came away with was a 175cc BSA Bantam, which had started life fired by a magneto, in other words it made its own electricity as the engine rotated. A previous 'clever' owner had modified it to work with a battery, more like a car engine, and this modification gave me many a scary moment as it refused to work, letting me down sometimes at home, but equally at my destination, with no ready means of getting home again. After I'd acquired a car, I sold the Bantam to a local dealer, who later told me that he'd never been able to get it working again, and had to re-build it in the original mode so that he could sell it!
Monday finished like the last two Mondays, with my 'invoice and paperwork' visit to the office being greeted with 'something else for the evening'. Unlike the last two, however, this one was quite a bit longer. It took me to a new destination, the Golden Jubilee National Hospital at Clydebank. This seemed very well appointed inside, and as I left (about 2.30 am) and looked back at the floodlit elevation down the avenue through the car park, I said to myself, 'My word, - it looks like a palace!' Research after my return reveals that it was built on the site of a former shipyard as a private hospital with adjoining hotel, and was acquired by the NHS as a completed unit in 2002 (thanks, Wikipedia!)
Wednesday (after a good night's sleep!) offered two pairs of jobs, one nearby, the other at a comfortable distance. One of each pair was a return to somewhere that had proved difficult to find on the first visit - it's one of the advantages of doing the job for eleven and a half years that I now know where to go on these occasions. In the morning I made a delivery to an 'office in a garden' which is situated at the end of a row of cottages in a south Cambridgeshire village. Many Cambridge post codes were changed a few years ago, and we have a shrewd idea how to amend any that SatNav doesn't like, but it doesn't work when the original one had an error in it as well! In the afternoon I went to Leicester, taking some veneer to a construction firm whose premises are at the far end of an industrial cul-de-sac at the end of a Victorian housing estate. Fortunately, the road name struck a chord as I wrote it down, and once I was in the area, I knew what to look for.
I never cease to be amazed at the way my mind can switch from something I'm listening to, onto a completely different track. As I listened to 'In Our Time' on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday morning, which this week featured Shakespeare's The Tempest, one of Melvin Bragg's guests observed that Prospero had been born on the island, and saw it as his own. At this point my 'switch' clicked, and I remembered something I'd heard in a programme a couple of years ago. Someone was interviewing a middle-aged southern European gentleman, who said with amusement, "My son's wife is expecting a baby; now that Croatia has joined the EU, it will be born in Europe. My son was born in Croatia; I was born in Yugoslavia; My father was born in Italy, and his father in Austria. We have lived in the same village for over a century." How the shape of the continent has changed down the years.
And so to yesterday, another very full day. I began with a delivery to Coventry, ironically to yet another destination which I had difficulty locating when I first went there. While still on my way, I was asked to make a collection in Milton Keynes on my way back, from Bletchley Park, "The home of the code-breakers" (as the sign on the road outside says). I took this to the office, for someone else to deliver into south London, and after a few minutes' rest, I was sent to collect something in Letchworth for a firm in Shirebrook, Notts. No sooner had I got this than the phone rang, sending me just around the corner to another customer who had something for Congleton - "and while you're in the area [so-and-so] will give you a job for Monday morning to Northampton". As I made my way up the A1, the controller called again. "When you've dropped the first one of those," he began, "call me, because I've got a collection in Oswestry - which isn't a million miles away! That can be delivered tomorrow morning, if that's OK with you." Such courteous phrases only come when he realises that he's asking something 'above and beyond the call of duty' ... and I'm pleased that they do come - I could imagine some people who would take such co-operation for granted, and look on it as a right to ask for it.
As I wrote here last weekend, I was planning today to go to the record office for some research before watching a football match further into Suffolk. I think it was when I was asked to collect the second afternoon job, the one to Congleton, that I decided that, with no evening in which to prepare, and not too much sleep anyway, this plan wasn't going to happen. In the event, having collected the goods from Oswestry about 9.30, I wasn't home until around 2.0 am, so this morning was taken up by a comfortable shopping trip, and the admin of the day before. The journey to mid-Suffolk solely for a football match had been ruled out long ago, which was why I had intended combining it with a morning in the record office; instead I went to my local club, Arlesey Town, who had an FA Trophy tie against Marlow, which they won 2-0.
