THE GOOD BUCK

I have been having a total nightmare because of the thrice damned Royal Mail. I lost my debit card on the 23rd of May. I contacted the bank immediately and they dispatched a replacement, to be here “within 5 working days”. The 23rd was a Saturday, then Sunday, then a bank holiday Monday. OK, within 5 days, Friday or Saturday. I was desperately hoping for Friday so I could book a van. Friday and Saturday came and went. Nothing. I looked at the Enterprise website, “rentals must be on the renters named card”. So I couldn’t use Wendy’s even though it’s the same account. I even rang them to confirm it. Not on Wendy’s card, won’t take cash. Super. I wanted to pick the bike up Tuesday. I emailed the seller and told him. We delayed until Saturday. No mail Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Royal Mail are delivering parcels every day, but no mail. I contacted the bank on Thursday, mainly to see if they could bypass the RM by sending a card to branch for me to pick up. Nope. They are sending me a new card. I found a one horse company that would let me rent on Wendy’s card, but all they had was an electric van with a 150 mile range. I need to collect from Scotland. I was so desperate I even looked to see if I could buy a shed of a van. In the end I committed to a courier firm. It’s £240, but they wanted £85 for the van, plus £35 in cover, plus £65 for diesel. So I’m paying £55 over the odds. But getting it delivered to my door and not having to run around all day. Not terrible.

I booked all that in on Thursday night. Then I had to risk it and pay the seller by bank transfer. Sight unseen, just hoping he was trust worthy. He was. I got the ownership transfer notification off the DVLA, but it was a worrying couple of day. Friday was Wendy’s birthday so I drew a bunch of money out (using her card) the other day, and rode to an authentic Cornish pastie shop in Wales while she was at work to surprise her with a pastie tea. I got there and there and joined the queue, which gave me time to notice the sign “We are cashless”. Of course you are. DAMN YOU RM!

I got home and the RM had done a mail delivery. The first of at least that week, and we had seven items of mail. One of which was my card from the 23rd, 12 days (9 working days) later.

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I thought I’d better revise my assessment of work. The driving is still relatively easy, the hours aren’t long (I got caught in traffic so ended up doing an eleven plus hours shift, but so far mostly 9 or so hours) and I’ve finished the induction and going out with a driver bit. I did three days on my own last week. There’s the catch. It turns out when you are on your own tipping the wagon and reloading it with empties and such is quite heavy work. Not killer, but not the doddle I previously thought. Then we had a heatwave. Tipping in 31C, getting lathered, then getting back into a mobile greenhouse, with no aircon, was rough. I’m on my four days off, by the time I go back to work we should be back to normal May temperatures.

I’ve still not got my test results for the tachycardia. It’s coming on six months since I took the test. I rang again, but got put on hold for 15 minutes then told it still hadn’t been done.

I’ve had my 60th birthday, but it was on a Sunday, and the Monday was a bank holiday. It’s Tuesday now, but I’ve not heard anything off the army about my pension lump sum. I applied over three months ago, so I assumed the payment would go in to the bank on my 60th. I looked online earlier and some people were saying the army start processing it on your 60th, it can be up to 30 days before the payment. Bloody army! Hurry up and wait. Nothing changes with them.

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Things are looking good for a change. For me, personally. The UK continues to go straight to hell, which makes it a bit weird to be happy with my situation, but what the hey, concentrate on that about which you can do something, and be happy to be happy.

