Trains, no planes, and automobiles...... Wacky Races Pt.1

Well, that all went very well, I thought.......

I got up with the alarm at 05:30 this fine a.m.

The sun was just about peaking over the horizon. A mist hung over the mirror-like waters of the River Cam.

Sylvan.

Peaceful.

Beautiful.

So, showered, shaved, breakfasted and dressed in Full Dress NHSBT uniform, I made my way over to the garage to wake the Alvis up.

Ignition on. Full choke. Wait for it.... ('It' being the fuel pump: when it stops rattling you know fuel is at the carb and it's time.....) ....Hit the Gun Button (the starter button next to the ignition switch).....

Chara-chara-chara-cough-cough Brrrrmmmmm..........! :-)

Houston, we have main engine start.

Cue big grin.......

Which lasted until I got to the railway and the level crossing on the fen road to The Parish.......

The gates were down, and there was a suspiciously long tailback (Okay, five cars, but at 06:30 on a cold and frosty self-isolating morning? They'd clearly been there a while......)

Then I saw a London-bound train approaching.

Well, it was stopped, actually.......

Either that or it was moving with the speed of vegetable growth.

'Drat, double drat, and triple drat!' I thought.......'The old "Treble Zero" will never get me to work at this rate: looks like the crossing is playing up, and the trains are running at 'Extreme Caution 'as a result.'

What to do?

Well, of course , I did the Dick Dastardly thing of seeking a short cut.

Reverse back down the Fen Road for 30 yards, then hang a left down the old, unmade, poorly maintained, tractor rutted and deeply unsuitable for elderly classics track for 3/4's of a mile to the next road which leads to a manually operated rail crossing nearer the village.

The "Treble Zero" did all that was asked of it, slithering and wobbling on it's tired springs and superannuated shock absorbers, all the way to the lowered gates of the manually operated crossing.

Only to see another sodding train, heading from Kings Cross, parked firmly in the way and blocking the crossing completely.

Nothing for it, then, but to turn around and slither, wobble, bump and grind one's way back to the other crossing where it all started.

We got there............. (And with a full complement of hubcaps too!)

Just as I got off the phone to my manager to explain why I was going to be late that morning, I saw salvation, in the form of a Network Rail Rapid Response Vehicle, approaching the crossing.

As the train from London slowly, so slowly, cleared the crossing, the occupant of the aforesaid  (who did bear an uncanny resemblance to Muttley), leapt out, did a thing, and the gates opened.

Hallelujah!

I arrived at work in fine Alvis style: engine rhythmic, and what I believe is currently known as the ICE (or In Car Entertainment) belting out Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance No.1'

ICE, in TA14 terms, means a wind-up gramaphone, fitted with an extra-hard needle for maximum volume.........

And the bastard didn't half skip when going down that ploughed field of a track, too......but at that time I was playing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmy0LMPZ3F0

Have a listen!

More soon.

Alvis, work, and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance No.1

I am driving to work tomorrow.

I have to.

I'm what is engagingly called a 'key worker'.

This doesn't mean I work for that very nice chap Mr Timpson, and neither am I a safe-cracker......

I work for the National Blood Service.

I look after blood and platelet donors at The Cambridge Blood Donor Centre.

I have been coy about this in the past, as going on-line and talking about it was reckoned to possibly bring The Firm into disrepute. (Well, if you'd actually had a really shitty day, you can see how that could prove unwise - and as Twitface is so indelible, how it could hurt both a great organisation,  and also the person posting.....  (who may have, momentarily, reached the end of their tether......)

But I take blood for a living.

Okay, spare me the Vampire jokes.

It's really boring.....

(And I'm actually a werewolf, anyway, so go figure that one.....).

But the time has come to be plain.

Here's the thing: we must ensure that the supply of blood to hospitals throughout the UK does not fail.

Covid-19 notwithstanding, if we fail, people are going to die.

So I am now back up to full time working. (I have been part-time for years, but that doesn't sit well with me right now...).

And while the weather is fine, I'm going to drive to work in the Alvis.

