Category: Life

Another year (nearly) over a new one just begun (in a bit.) And so this is Winterval, and it’s bugger all fun. Hmm, I’m obviously wasting my time not working for Hallmark cards. Anywho, not been blogging ‘cos nothing has been happening. After the tentative proposition about a possible job nothing further has been said. I think that’s because at then minute they are rushed off their feet and need me to keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t think it’s any reflection on that bump I had. Instead of just disciplining you they show you videos and do a talk on how to avoid further accidents. Better policy all round. The work has been constant. 5 days one week, usually 6 the next. The shifts are alright, Sun-Thurs usually 11.30 or 13.30 start, before midnight getting home. People are beginning to get on my tits. Not the ones I work with, the other road users. I have to travel around the Manchester ring road (M60) and over the M62 each day. They are upgrading it to smart motorway so a long stretch of it is 50mph average speed cameras. The amount of muppets I have to avoid killing daily is a real drag. It’s starting to get me down. I am having to remind myself what a cushy number I’m on compared to,say, the army, or order picking in –28 C. Talking of which, I was watching a documentary on Sci-fi the other day (Tomorrow’s Worlds, it’s a series, very good.) and the theme was time travel. It seems I completely missed the underlying philosophical premise of Groundhog Day. It was the same day. Yes, I know. But at the beginning he went through it pissed off and pissing everyone else (my preferred M.O.) but at the end he was happy and he made everyone else happy. It was the same series of events, it was how he chose to react to them that made the difference. I vaguely remember a Buddhist text saying that happiness cannot be found externally. Which makes a silly bit of  whimsy quite a profound film. In short, I’m trying to turn that frown upside down.   One thing that tested that maxim for Wendy was the boiler breaking down. It suddenly stopped on Friday morning, just as we’d gone into a really cold spell. I rang them, they said they’d be here in 24 hours. Wendy waited all day Saturday, no-one came. Called again. Sunday morning the guy turned up, grumpy and surly, obviously gutted that he’d been made to work on a Sunday. Not my problem,  pal, it’s your job. “CPU’s broke. Common problem.” Oh good, can you fix it then? “Not got the part I’ll let the office know tomorrow.” I rang on Monday. Nothing, maybe this afternoon. Wendy rang in the afternoon, fix it tomorrow. Wendy took the day off work to wait in. Nothing. Rang again. Got the wrong part. Thursday. All of this time it was freezing cold. […]

Work has been eventful. After them saying there were jobs in the offing I asked about and the consensus is that there is plenty of work, not just the 3 days minimum, and that leads on to 5 day contracts. So at the very least it’s a foot in the door. Splendid. All positive and peachy. Then I had a bastard bump. The same place I had to reverse in to on my assessment, in the corner of the yard, past a skip. This time to add to the degree of difficulty it was night time, in the rain, and there was a trailer sticking out even further than the skip. I reversed tight in on my blindside, having to rely on my mirror. I didn’t see the black lip of the trailer sticking out an extra inch. Clipped it with my trailer. There was bugger all damage, slight scrape on my trailer, nothing on the lip of the one I hit, but because it was empty, and I caught it at it’s furthest point, it span the trailer around a bit. The trailer was parked up against the triangular stops, so one wheel mounted the stop. This meant I couldn’t drive under the trailer and pick it up, the 5th wheel wouldn’t engage with the pin because it was at an angle. I was crapping myself. I’d already admitted my fault to the manager, who was going to to try and cover it up as no damage was done, but security got in on it and were going to bubble me so we had to make it official. Anyway, in the end I had to reverse under the trailer from the side to which it had turned, pick it up a bit, and reverse/ push it back around. I was shitting bricks because it was at a bad angle and I thought it was going to fall over, and the manager kept disappearing from view so I was worried it was going to land on him and kill him. Bad enough getting sacked without killing the guy who was trying to cover up for me. That was an official warning. Balls. The next day I went to pick up a load as usual, got given my paperwork, all normal. It was for trailer TD308, which is to say TearDrop (shaped) 308. The only one of that designation in the fleet. I picked it up, did all my checks, then drove it back to Warrington. I was about to go home when a warehouse guy said “why’ve you brought the Bristol trailer?” He showed me the paperwork off the load, TD308, Bristol. I showed him the paperwork I’d been given, TD308, Warrington. Not my fault, some arse in the warehouse had ballsed up, big time. But I didn’t check the load, so it was my fault. Everything is always the driver’s fault. Everything. Always. It’s never happened to me before. The Warrington warehouse guy had never know it to happen […]

