Parcelforce

Parcelforce national sorting lines, December 2018

You may remember that a year or more ago I was selling dad's collection of post office-related ephemera. There's still a single box of it left, looking dolefully at me in my office whenever I allow it to enter my conscious field of vision. Most of the time, thankfully, it remains invisible.

Anyway, I received a significant amount of help in the valuation and auctioning from Jeremy, the Secretary of the Postal Mechanisation Study Circle - a group that really does what its title suggests. I had no idea how much interest there is in postal mechanisation until coming into contact with these chaps, although without parcels I can foresee the demise of the group as I can't imagine anyone from the email generation having the slightest interest in the idea of paper being sent physically from one place to another just for the purpose of communicating.

Mum receives the PMSC newsletter (ironically by email) and forwarded me an issue that mentioned a proposed visit to the Parcelforce site in Coventry, which is on my route to and from work. Knowing that the visit would only go ahead if enough interest was shown, I threw my hat in the ring to support the group and try to ensure that it would take place. And because I like going to interesting places, and this certainly looked interesting.

International sorting lines

There were only four of us in the end, so it was a good thing I volunteered. Our hosts had worked as engineers within Parcelforce for decades and were so enthusiastic that they had been the ones to reach out and contact the PMSC, not the other way round. We were given a brief Powerpoint presentation with the history of and introduction to the service and the site - the largest in the country, handling both national and international mail. Although Coventry airport is on the other side of the fence around the site it is no longer used for international parcel distribution, which is taken by road to and from other airports around the country.

We were all kitted out in steel toecapped boots and reflective jackets before going out to the buildings housing the sorting machinery. While the building and the conveyors for the national parcel mail were huge and impressive, the international depot was much more interesting. Both sites use really fast raised conveyors passing through an arch which reads the routing barcode on five out of the six sides of the box, and tips the parcel automatically down the correct chute for its destination.

The other PMSC visitors asked esoteric questions about the machinery and the software and the routing barcodes and labels, while I asked what happens when the machines break down, and what sort of contraband they discover. One of the people showing us round told the story of how much of the machine was destroyed when a parcel was misplaced, and how quickly it had to be repaired and replaced to avoid holding up the mail. He also had a picture on his phone of all the guns which had been discovered in international mail in one week - they filled a large table.

So an interesting trip to a place that I wouldn't have imagined visiting ordinarily, all thanks to dad's interest in Postal Mechanisation. Now I have to deal with that last box...

More progress

Tusmore Estate, April 2017

Nothing special to report for the last few weeks, although I've been having a good time. We had a family gathering on mum+dad's 60th wedding anniversary, which in true family style was celebrated by nothing special at all other than all of us being there. I have done a few of the jobs on my list that have been waiting for quite a long time, including meeting the new landlord of the Pub Next Door, buying house insurance, and putting up the last curtain in the new office/spare bedroom space which can be drawn across to separate the two 'rooms'.

The upstairs space is now structurally finished, but furniture needs to be brought upstairs which will need the help of some burly individuals who can help me move a filing cabinet, desks (one from downstairs to upstairs and the other in the opposite direction) and a bookcase. That will, I think, complete the office move, except for deciding what to do about the noticeboard.

More on the LTRP front - I now have working drawings to give the kitchen suppliers and builders, and I have sought alternative quotes. The alternative builder has so far not responded at all, and the alternative kitchen supplier was very scathing about my washing up preferences! She did however come up with the useful suggestion that my next step might be to settle on the appearance of the floor. I am going to have a vinyl option called Karndean, and I drove to the main Karndean showroom in Evesham, which was well worth the trip. I came away with three different samples large enough to make a choice at home, and the confidence that any one of them would do nicely.

Oh yes, I have been to see H+B in the North West along with Lola II, Mr M and Sister D, and we all made ourselves thoroughly at home over lunch. We were hoping to do a bit of walking in the afternoon, but the weather put a stop to that. I took the opportunity of visiting our Postal Mechanisation guru on the way home, since he also lives in the North West. He was very kind and welcoming even though it was Good Friday, which is just as well because we spent nearly five hours (FIVE HOURS) going through another three boxes of material that mum had unearthed. I got home at 2 a.m.