Normal again? Watch this space!
Sunday, 10 November 2013
A Time to Remember
This week started much as the last, with a Monday that appeared to come to a natural end with the weekly paperwork 'ritual', and then provided me with another job in the early evening. Last week I arrived at bell-ringing practice to announce proudly that I'd just saved part of St Albans from the agonies of a power-cut - I'd delivered the essential fuse unit to the contractors waiting by the roadside. This week I bore no triumphant tale, so arrived just in time again, but quietly. The greatest excitement of this Monday evening's delivery, to a store on Watford High Street, was being moved along by a couple of traffic wardens because the place where I'd stopped outside the shop - albeit at 6.30pm - was a disabled parking bay.
Tuesday was a day of repeats. First came the regular run to Pinewood Studios for a company based opposite my home, and then the combination of another trip to Corby, to the same firm as I've been to a number of times recently, but on this occasion for a different customer; and then on to an electronics firm on the Hardwick estate at the edge of King's Lynn. It was when I returned from this that the week took on a transparent hue (if that's not exactly an impossible metaphor).
One of the controllers had been asked to quote for a particular enquiry, and before he did so he was anxious to make sure that there was someone (I was his choice of the most likely driver) willing to undertake the job, should the quote be accepted. The job was to service three consecutive evening events, delivering our customer's goods to the first one in the late afternoon/early evening, collecting them after the event, and taking them to the next venue ... and so on. The first of these was to be in Inverness tomorrow. Needless to say, the fact that I'm writing this blog now, instead of settling in to a B&B in Carlisle means that the quote wasn't accepted. However, the pleasure of looking forward not just to a Scottish job, but this time to three venues in one (Dundee and Aberdeen in addition to Inverness), not to mention the excitement of looking out possible B&B locations in these cities, made the remainder of the working week pale into insignificance.
As I waited to hear whether my plans and the anticipated enjoyment of these next few days would happen or not, I found myself taking less delight than usual in the work in hand (or under the wheels, in my case!), even though these last three days have included a return to an events company for whom I've not done a job for four and a half years, and who nearly always come up with interesting destinations (albeit this one was only to Luton), and a trip to Cirencester. In fact, it wasn't until 5.30 pm on Friday that the 'no' option was confirmed, although by then I would've had to have collected the goods, so it was looking fairly obvious.
And so to Remembrance weekend. I don't usually clutter this blog with weekend happenings, but I think this one is justified. This year, I was asked to give one of the short Bible readings in church, which was no bother, of course, but it did tend to focus my attention - if such focusing were necessary. For the second year running, I went along equipped with a note of those people whom I've identified in my family history exercises who died during the two World Wars, and I'd like to share some statistics with you. I wonder how typical these are.
Out of the thirteen deaths, ranging in closeness from an uncle, through great uncles and various cousins to a fifth cousin twice removed, nine related to the First World War, and four to the Second. Ten were soldiers, one served in the RAF, one in the Royal Navy, and one was a Second Officer in the Merchant Navy. Out of the nine soldiers who died in World War One, no less than six died on the Somme. I hadn't noticed until today that, out of those six, it was the one who served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who died on 1st July 1916 - just one of the 19,240 who died, out of the total of 57,470 casualties, on that worst day of Britain's military history. I had read recently that it was the Irish divisions who were put to the forefront of the lines, and the cynic in me wonders whether it might have been a way of dealing with a potential problem on the home front, following the Easter Rising only a few months earlier.
Let me end on a lighter note; simply to observe that, after watching one of my local football teams, Biggleswade Town, reach the first round proper of the FA Cup the other week for the first time in their almost 140-year history, I listened with some sadness to the radio yesterday afternoon as they suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Stourbridge. Now my attention turns to the Vase, and next weekend, when I'm planning to watch one of 'my' East Anglian clubs, Walsham-le-Willows, who entertain Haringey Borough in the second round. If it's raining, of course, I might well find a reason to prolong my 'halfway' visit to the record office in Bury St Edmunds. I should, perhaps, be ashamed that I am, after all, a 'fair-weather footie fan' ... but I'm not!
