Category: Life

I am hesitant to even mention this, it’s so perfect for me. Even though I’m not superstitious I still don’t want to jinx it.

First off let me relate how I got here.

As you know I’ve not been applying  for  full time jobs because of nerves about the driving assessment.

The agency work has been really scarce and then when they did get me a day’s driving it was for DHL/ Iceland, the company and depot I had to leave because they wouldn’t let me drive for them! That was irritating.

Then, before they’d let me out on the road they made me do hours of paperwork, a drug and alcohol test and then a driving assessment!

After all that they sent me on an easy run, luckily. I know how hard some of the stores are to get in though. Having to back across carparks that have moving cars and customers. Scary stuff. To be honest I really don’t want to do it now I’ve tried other driving. However, if it’s a choice between a shift for them and a week without pay I’ll do it.

 

That was my situation and stress level. I’d passed an assessment I didn’t know I was going to do, which left me eligible to do a job I really don’t want.

I thought ‘Screw it! I may as well apply for other jobs, an assessment is not as stressful as an Iceland store delivery.’

 

So I did. I applied for something called Igloo logistics and for a couple of different agency jobs. The agencys haven’t got back to me. After I’d rang about the full time Igloo job, (and written the email, updated, tweaked and attached  the CV, etc) I went on their website to check I’d got the right email address. The Jobcentre advert had said some experience, their website said minimum of two years. I emailed it anyway then gave up on it.

The chap rang me back, asked if I’d had my license for two and a half years (I said I had in the email, but only six months driving experience) I confirmed, he told me to come in for the induction /interview thingy.

I went for it today and it is perfect for me.

It’s just trunking (where you pick up a trailer from a massive depot and take it to a massive depot, maybe shuffle a few trailers around the yard, then straight back to base, go home.) You can pick which start time suits you 0500-0730, 1100-1400, or 1700-2130 (something like that), it’s £9.14 basic, time and a third for all over eight hours each day, Sundays always time and a third. He said it’s the easiest driving job going and it’s well paid. Also, they have outgrown the Appleton depot so they are having another one built ‘”near Ikea”, ie on my doorstep!

I put all my paperwork through today, I’ve got a driving assessment on Thursday. If I pass that I should be driving this Sunday.

 

I so want this job. It’s exactly what I want and need. And it’s full time. And days. (So I can train, and sleep at night.) And you don’t touch the load. Just pick up and drop off the trailer. In big yards.

 

This is the time when it really sucks bottom having no deity to beg. No Tarot cards to try to divine the unseen. Just me. On the day. Pass or fail.

The irony is, I will probably have done a better drive for DHL/ Iceland because I didn’t want the job!

 

Please, please, please let me get this job.

 

In other news, a long time chum of mine (we’ll call her Flo Brant, for the sake of anonymity) is getting music lessons for her sax! Yay! Go Flo!

Wendy is still interested in learning her piano, I am getting back up to speed (to the pitiful level I was previously, anyway) on my sax and beginning to get to grips with my misery-stick. (Oo-er, mrs!) My clarinet.

 

I’ve been off training for the last four or five days as the damage to my calf (from overdoing it with these new ‘natural running’ –natural hobbling- trainers) had become too bad to carry on. Today I finally got around to doing what I’ve been putting off, since possibly the Outlaw, and went for a swim. Only an hour, but it wasn’t half as bad as I’d built it up to be in my avoidance. I was working on learning a bilateral breathing technique as the swim for Ironman Bolton is the opposite way around. I need to be able to ‘sight’ on the side that I currently don’t take out of the water. Ace. Lots of drinking of baths water and near drowning then. Still, I got a few good breaths in. Couldn’t do any when I first started swimming, on either side.

 

If I get this job I’ll be slapping the money down for IM Bolton, the Cornish half Iromnan distance triathlon,  (I’ll thrash it’s sorry arse this year! Vengeance will be mine!) and that Lake District trail running marathon. Again.

Got to get it. This could be life-changing.

GOT. TO. GET. THIS. JOB!

 

Fingers crossed for me (told you I wasn’t superstitious!)

Buck.

OMG! This is wonderful. If you know the Pink Floyd track it is infinitely better, but I expect it stands alone. On the backing track you hear the snippets of the geezer trailing the black stuff (death?). The other friend is making it work as a conversation. Anyway, that’s just a condiment of extra appreciation. The banquet of taste and style doesn’t need it.

