Hump Day

Today was Hump Day. Not that I was asked to feed the camels at work. They wouldn’t trust me to do it, even if we had any. It’s just ….. well, Wednesday is the hump of the week, isn’t it? Just a normal scabby day, really. Not much to interest anyone, unless you happen to like maintaining old cottages and farm buildings – that’s what I do to make the days pass. I work for two rural landowners and look after all their buildings; 154 cottages, 6 working farms and three Grade 1 listed stately homes. All surrounded in thousands of acres – sorry hectares – of Hampshire / Dorset farmland. The sun has been blazing down, I’ve been out of the office most of the day and all is well in my world….. Until……. I had to go to a meeting to discuss the problems I have been having with Estate water mains. There was the Estate Land Agent and his assistant, the water company’s Billing Manager and his assistant, the water company’s External Operations Manager (no puns there about operations being internal, please. Just be grateful, his job title used to be Underground Manager – even worse) and his sidekick. And little ol' me. Best bit of the meeting was that the Land Agent brought some chocolate biscuits along. “There’s lovely,” I thought, until I found out that he had raided the office petty cash and put them down on the slip as “…stationery.” With him, though, it should have been “…stationary”. **the way I remember it is that the stationery for paper and stuff is the one spelt with an e for envelopes. The other one is for things that don’t move – like Land Agents** After the meeting, the Land Agent decided he wanted to look at some of the problems I have been experiencing with water mains (not water works, that’s something else and ….hang on a minute…I’ll be right back………….) Sorry – had to go. Where was I? Oh yes…..off we go on a tour of part of the Estate. Not for us, the tedium and drudgery of the tarmacadam public roads that you plebs use. Oh no! Those of us who work for the Landed Gentry have our own private network of lanes and tracks. I could, if my car could stand it, travel the eight miles north to south and the ten miles east to west of ‘my’ Estate and only do about 500 yards on public roads. Anyway – off we go in convoy. The Land Agent in his big 4x4 – the Water Board blokes in their big 4x4 – and me in my Fiat. Bugger the Ozone Layer! (I don’t mean it – please don’t complain) Hang on........Look again at the sequence – big 4x4, big 4x4….and me. Along dry, dusty gravel tracks. Mile after mile….. I started out with the sunroof open and all of the windows down, happy as Larry (whoever he is). That lasted about 30 seconds. First the windows came up – still the dust came in. Then the sun roof got closed – I start to swelter in the heat, so on goes the air conditioning. By this time, my dark blue car is a sort of grimy yellow under a layer of all the dust that the other two are kicking up. I’ve got the wipers going, the screen wash going, the air-con going and my temper ….. going! Just another day at the office??? Bah! Humbug! I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It should be a fantastic source of stories to tell you all. I’m going on a First Aid course! Another one – we are sent every three years. It’s mostly for people who work away from an office environment, what they call ‘Lone Workers’. The idea is that if we have a heart attack, we can call for help and then resuscitate ourselves. I’m going to ask if we can learn basic surgery. I just might be able to deal with my prostate myself and cut out the middle-man, so to speak! I’ll tell you how I get on, tomorrow evening. Much love Steve