Tuesday was a day of repeats. First came the regular run to Pinewood Studios for a company based opposite my home, and then the combination of another trip to Corby, to the same firm as I've been to a number of times recently, but on this occasion for a different customer; and then on to an electronics firm on the Hardwick estate at the edge of King's Lynn. It was when I returned from this that the week took on a transparent hue (if that's not exactly an impossible metaphor).
One of the controllers had been asked to quote for a particular enquiry, and before he did so he was anxious to make sure that there was someone (I was his choice of the most likely driver) willing to undertake the job, should the quote be accepted. The job was to service three consecutive evening events, delivering our customer's goods to the first one in the late afternoon/early evening, collecting them after the event, and taking them to the next venue ... and so on. The first of these was to be in Inverness tomorrow. Needless to say, the fact that I'm writing this blog now, instead of settling in to a B&B in Carlisle means that the quote wasn't accepted. However, the pleasure of looking forward not just to a Scottish job, but this time to three venues in one (Dundee and Aberdeen in addition to Inverness), not to mention the excitement of looking out possible B&B locations in these cities, made the remainder of the working week pale into insignificance.
As I waited to hear whether my plans and the anticipated enjoyment of these next few days would happen or not, I found myself taking less delight than usual in the work in hand (or under the wheels, in my case!), even though these last three days have included a return to an events company for whom I've not done a job for four and a half years, and who nearly always come up with interesting destinations (albeit this one was only to Luton), and a trip to Cirencester. In fact, it wasn't until 5.30 pm on Friday that the 'no' option was confirmed, although by then I would've had to have collected the goods, so it was looking fairly obvious.
And so to Remembrance weekend. I don't usually clutter this blog with weekend happenings, but I think this one is justified. This year, I was asked to give one of the short Bible readings in church, which was no bother, of course, but it did tend to focus my attention - if such focusing were necessary. For the second year running, I went along equipped with a note of those people whom I've identified in my family history exercises who died during the two World Wars, and I'd like to share some statistics with you. I wonder how typical these are.
Out of the thirteen deaths, ranging in closeness from an uncle, through great uncles and various cousins to a fifth cousin twice removed, nine related to the First World War, and four to the Second. Ten were soldiers, one served in the RAF, one in the Royal Navy, and one was a Second Officer in the Merchant Navy. Out of the nine soldiers who died in World War One, no less than six died on the Somme. I hadn't noticed until today that, out of those six, it was the one who served in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who died on 1st July 1916 - just one of the 19,240 who died, out of the total of 57,470 casualties, on that worst day of Britain's military history. I had read recently that it was the Irish divisions who were put to the forefront of the lines, and the cynic in me wonders whether it might have been a way of dealing with a potential problem on the home front, following the Easter Rising only a few months earlier.
Let me end on a lighter note; simply to observe that, after watching one of my local football teams, Biggleswade Town, reach the first round proper of the FA Cup the other week for the first time in their almost 140-year history, I listened with some sadness to the radio yesterday afternoon as they suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Stourbridge. Now my attention turns to the Vase, and next weekend, when I'm planning to watch one of 'my' East Anglian clubs, Walsham-le-Willows, who entertain Haringey Borough in the second round. If it's raining, of course, I might well find a reason to prolong my 'halfway' visit to the record office in Bury St Edmunds. I should, perhaps, be ashamed that I am, after all, a 'fair-weather footie fan' ... but I'm not!
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Bread and Butter
At first glance, October hasn't been too bad for this individual courier. Despite my misgivings about the length of jobs, the fact that there hasn't been anything spectacular or outstanding has been counter-balanced by an almost constant flow of not-quite-local work, yielding quite an acceptable result. The downside, if there is one, is that when a late night or two do emerge from the mundane bulk, the body isn't quite ready for it.