 

“I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
Edvard Munch, 1893

 

Here it is:  (sound on, full blast, obviously)

For better appreciation of the experience you can click on the four arrows pointing diagonally outwards (the full screen button). Am I being patronising? That means to talk down to people.

Buck.

I said that I’d got Wendy that surprise gift of a clarinet and joked  that she liked it, so no bonus gift for me. The joke was on me. She couldn’t take to it. Bugger.

On the bright side, I now have the only two instruments that use a reed. Interesting fact. Or not. Please yourselves. You got in here for free, you know.

As a consequence, I’ve been alternating my blowing between the sax and clarinet. The clarinet is a bugger. If you think about putting your fingers near a key, or are not 100% on the one you should be on, or you don’t clamp down on the reed like a pit-bull on a postman it makes a horrible squawking noise. I went on to a sax forum to see if there was a more sax-like mouthpiece and it is a common complaint of sax players. Because the sax was designed as an adaptation of the clarinet, by a clarinet player, sax players (and me) think they can just pick it up and play it. Not even. One guy on there called it ‘the misery-stick’. The consensus view was that it was a fair description.

I picked up some tips. Still, I can now say I am crap at two instruments not just one. That’s multi-talented, that is.

 

Anyhow, that left Wendy bereft of a hobby again. She needs one. She used (20 years ago) to play the organ (huh huh) but always fancied the piano. (Which it would have been super to have known before I got the clarinet. Still, I’m enjoying/ hating it.) I looked at the options for renting this time, as little miss changeable might not have took to the amount of hours you need to put in. They were all crap deals. ‘Rent this crappy learner keyboard and if you want you can buy it later with the rent knocked off’. Why would you want to buy a piece of crap?

The rental money would just have been a waste and the kit was such low-end rubbish it just wasn’t worth it. Yamaha, who are a byword for musical quality (and rather nice bikes, if Mr Yamaha wants to reward me for plugging his kit) have launched a weighted keys (so it sounds louder if you bang the keys rather than tap them, just like a real piano) budget electric piano. It seems to save the money by not including whistles and bells gimmickry. Most of the electronic pianos have a shit-load of sound effects and a monster computer to dick about with. This is just an electric piano. It has four ‘voices’ ie, you can play it as a grand piano, an organ, and two others. Which, truth be told, is three too many, but that’s about it. There are other features, such as programmable downloaded tunes. Don’t even know what that is.

Anyway, the point is it does what it says on the tin, for a (relatively) modest price. It’s a piece of art to look at and when Wendy has been trying on it, it has a lovely sound.

Here it is;

So the recent addition to the house of a ‘music room’ looks a bit like this;

 

Though, actually looks like this;

Not got room to swing a cat. And don’t think I didn’t put that saying through rigorous scientific testing.

 

As an aside, I went into Dawsons (music shop) to pick up a learner piano book for Wendy and happened to get served by the geezer who teaches the piano. When I went to the counter it had a picture of Wendy’s piano, so I asked him if it was any good. He knew I’d already bought it, so had no reason to lie, but he said “It’s stunning for the money.” Good choice Bucky. Mr internet did not let me down.

That’s the music news. I may, at some later date upload an audio file of the various instruments. Unless you start sending protection money.

 

On the driving front, I have been getting enough work to keep us ticking over, 2 or 3 days a week so far. Really we can get by on 2. If this keeps up we will have no worries keeping afloat until it picks up in March. I have made a few attempts to get other work. Not really pressed to at the moment and I’m still nervous about doing anything new. Ideally, for me, I’d keep getting enough work at Stobarts until it picks up, then get a full time job with them. Still, can’t count on it, perhaps there is another job that I’d take to as well.

 

The other news is my training, I’m getting back into it with a will. Whilst I have all this time on my hands it would be rude not to. My calf is still… well, you can feel it pulling, wanting to go, but I just try and force my foot not to pronate. They said half a mile to start with in these trainers, then increase by 10% a week. I started at about 6 miles and buggered my calf. I rested up for a few days then did 5 miles. It hurt but didn’t get any worse. I went back and did 10 miles. Ha! Perceived wisdom, my arse! Man-up and limp like a bitch. Works for me. Now I can start seriously building up the miles again. I am going to do Ironman Bolton this year. I’ve just decided. You heard it here first.

Watch for me on telly, I’ll be the fat old duffer being stretchered off.

Later,

Buck.

Just a quick one. My last entry was all doom and gloom. Back on top now. Too much time sat around waiting for the agency to get me work.