However, I had to agree with Lola II, Mr M and Sister D that I was spending too much time on this stupid ebay project. Although I find it mildly enjoyable, the time spent for meagre financial return is simply not worth it, and I have plenty of other more enjoyable occupations that I have no time for. So the plan was that I would go through the new stuff with the PM guru but would ask him to dispose of anything of value, and throw away everything else. This is what I did, so now I am only going to finish auctioning the material I already had. There is one box remaining, so it will still take a month or two.

I spent a day at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre doing meditation, listening to lectures, talking to all sorts of people and then watching a kind of ritual that is the closest buddhists seem to get to formal 'worship'. The thought most prominent in my mind was 'I can't imagine ever joining in with that', but who knows? They are a thoughtful and sincere group of people and I have a lot more in common with them than with any of my work colleagues and many of my friends.

Over the Easter break, as well as the northern excursion I did another ten mile walk with the Meetup group I joined for the New Year walk. The walk leader this time set a rather fast pace, and by the end my legs were aching and I'd also managed to acquire an impressive blister on my little toe. If I sign up for another long walk I'll have to watch out for who's leading, but in fact I'll probably stick to the five mile options in future. The picture at the head of the blog was taken on the route, but the estate is privately owned so we didn't go in and I don't exactly know what the buildings are.

Lastly, badminton news: Club #2 held an end-of-season tournament (they don't play over the summer) and I won the top lady prize. While you may think this indicates my advanced badminton skillz, you should consider the alternative explanation, which is that I have chosen to play in a club containing players who are significantly older and significantly less fit than I am. But I was runner up for the past two years, so it's still rather nice to win something.

North Oxfordshire, April 2017

Mostly philately

Listed on eBay January 2017

If you're one of my thirty-or-so regular readers, you will have noticed a hiatus. Despite having a week off work, it has been a bad time for blogging. When I last wrote I was full of beans, all positive and bouncy and heavy on the anecdotes. Now I feel anti-social, tired and altogether out of sorts, which has resulted in a lot of early nights in between social and work commitments. So no writing. Never mind, the weekend improved things a little.

My week off transferred from Leamington to London, where we'd arranged to see a man in an auction house in case we could interest him in one box of dad's postal ephemera that had the greatest potential to be worth something. Our man was not optimistic about either the uniqueness of the material or the existence of any buyers. He made a couple of suggestions which I have since followed up and which took me to London again on Sunday. An old friend of dad's is still in the philately business despite being 90 years old. He seems more optimistic about our selling options, and may be able to arrange a meeting with an interested party. It feels very much like we're trying to do a drug deal, except a legal one with someone who is 90 years old.

Meanwhile, mum met a local philatelist who is mildly excited about another load of dad's boxes of envelopes. Her chap used to be a carpenter and has even taken away one of her kitchen chairs to be mended, so it's win-win for mum. Another piece of the jigsaw is a contact at the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, but nobody seems to be taking that one forward at the moment. My ebay work stalled for a while, but I managed to start listing again on Friday. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that we haven't been billed for ebay commission, so our 'nearly-a-hundred-pounds' has turned into 'just-over-eighty-pounds' and I'm taking my train fare on Sunday out of our earnings. I persevere, however.

Sold on eBay, January 2017

Not all my London holiday was stamp-related. I met some old friends, and Lola II and I visited the Hunterian Museum which is located within the Royal College of Surgeons. I would recommend it, although poor Lola II had to hang around a bit waiting for me to just look at the next case of bits of human or animal suspended in a glass jar demonstrating the effects of rickets, or faulty regrowth of a lizard tail, or a spine severely affected by scoliosis. Even I moved a bit quick past the facial reconstruction exhibit, and Lola II had a bit of trouble with the gory videos of live surgery.

We ate out a few times, we watched a couple of films, we journeyed forth to see mum and dad and I can remember nothing more; it was more than a week ago, and a week is a long time. The subsequent week contains a similar void, although I went to work as usual. Last Tuesday contained the dental hygienist and meditation and more LTRP, including a return to the kitchen design people. They have provided me with lots of ideas for the kitchen, and I have commented on their ideas and provided some of my own. The follow up visit is in a couple of weeks.