This week began with a van service, followed by two and a half days of these 'bread-and-butter' jobs, the highlight of which was the satisfaction of going to Corby for the second time and knowing that I had to tell SatNav to find a way around the little stretch of the A43 that was closed for resurfacing. On the first occasion I told it to 'avoid a roadblock' and quick as a flash it responded 'no route possible', so I had to resort to the pre-SatNav technique of exploration and find my own diversion.
On Thursday there was double excitement. First, I took some fencing material to a film set on a disused airfield on the Herts/Bucks border; then came the delivery of a variety of some quite realistic mock-up body parts to the School of Medical Science at Brighton University. Then the day really took off. After leaving the university about 3.45 pm, it took me until gone 8.0 to get home. Navigating the M25 was worse than stirring treacle!
I was glad on Friday, therefore, after the early delivery of a tender to the council offices in King's Lynn, to be sent north again. Loaded with goods from Royston and Biggleswade, I set off mid-afternoon for an easy delivery in Northamptonshire, followed by a visit to Rolls Royce in Derby. With Friday's M1 resembling the treacle of Thursday's M25, I'm pleased to report that SatNav redeemed itself by finding me a wonderfully rural route by-passing the worst of the jams. Once I'd delivered at about 6.30, I didn't even consider the motorway, and asked for the shortest route, rather than the 'quickest' route to the truck-stop where I'd planned to have a meal. Amazingly, it was actually quicker than the projected time for the quickest route! When I emerged at around 8.30 I thought the motorway would have cleared. To be fair, it had, but there was a further minor delay in actually getting onto it, because of an accident virtually at the top of the slip road. However, the ambulance was on its way, and this acted as an ice-breaker, relieving the jam on the main carriageway, and releasing those of us trapped on the slip road.
I've been thinking this week about houses. One of my deliveries on Tuesday was to a business centre near Cambridge. Built on the grounds of a former manor house, it has retained some of the pre-existing cottages, and the contrast between these - which are used as offices - and the adjacent purpose-built modern units is quite striking. Some of these modern units have reception-cum-meeting areas that are clearly bigger than the floor area of my flat, and could probably contain both floors of one of the nearby cottages. I was reminded of a time, almost forty years ago, when I worked in an office that had been converted from a one-time 'comfortable residence' on the outskirts of a Norfolk market town.
Typical of such houses, the front door led into a hallway between two reception rooms each with a front bay window, with a matching lay-out on the first floor. Our room occupied part of a 'lesser' bedroom at the side of the property. Since the front of the house looked onto the garden, from the windows of our office there were views of the road, and of the car-park that separated us from the factory and main office block. Our room was L-shaped, and had space for three desks; mine faced the wall at the apex of the 'L', my colleague sat behind me facing the door, and back to the window that looked onto the car park, and my assistant, the front of whose desk butted up to the end of mine, sat beside the other window and back to the ladies' toilet, which occupied the 'cut-out-corner' of the original rectangular bedroom. I will just say that it was 'cosy', and leave the reader to consider whether or not this would meet today's regulatory requirements.
My mind was drawn back to dwellings as I left King's Lynn yesterday. Passing through a street of Victorian terraced houses, I noticed one where the light was on, although it was almost lunchtime. It occurred to me that, given the size of the windows in a average house of that period, to do anything of importance at any distance from the window would indeed require additional light all day, and not just during the hours of darkness. With the increasing cost of energy being in the news this week, it's easy to imagine that the likely occupants of such houses are likely, too, to be those whose incomes are least able to afford an increase in the cost of the lighting that's so essential to normal life there. How lucky I am to have in my modest flat a lounge window that is probably twice the size of these Victorian counterparts.
And, as a footnote, I passed on Tuesday the neglected property of which I wrote last week. I'm not for one moment saying that my comments carried any weight in this regard, but there is now no need for further worry about its future. The site is flattened, the fences removed and, so far as I could tell in one swift passing, a neat vehicle-proof ditch has been created between the foundations and the road.