 

I got the call to action yesterday. Back in, straight back on the road (in awful conditions) and I did fine. I settled into it and was a happy Bucky again.

This is good. Part of my worry was that as we are almost into the New Year there will be no work, thus I’ll have to start applying for other jobs. A daunting prospect, all those assessments.

Now I’m going to go and kick trucking arse. It’s just a matter of being careful. I can do the tricky bits, but I have to be slow and careful. 99.9% of the time I’m fine. So I just have to be triple sure of everything I’m doing in that .1% when it’s gets really difficult.

 

Positive Bucky.

 

To prove I’m all chipper, here are a couple of funny pictures people have just posted on Twitter.

A Northern pina colada:

 

And, Jihad dog disapproves of your extravagant New Year celebrations:

 

And a random one that makes me laugh, (‘cos I’m a bastard!)

 

See? Happy Bucky.

Have a super New Year and enjoy it all the way up to the Mayan apocalypse.

Buck.

 

Wendy was looking for a hobby so I bought her a surprise present of a clarinet. It’s well cool and looks like this:

And breaks down into a natty little case like this;

Unfortunately she likes it, so there goes another bonus present.

She only mentioned it because she loves the decrescendo, (glissando, they are calling it on youtube) from Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXrwIHcNB5o )

That is our task for tomorrow.

It has got me back to my sax. I’ve not had time enough to sleep, never mind anything else these last few months, so sax practice has taken a serious hit. The longer you leave it the more daunting it becomes. When the clarinet arrived though I thought I’d have to have a go. Just kept making a horrible squeaking sound. Wendy could get it to blow notes, I got squeaks. (Think it might be broken!) In frustration I broke out my sax. So, all for the good. I’ve since realised the embouchure is totally different. You hold your mouth the same, but apply next to no pressure. On the sax it’s a firm bite from the top teeth, taught bottom lip over bottom teeth. The clarinet you just rest on your taught bottom lip.

Still have some way to go before either of us are knocking off the tune above.

 

I got myself some new ‘natural running’ trainers. They say that modern trainers encourage injuries by placing all that padding in the heel, encouraging a heel-strike running technique. Apparently this jars unnaturally and causes shin-splints and knee injuries. The latest thinking is by removing the heel padding, having more or less a flat running shoe, that you run as your body wants to naturally, landing on the balls of the feet and absorbing the impact.

They said on the website that because you are removing an inch or so off your heel that until your muscles strengthen and adjust you should do no more than a half a mile run. Increasing by no more than 10% per week.

Naturally I scorned all such mamby-pamby, sissy-boy, nonsense.  I wore them around the house for a few days then as soon as the gym was open (today) went for a good run. I thought 5 miles was a girly enough distance to try them out. To spice it up I ran half a mile at a stupid gradient then for good measure just kept putting the last quarter mile faster and faster. Ended up running at a sub 5 minute/ mile speed.

Fine and dandy. So I hopped on the push-bike machine and blasted out half an hour on that. The last five minutes of which were at killer pace as I wanted to get it to 8 miles. (I don’t know how I’d been so slow at to need to blast it, must have been the run.) I staggered off the bike and back on to the running machine, thinking to do another 5 miles. Just over a mile in my calf went. Hopped twice and was thrown off the conveyor belt of the machine.

I think I’ve torn the muscle. It wasn’t (and isn’t) cramp, unfortunately. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have thought on. I’ve been running in over-pronation (when your foot rolls inwards with your stride) correcting, built up trainers. Suddenly I’m running in flats that are letting my foot pronate. That’a a few extra inches of movement that my leg is not used to.I think the second bout may have been taking the piss.

This is all aimed at building up slowly towards next years Ironman Bolton. I knew I’d have to build up slowly if I got these new trainers so thought this was the time to do it. Which brings me to my lorry driving. I have it on good authority that work is dead now until March. No agency work. If this is the case I won’t be able to buy my place in the races for next year until then, by which time they will probably have sold out.

The Outlaw (the Iron distance triathlon I did this year) has been sold out for weeks.

Ho hum.

Sufficient onto the day are the evils thereof.

Worry about all that bollocks later.

Well, sorry to have unburdened myself on you.

Hope you had a splendid Xmas, and you have a brilliant New Year. By which I mean I hope next year is brilliant for you, not just that you get rat-arsed on the 31st.

If you want to keep me abreast of your doings, there is a comments box below (if you don’t want to email me).

Gawd bless us each and every one!

 

Buck.