How many times do I have to make the same mistake before I learn? I was Windows shopping (you see what I did there?) bike paraphernalia as usual when I came across some handsome bike boots. There were a few different styles but after a little digging it turns out they are all (hand) made by the same company in the US, ‘Gasolina’. I mean, just look at these for boots! I was wowed by them and immediately started pricing them up. The clue to the price is in the ‘hand made’. £239! Gutted. So I did the usual thing; started looking for generic ones, then second hand ones, then searching eBay. eBay suggests other boots so I ended up looking at these, at midnight, and made a snap decision to bid on them. I had been looking at boots over £200 and there were already about 10 bids on them at about £15. I stupidly put in my maximum bid with days to go. £60.66. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The seller, I’m assuming, colluded with a mate and pushed it up to the penny of my final bid then no-one bid for days. Then I got them and don’t like them in the flesh. Gutted and angry with myself.   To redeem myself I was looking at some leather jeans for on the bike, the cheapest new pair I could find were £70. They were the thick leather ones, which I thought I would have been happy with. Then I saw a pair of leather trousers, bit of padding on the knees and stretchy bits built in so you can sit comfortably, again going for about £15, lots of bids. This time I set up bid sniper to put my maximum bid in 5 seconds before it ended. I got them for £27! Woo-hoo! When I tried them on they are loads better than I could have hoped for. Thick but soft leather, padding around the knees, perfect size and length… chuffed to bits! They don’t look it but they are ace, especially for the money. As the motorbike boots didn’t work out for me, and I wasn’t about to spend £239 on a pair of boots, I took to eBay again. I did buy a pair of German army Para boots ages back but they were crap. Wrong size, two big cuts on one of the boots, clarted in dubbin and, I’ve found out now I’ve listed them on eBay, they aren’t even German army para boots, they are Austrian army boots. Why I didn’t send they back immediately I have no idea. I bought them last year, but I wasn’t drinking or on drugs so why I didn’t send them back with a *CAPS LOCK RAGE* email is beyond me. Anywho, after a prospective buyer filled me in I made damn sure I knew what I was buying this time. And what a bargain. £40 for grade 1, genuine German army para boots. I’m ready for Mr Smiths […]

I’ve dropped out of every marathon this year. I’ve done one poxy half marathon. I’ve been suffering that much on each run lately (and failing dismally) that I was seriously considering quitting altogether. I’ve been on and off for a week or two now. Dropping out of Chester marathon after that pitiful, failed attempt at a 20 mile run was nearly the final straw. I was thinking of obsessing about the sax for a bit and maybe take up video games. Seriously. I’d actually reasoned it out that I started all this exercise bollocks because I didn’t know how to kill all the hours that not drinking left me with, but that’s my life now and I could easily live it without the exercise. Then the Ladybower 2015 50 miler was advertised open on Facebook. I read it but dismissed it as I’ve committed to so much this year and it’s all been a bust, and I was thinking of quitting. Then I read they were limiting the places to 75 on the 35 mile race and 75 on the 50 miler. Going to go fast. Only £30. Bollocks, I’m in! Fired by this one last make or break fling I went out for a run yesterday. I just did a 10 miler. My form has been so pitiful lately that I started off tentatively, expecting failure. The first mile was easy to warm up, looked at my watch 8.07 m/m, not too shabby by current standards. I let it slide into the 8.20’s then at 6 miles tried a new app, (paceDJ, it sorts through all your songs and only plays the ones that are at your correct running pace, like the drummer on the slave galley’s but not so much fun) blasted the next mile in 7.31. Again, in the grand scheme of things not great but at current levels a minor miracle. I’d left it late but thought I’d try and pick up the lost time in the last 4 miles and bring it back to a 8m/m average. I kept it well under 8 and the last mile was a 7.32. I finished less than a second a mile slower than 8. I was buzzing. I used to think 8 m/m was my Forrest Gump pace, the natural rhythm into which I fell when I wanted to grind out long distances and wasn’t pushing it. I have to judge my run on where I am at the moment, and that was a hell of a valiant 4 miles. As an aside, to put my negativity into perspective, when I started running those years back I was advised by a twitter chum who was a runner about cold showers on the legs, pacing and such. I’m moaning that I can’t even do a marathon, she’s just done her first half marathon, accomplishing her two goals for the race; a sub 2.30 and not to walk any of it.  Well done her, not knocking her, but in all […]

The new job is everything they said. So far. The bookings are indeed for 4 weeks at a time. I’m on Sunday-Thursday. I had Friday and Saturday off without issue. I’ve still to see what the money will work out like as I’ve had to re-register as a Limited Company so last week was two days of PAYE. If the agency and my accountants have sorted it out I should find out what it’s worth this Friday. The job is easy enough so far. They said they’d just be putting me on trunks (take this trailer to A, swap, take second trailer to B, swap, come back.) Then ease me into store deliveries when I’d got the hang of it. Every place has their own system you have to learn. Anyway, as I said, so far it’s been really easy and no pressure. The Friday and Saturday I worked last week were double runs, so they were good for 13.15 and 12 hrs. This week has all been single runs so I’m only getting 8 hours a day. Tomorrow, Sunday, I’m down for a double. At £18 an hour, I think. That’ll do. The job is fine, the money (I think) is good, and they are in the process of taking on the current agency drivers to full time. Well, apparently it’s a part time contract but they make sure you get the extra shifts to make it up to full time. My point being, this could turn into a real job.   In other, not so good, news, my fitness is shit again. I tried a 20 miler last week and ended up walking 3 times after 18 miles. I had to abandon tomorrow’s Chester marathon. I don’t want to make an arse of myself in a race. I’m going to have to go back to the training plan and work up again. I got to doing an easy 20 miles then had a week off, ran 18 miles nearly killed me, week off, tried 20 had to quit at 19. I seem to think that once you can run 20 miles you are set, do it at the drop of a hat. It is *so* not the case. I think when that was true I must have been tri training so I was running and cycling virtually every day. It was just the long ones I was only doing occasionally. Back to it from next week. This job gives me loads of time to have a life so I’ve no excuses. Also I’m itching to get back to the sax again. I keep trying for a few months, then something stops me. No way I could do it on nights. But now I want to again, it’s just the reluctance to embarrass myself in my crapness (it’s very loud, then neighbours must be going “Oh god! He’s at it again.”) But the urge is outweighing the reluctance. I keep telling myself if I could do half an hour […]