This week began with a van service, followed by two and a half days of these 'bread-and-butter' jobs, the highlight of which was the satisfaction of going to Corby for the second time and knowing that I had to tell SatNav to find a way around the little stretch of the A43 that was closed for resurfacing. On the first occasion I told it to 'avoid a roadblock' and quick as a flash it responded 'no route possible', so I had to resort to the pre-SatNav technique of exploration and find my own diversion.
On Thursday there was double excitement. First, I took some fencing material to a film set on a disused airfield on the Herts/Bucks border; then came the delivery of a variety of some quite realistic mock-up body parts to the School of Medical Science at Brighton University. Then the day really took off. After leaving the university about 3.45 pm, it took me until gone 8.0 to get home. Navigating the M25 was worse than stirring treacle!
I was glad on Friday, therefore, after the early delivery of a tender to the council offices in King's Lynn, to be sent north again. Loaded with goods from Royston and Biggleswade, I set off mid-afternoon for an easy delivery in Northamptonshire, followed by a visit to Rolls Royce in Derby. With Friday's M1 resembling the treacle of Thursday's M25, I'm pleased to report that SatNav redeemed itself by finding me a wonderfully rural route by-passing the worst of the jams. Once I'd delivered at about 6.30, I didn't even consider the motorway, and asked for the shortest route, rather than the 'quickest' route to the truck-stop where I'd planned to have a meal. Amazingly, it was actually quicker than the projected time for the quickest route! When I emerged at around 8.30 I thought the motorway would have cleared. To be fair, it had, but there was a further minor delay in actually getting onto it, because of an accident virtually at the top of the slip road. However, the ambulance was on its way, and this acted as an ice-breaker, relieving the jam on the main carriageway, and releasing those of us trapped on the slip road.
I've been thinking this week about houses. One of my deliveries on Tuesday was to a business centre near Cambridge. Built on the grounds of a former manor house, it has retained some of the pre-existing cottages, and the contrast between these - which are used as offices - and the adjacent purpose-built modern units is quite striking. Some of these modern units have reception-cum-meeting areas that are clearly bigger than the floor area of my flat, and could probably contain both floors of one of the nearby cottages. I was reminded of a time, almost forty years ago, when I worked in an office that had been converted from a one-time 'comfortable residence' on the outskirts of a Norfolk market town.
Typical of such houses, the front door led into a hallway between two reception rooms each with a front bay window, with a matching lay-out on the first floor. Our room occupied part of a 'lesser' bedroom at the side of the property. Since the front of the house looked onto the garden, from the windows of our office there were views of the road, and of the car-park that separated us from the factory and main office block. Our room was L-shaped, and had space for three desks; mine faced the wall at the apex of the 'L', my colleague sat behind me facing the door, and back to the window that looked onto the car park, and my assistant, the front of whose desk butted up to the end of mine, sat beside the other window and back to the ladies' toilet, which occupied the 'cut-out-corner' of the original rectangular bedroom. I will just say that it was 'cosy', and leave the reader to consider whether or not this would meet today's regulatory requirements.
My mind was drawn back to dwellings as I left King's Lynn yesterday. Passing through a street of Victorian terraced houses, I noticed one where the light was on, although it was almost lunchtime. It occurred to me that, given the size of the windows in a average house of that period, to do anything of importance at any distance from the window would indeed require additional light all day, and not just during the hours of darkness. With the increasing cost of energy being in the news this week, it's easy to imagine that the likely occupants of such houses are likely, too, to be those whose incomes are least able to afford an increase in the cost of the lighting that's so essential to normal life there. How lucky I am to have in my modest flat a lounge window that is probably twice the size of these Victorian counterparts.
And, as a footnote, I passed on Tuesday the neglected property of which I wrote last week. I'm not for one moment saying that my comments carried any weight in this regard, but there is now no need for further worry about its future. The site is flattened, the fences removed and, so far as I could tell in one swift passing, a neat vehicle-proof ditch has been created between the foundations and the road.
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