My LTRP multi-tasking is paying off with quotes from a builder and a carpenter and a possible date for Ilf to come back for another session on the spare room. However, more mundane tasks are not reaching the top of the list, so the cleaning and ironing are still waiting. The last few days have also been occupied with trying to untangle mum's email access after a change of ISP, I also have to renew buildings insurance, holiday insurance and find a new utility package - what with this blog and the ongoing ebay activity I will be tied to the PC for the rest of the day.

Failed to sell on eBay, January 2017

Several new beginnings

Walking in the Cotswolds, January 2017

The New Year has started in the most terrific way, at least after the noise from the pub died down so I could get to sleep. Incidental news - Smurf has announced on Facebook that he's stepped down from running the pub, so I need to get over there and find out who my neighbour is now, and what's going on.

Anyway, I started the year proper with a parkrun, but forgot my barcode. This means that my run isn't logged against my name in the big parkrun database and I have to do an extra run to get to my Big Numbers (you can have a special T-shirt when you've done 50). I thought I would be a bit peeved, but it didn't matter. I just felt happy to be out there. Even though it was pouring with rain all the way round.

Starting the day with a parkrun generally means I don't do much for the rest of the day, and this was certainly true for New Years Day. However, I had finally joined Meetup, which is a website that allows people to create groups around particular interests and activities and then recruit others to join them. I joined the 'Out and About in Warwickshire' group and signed up to a long walk in the Cotswolds that took place on Monday. It was bright and sunny and even a little bit warm out of the wind, and the walk was wonderful and all the other people I talked to were lovely. Really lovely. Someone saw me just grinning with pleasure, and commented that the endorphins were very evident.

The highly unexpected bonus of all this unusual socialising was that one of the people I met turned out to own a kitchen design business. This kitchen project has been weighing me down a bit, being a lot more difficult than I was expecting, so the prospect of actually finding someone prepared to help was such a relief. I need to get along to her shop.

During the Christmas/New Year lull (Twixtmas) I finally got to grips with starting to list dad's collection of ephemera on ebay. It's very time-consuming - each listing has to have at least one photo, I need to check for similar items previously listed and/or sold so I can get an idea of how much to charge (I've mostly been putting on fixed price listings) and then work out postage. Even the description is tricky when I don't really know why anyone would want a manufacturer's leaflet about a Third Generation Coding Desk or a Philatelic Presentation Pack Assembler in the first place, let alone a poster exhorting you to use the postcode or celebrating 350 years of the Royal Mail in 1985. So I took a load of photos and got a load of listings ready in draft, all the while thinking "what's the point", and who'd have thought it, someone went and bought one. And now another two (same buyer)! So I'm carrying on and watching the pence flood in (we have made just over a fiver so far).

Philharmonia and philately

Borough Market, May 2016

There has been a long weekend, which in my case extended to Tuesday due to my habitual day off, and it feels as though I have packed in several weekends' worth of excitement. Things that happened: I did not buy a tenor saxophone mouthpiece, I met a man who struck up a conversation (and this in London, mind) and who then offered to sell me a baritone saxophone, I bought said baritone saxophone, I met a lot of fans of the football club Sheffield Wednesday, I met two people I last worked with in 1988 (and one of whom I had not seen since then), people who weren't Lola II and Mr M came round to my house and stayed overnight and I think I managed to behave as a welcoming host rather than a reclusive hermit, two other people who still weren't Lola II and Mr M came round to my house and had a play with the baritone saxophone and were almost as excited as me, and I went to an organ recital. And this doesn't include regular ordinary things like cleaning, cooking, food shopping and running. And I went to my physiotherapy appointment about my painful shoulder.

The previous week-and-a-bit was also full of mysteries and wonders which did include Lola II and Mr M as well as the rest of my UK-based family and a little bit of non-UK-based family. Things that happened: I attended a Study Day about Type 1 diabetes and exercise (a blog post on that subject is a complex scholarly work and still in the pipeline), stayed with Lola II and Mr M, went to Borough Market and the Museum of London with Lola II, attended the UK-based family event, had lunch at a nice garden centre in Little Venice, didn't attend the non-UK-based family event (but neither did the non-UK-based family so that was all right), and spent a day with mum and a Postal Mechanisation Man sorting through dad's collection of philatelic material. I'm using the word 'philatelic' loosely to mean anything relating to the postal service.