I did my induction for the new job last week. After my trial run out to the location in Birchwood, then battling the rush hour traffic in the morning, it turns out the app was wrong, I should have been at my actual job site (on my doorstep) for the induction. That wasn’t the best start to a new job. I did two days of induction. The trainer kept going on about what a physical, graft, job it was, and how it would be 12 hours, up to 15, a day. I was not a happy bunny, but I was thinking about the regular pay and the 4 on/ 4 off. I thought I’d get a break after the two days while they found a driver with whom I could train, but they found a guy and sent me out for the next two days. I’ve done 3 stores. The driving to one was a bit tricky, but nothing much, the other two were really easy. The job is just rolling off really good condition cages (they scrap, rather than repair, damaged cages) then reloading with the empties and cardboard and such. No graft at all. I took peanut butter butties for massive energy, after all the trainer had said. The other thing I was sad about was the long hours. The first day I was finished for 7 hours 30, the second day it was 9 hours and 5 minutes. The guy I was out with said he averages about 9 hours. I’ll wait and see, but so far the job seems brilliant. Short shifts, easy driving, easy work. Perfect. If it stays like that I’ll probably end up doing extra shifts. The guy said the best bet was to do 3 shifts a month, if you do 4 the taxman takes most of the 4th. That would still give me 3 days off a week for 3 weeks, then 4 days off. And loads of money. The trainer said they are about 50 drivers short, so you will always get any extra shift you want.

I can’t remember if I said, but I’ve sorted out my shed. I went through everything and threw out the rubbish. I bought another tool chest and organised everything. Now, instead of tools piled on top of each other on the shelves, everything has a place. I’m very happy with that. Now I need a project bike in there upon which to use all my goodies.

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I managed to sell the Harley (at a huge loss) at my first attempt. The guy came and picked it up on Saturday, no fuss. The money will come in handy as I’ve got to work a month before I get paid at my new job. I went for a test ride out to the location of my induction yesterday. Good job I did. Google maps doesn’t recognise the postcode, and they said “Javelin House”, which has a different postcode on Google and it’s not that either. And it’s not marked as Javelin House. Which is super. It just says GBA logistics, which is not on the address given, and I’d forgotten for whom it was I was to be working, so it took me a while to find it.

The other big thing is the raised bed. I’ve built it twice now with planks and it just falls apart and rots. This time I cunningly ordered reclaimed oak railway sleepers. They will outlast me. So do it once and it’s done. I had to take the flowers out, take the old raised bed apart, and dig all the dirt out on to a tarpaulin. That was tough on my back.

Today the beams arrived. It’s one thing to say “they are 2.7 metres/ 8′ 10″ and 100kg”, it’s another thing altogether in the flesh. Having to lift one end is tough enough. Having to then drag it from the front of the house into the garden, is at my very, very limit. I managed one on my own, then Wendy helped me a little bit with the parcel truck thing. It was still incredibly tough and took loads of moves. I ended up putting a roller under the front and pushing them a few inches at a time. It was back-breaking.

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It feels like a new era is dawning. I’ve done my last agency shift for Sainsbury’s. A week on Thursday I do my induction for my 4 on, 4 off, permanent, salaried, job, around the corner. I’m not stressed about it because the driving simply can’t be any worse. Some of the drops at Sainsbury’s you are at the absolute limit. OK, the guy was saying it’s graft, but it’s just tipping a decker of cages, and reloading it. I can do that.

My sanity is properly back, which is fantastic beyond words. Possibly the loony pills are too good, though. I’m not frantic and obsessional. Which is odd. It means though, that I’m not driven to run to burn off the excess loon. I’ve been getting fat. I was 11 stone 1 pound the other day. Time to get a grip. I did my last shift yesterday, (12 hours 45!) now I’m off for 10 days before my induction, so this morning I got a run and started my diet. If I run every day and cut out sweet stuff I should lose weight quite quickly. The trouble is all day I’ve been face-planty. So it goes. I was quite pleased with the effort though. I set out to do 8 miles at sub 9 m/m, as I’ve not been running (6 runs since February, the last one, two and a half weeks ago). It was so hard I was going to compromise on a 6 mile run, but I was clocking sub 8.30 and at the 3 mile point on the ‘out’ run I kept going. On the way back I even threw in two sub 8 miles. That was a bit ambitious. But I did the 8 miles at an 8.13 m/m average pace. That will do, Donkey. My knee feels a bit swollen now, so I may have done too much, too soon. Which I may as well get on a coat of arms for myself. Tomorrow is a an easy 8, no heroics.

I swapped the carbs on the VFR but the cleaned set was leaking petrol from a bad seal on the float bowl, so I put the other carbs back on and set and balanced them.

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