It gives me joy, and joy is in short supply.

Also, we won't get any PPE. We are dealing with the well people: if they aren't well, we'll send them home.

So no PPE for us.

There simply isn't enough to go round.

It has to go to the heroes and heroines at the sharp end of this, actually treating the poor sods who've contracted this bastard virus.

I suppose I could go on about why these shortages have occurred, and the way they have occurred on the watch of the party of our current Poundland Churchill of a PM, but you'll need a much more political blog than this one for that.

I'm going into work anyway.

In an Alvis.

Play the music.

It belongs to us just as much as it belongs to the people who are sending us in without so much as a mask.

More soon.

Let us return........

In view of the current goings on, I thought I ought to return to the barn where I parked the WB Pippin blog back in August 2018 to see if I could get the old thing going again.

It hasn't been easy........

The tyres were flat, as was the battery, and I had to drain the joke tank of about seven and a half gallons (Imperial mind you!) of very stale humour....... (which will be very much not a surprise to any of you who've read this nonsense before.)

But with a few day's worth of fettling, it has stuttered back to life.

Anyway, what's been occurring down in Groovetown since last I blogged?

Quite a lot actually, yet much remains reassuringly the same: Jackie and I are still aboard the eponymous widebeam, still moored at The Parish, near Cambridge, and we're still doing the same jobs.

The Alvis is 'nearly finished', but as I've been saying that since 2013, it doesn't mean much...... Though in all honesty, it's a lot more finished than it was.

It's got a hood now, and a new/restored interior.

(There may even be pictures....... once I've worked out how to post them again.)

This may take some time.......

In the meantime, if you are looking to me to get any news or views re: the current unpleasantness, then I'm going to be a sad disappointment to you. Go and have a look at TwitFace, or whatever they call it, if you want any of that......

It's worth pointing out that I don't own a Smartphone.

My phone has about the same processing power as the computer on the Apollo 11 lander..... (i.e. virtually bugger-all).....and is used to make and receive mobile telephone calls and to send Short Message Service messages. ( I believe these are now known as 'Texts', if you are sufficiently 'down with the kids'....).

I have no wish to avail myself of the latrine trench of public opinion that is TwitFace. The ordure therein is deeply unedifying. (Jackie has an account and I sneak peaks occasionally so's I can reinforce my feelings of innate superiority.)

It never takes terribly long.

So what to talk about, in this first blogpost in many a long moon?

Ah, I know: the weather!

(That good old British stand-by for when we're stuck for something to say to someone we may not know too well.)

Hasn't it been rather lovely the past few days? Just as well really: a drop of sunshine definitely perks one up. And I think it's fair to say we are all in dire need of a jolly good perking at the 'mo....

(Put that on Twitface and watch the trolls come running out, comments blazing.......)

In fact, I got a mention on Radio Three this morning, for suggesting just such a thing...... though perhaps not in quite so many words......

Every morning at 10:30, whoever is presenting 'Essential Classics' (either Ian Skelly or Suzy Klein, normally), will play a follow-on piece suggested by the listeners. It follows on from a piece they've chosen which is played at 09:30, so you've got about an hour to think of something suitable. It's great fun, and John Witts from Waterbeach has had a few mentions, and even had suggestions played!

Today, he struck again, with Holst's "Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity," from The Planets Suite, which was played, I suppose, simply because we need all the jollity we can lay our hands on right now.......

You can check it out on BBC Radio 3 'Listen Again', for Monday 23/03/20 if you doubt I speak sooth. It'll be there for a couple of weeks at least......

Oh, and a couple of days ago, when I was enjoying a particularly lovely sunset over the fens from the back deck (large gin and tonic in hand, you know the deal....),  I saw a contrail in the sky, heading west, straight as an arrow. It was dyed a deep peach colour against the almost saffron of the low, westering sky, just where it began to turn the purest cerulean.

Where the fuckin' 'ell's 'e goin'? I thought.

Which sadly, rather robbed the moment of any poetry.

More soon.