I think I should stop complaining about being busy because this now seems to be my normal state. Since I bought the Fitbit there have only been two days when I haven't walked more than 10,000 steps without any extra effort - I thought I would have to try much harder.

I shall pick a few highlights from all the things that have been happening.

The non-UK-based family event involved a cousin who had been in touch to see if he could catch up with us on his way through London. We very nearly put mum and dad in a taxi for an hour and me in a car for even longer in order to meet at Lola II's house but in the end, for various reasons, we didn't. This was a good thing, because the meeting that the cousin was attending between flights took up all the intervening time and he didn't make it to Lola II's house either.

Dad's philatelic collection is big, very big. We have been trying to whittle it down now that he is not actively collecting it any more. One large chunk is all about Postal Mechanisation - in basic terms, the use of machines rather than people to sort mail. Just to prove that for any human interest there is an interest group, there exists a Postal Mechanisation Study Circle (PMSC), whose newsletter led me to contact its Secretary to see if they could provide any support in disposing of dad's collection in a more constructive way than through the medium of a bonfire.

Having spent four hours in his company, I can say that the Secretary of the PMSC is a lovely man. He extended a trip to London with a Tube journey out to mum and dad's house and went through the entire postal mechanisation collection with enthusiasm and excitement. He took a small proportion away with him for auction, and left the rest in piles representing valuable material, stuff that might sell on eBay, and a disappointingly small amount that could be thrown out. There is still much work to do - this collection is perhaps a quarter of the stuff that's still in boxes and cupboards - but I can't manage any more at the moment, especially with the LTRP and the new saxophone-related activity.

The new saxophone-related activity started with a proposal to meet up with people who were kibbutz volunteers at the same time as me back in 1987-88. The proposed venue was Baker Street, and there is a shop nearby that had been recommended as somewhere that would allow me to try out different saxophone mouthpieces, because I had been told that the difficulties I had with the low notes on my tenor sax might be resolved with a different mouthpiece. The tenor sax is extremely heavy, and usually when I go to London it is to the outer fringes where my family lives, so this was a perfect opportunity to get the sax to the shop without a great deal of messing about on the Tube.

So I arrived at the shop with my tenor saxophone and they duly provided me with different mouthpieces to try. It became very clear that the problem was between the mouthpiece and the chair - or possibly the saxophone itself. None of the different mouthpieces solved the problem, so I sat in front of the cafe next door (it was a lovely morning) with a cup of tea and pondered my options. This is when conversation started with the chap at the next table about saxophones and he offered me the baritone sax which was to be found in the basement of his shop across the road. A friend had recently managed to borrow one of these and told me it was worth more than his car, so the £100 price tag seemed like a bargain, especially as it played much better than my tenor sax.

This left me in London with two large saxophones and a meeting in the Baker Street pub - it is a large pub but none of us anticipated that it would be entirely full of football supporters due to an event known as a 'play-off' (I had to ask) which would allow either Sheffield Wednesday or Hull City to be promoted to the Premier League. This pub was restricted to the Sheffield supporters - Hull fans were refused entry and directed to a different pub to avoid any trouble. Unfortunately kick-off was not until 5pm so the pub would be full to bursting for several more hours. Which meant that I and my two large saxophones were not ideally suited to a quiet pint and a chat with ex-volunteers. We eventually decamped to an alternative location and had a lovely time.

There was a lot more activity to come within the long, long weekend, but I shall jump to the physio appointment I had on Tuesday to see if anything could be done about my painful shoulder. This was damaged during ski holiday #2 and has been giving me some trouble for two months but only in certain movements: applying the car handbrake, removing tight clothing over my head, carrying heavy luggage up steep stairs. I wasn't optimistic that physiotherapy would achieve anything, but in fact it achieved a diagnosis of inflammation in the joint between the top of the humerus and the acromion process of the shoulder blade causing some 'impingement'. Three treatments were suggested - a stretching exercise I should do a few times a day, anti-inflammatory gel and ice. It should get better slowly, but I have the option to contact the physio again within a month if I think I need to.