THE GOOD BUCK

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 […]

Very, very, impossibly hard. Mending the screen on my smashed ‘phone, btw. Finally got my two toolkits (one from abroad, ETA next month so I bought another,UK, set. Both arrived same day*sigh* only a couple of quid, but still) Yesterday I got finished early so cracked on. The youtube video has him stripping the ‘phone down, peeling off the glass, putting a new one on, job’s a good ‘un. Bollocks! It came apart relatively easy but then tore the digitizer screen when I was trying to get the glass off. No worries, I had the replacement sealed unit. That was, upon closer inspection, still attached to part of the frame and the back board upon which are mounted all the electronic gubbins. Except on this they weren’t. So I had the option of trying to remove the screen and use my back board with electronic bit attached or rip all my bits off and hope they just popped back on to the new board. I had no idea how I could do the latter, or if it would work, so I removed the screen and digitiser. Successfully, I might add. I reassembled it, just as on the video, but somehow the power button had disappeared off the side of the ‘phone. I used a screwdriver to depress the button inside anyway, just to get it to power up. It didn’t. Took it apart, made sure everything was all as it should be, put it back exactly as shown, hit the power. Nothing. I was thinking I’d been sold a dud screen, it was obviously second hand off a scrapped ‘phone as it still had the back thing on. I took the screen off again to try my old screen and the bloody thing snapped. That was me, head in hands, cursing roundly, with a dead ‘phone. I had to run out as soon as the shops opened this morning and buy a cheap smart ‘phone and stick my sim in. I’ve been setting it up today and it’s surprisingly OK. The camera is crap and the memory is tiny (upgraded with an SD card for £10), but for £89 a Kitkat 4.4 ‘Droid is fairly awesome. This will be my penance for trying to be a clever dick. Leave the techy shit to the techies. I was going to replace my Nexus 5 with another one, sim free, but at £260 that’s a lot of cash to throwing about. Of course, I could have save the £70 for the screen and digitiser, the £10 for the screen, the £89 for the Moto E and the £10 for the memory card, added £80 and bought a new one, but hindsight is 20/20 and screw you. I was trying to do it on the cheap, the video looked simple enough… Bah.   Enough depressing, irritating shit. Other stuff. I went about that new job with the agency on Monday, I was apprehensive and wary as befits agency experience. So far it sounds […]

I’ve had enough of this job already. I’ve had four paydays, they’ve got one of them right. I’ve not been paid again this week, I’ll get it on Tuesday, allegedly. I’ve still not been paid for that night out I was forced to take two weeks ago, and I’m generally sick of the place. There are some other jobs going on the jobsite. Better pay, but agency again. I’m going down tomorrow to register with one to find out the full details before I commit. Looks like I’ll be going back to Limited Company. Balls. But the money is atrocious on PAYE on emergency tax. When they deign to pay me. The last two weeks I’ve only got 45 hours or so, the only down side to bailing now is the job security for January/ February. There is bugger all agency work then. And the holiday pay and that. This job is pissing me right off though. Piss up. Brewery. Driver’s law says we must have a 45 hour break after 6 shifts, can be reduced to 24 once a fortnight. This is what I’m up against: *sigh*   In other news I’ve had a productive weekend. Saturday my new (cheap but as it turns out, sufficient) vacuum gauges arrived. I had a few mis-steps working out how to use the bloody things, but now I know it is really quick and easy. They are to balance the carbs on my bike. Apparently they go out of synch at the drop of a hat so one cylinder is getting bucketfuls of petrol the other just drips. Doesn’t make for smooth power delivery. I had a bit of a dick about setting them up. Put the pipes on the gauges. Then looked at the instructions and saw the valves fit on to the gauges, then the piper to valves. That didn’t work. Looked closely at the instructions and saw it was gauges, bit of pipe, valve, rest of pipe. The when I fitted the pipes to the carbs they took ages for the needles to drop or rise. I had to keep taking the tank off to get at the adjust screw. Three times on and off. Then I realised I’d left the valves closed. D’oh! Opened the valves, quick turn of the screw, job’s a good ‘un. Still, never done it before, had no idea what I was doing, sussed it in the end, next time will be a 2 minute job. Also I went and saw my mam who’s over from Johnny Foreign land. Long time no see. Then I set about a simple job (‘how hard can it be?’ To which the answer is invariably; ‘very’.) replacing my indicators on the bike. Nothing wrong with the old ones, I just fancied some tiny ones that don’t really show on the bike. Easy job, unscrew a nut, pull the old ones off, tighten new ones connect the wires. How wrong can you be? Turns out because the new ones […]

And then I found a job, and heaven knows I’m miserable now. I was expecting this job to be a bit of a handful, but it’s surprised me. I was expecting them to be all shouty and “Go over your driving hours!” like last time but they are totally not. Instead it’s shit in all new and exciting ways. For one thing I’ve not been paid. No notification wageslip email, no money. That was nice. They reckon they are chasing it up and will have it sorted by midnight Monday latest, but if we didn’t have a ridiculously large overdraft facility that could have been a problem. Then there’s the real bugbear, piss-taking hours. I wanted longer hours, and I’d be happy to do the long run down to Maidstone in the week. But two weeks I’ve been there and twice they’ve given it to me on a Friday. The M6 is always rammed on a Friday, don’t know why. My start time means that even with a clean run I’m going to be hitting the M25 (London village ring road) during rush hour. When the Dartford toll is massively rammed. Twice I’ve done it, first time I got back after a mere 14hrs 15 min (maximum working hours 15) having driven 9hrs 37 –ish (maximum 10 hours). So one more traffic jam and I would have had to pull over and stop. Yesterday they sent me down and the M6 was just fucked. I mean, 50 miles in 3 hours. I was screwed before I’d even got to Brum. It took me 9 hours to get down, I had 2 hrs 50 driving time left for the return (4hrs 25-ish, non-stop, no traffic). I had to pull over and stop for the night at Watford Gap services. 2 hours from base. And they wouldn’t rescue me. Which brings me to what is really bugging me, I’ve only had 3 long runs, 2 of them on a Friday, when it was supposed to be my day off the next day. This means even the one I scraped home buggered my day off. The rest of the week I’m getting done for between 22.00 and 01.00, have a good sleep, still got loads of day left. On my day off I didn’t get to bed until 05.30. And today I had to sleep in my cab, get up after 9 hours and drive back. Then, because the law says on a ‘reduced rest’ week I only need 24 hours rest, they’ve got me back in tomorrow at 15.30 hrs. So I’m going to be working 12 days straight. That is the law of the Working Time Directive but certainly not the spirit. You’re supposed to have a day off one week minimum, then 2 days off the next week. Bare minimum of rest. I’m going to to be having words if they try and stitch me up with Maidstone again this Friday. There is no way I’m taking my 45 hour […]