Hello friends, I hope this email finds you well.
It’s been an odd month for me work-wise. Let me explain. As a bulk relief driver, I don’t get my own truck. The idea is that I cover the existing crew of drivers when they go on holiday or take time away from work due to sickness. This means that for around 40 weeks of the year, a truck is available for me to use. For the rest of the time, I am either sent to a different area to use an idle truck there or, as is the case right now, I am told to stand by at home, on-call, for any spare trucks to use. And so it has been for the last few weeks. This week I have been out for just one day, and a couple of weeks ago, I did a total of 4 hours driving for the entire week. I’m not complaining; I get paid for being on standby. But, I miss out on several bonuses and must be available within an hour of being asked to come to work, so I can’t go too far from home and get involved in anything too detailed.
I am told that I will be seconded to another part of the business to cover one of my colleagues going on paternity leave for two weeks. I’ll be delivering crop protection products to farms across the southeast. I don’t mind, I worked at the site near Maidstone for a few months last autumn, so it will be nice to see everyone there and give me a chance to drive a van for a while.
So, I have been filling my days with prepping my truck kit, reading, catching up on some documentaries and doing some work around the house. Yesterday was filled with organising some of the trips to car and bike events that I mentioned in my last bulletin. Last weekend, my friend Spencer came to stay. We ate, watched movies, and went to Canterbury for lunch at our favourite Mexican place. We had a great time.
I’ve been watching Formula 1 and catching up with World Superbikes and MotoGP testing. Rhona and I continue to reduce the clutter we have accumulated over the years, and I’m happy to say that we are making excellent progress on that front. Last week I completed a 5-day fast; I’m building up to a week of fasting in the spring, followed by a 10-day fast in the summer. My diabetes remains in remission, my cholesterol is where it should be, and my blood pressure has normalised.
This week I should be getting the results of the scans and x-rays I had a few weeks ago. These will determine the extent of arthritis in my left hip, which has bothered me since I began driving HGVs. As with last year’s health scare, I will use diet and exercise to mitigate the worst of my symptoms, with fasting significantly reducing inflammation around the joint.
I get paid next week. I’ve decided to try an experiment. I will set aside money for food, bills and fuel and then do my best not to spend any spare cash unnecessarily. I will be disciplined, only spending money if it can’t be avoided. I wonder how much I will have left over when my next pay packet arrives. All of that said, we are planning a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands, so I will have to dip into some of the money for that.
To finish this email, I want to tell you I’ve been using Twitter a bit more. It ishelpful forful for keeping an eye on what is happening on the roads, for following F1 and MotoGP and for the debates surrounding privacy and free speech in the digital realm. I have tried valiantly to reduce my social media use, I rarely look at Facebook, the biggest of them all, but I like to post pictures on Instagram. I have set up “If That Then This” (IFTT) to automatically cross-post my Instagrams to Twitter and FB, so don’t be fooled into thinking that I am actively on the Meta-run platform.
Well, that’s about all I have to tell you this week. I am looking forward to the clocks going forward and with it the dawn of spring 2023. I will be spending a lot more time in the garden, especially as we now have a summer house, fully kitted out for relaxing and recuparating.
Be kind to each other. Until next time… adieu!
JP