7th JULY 2005 - REMEMBERED

I needed to hear her voice this morning, to be reassured.  I had to call her, just like I did on the 7th July 2005, when I heard the special extended news bulletin on the car radio about the London Transport bombings.   

On that day, we were heading north away from London and we were just south of Birmingham. Our foreign visitor, a teenage girl and our reason for visiting London, was in the back seat of our car wrapped up in constant texting to her boyfriend at home.  She was unaware of the unfolding horror we were hearing about in the city we had so recently left. "Text your mum and dad, tell them you are okay".  She did as I requested, then asked why. 

I tried to call my sister-in-law who used one or two of the bombed tube train lines, whichever was best on any day, to reach her workplace in Central London. The mobile phone beeped  after the first few digits were pressed as if  the network was constantly engaged.   I tried to call her several times more.  I could not call my brother either. We drew in to the first service stop we came to.  I was twitching.  The activity of getting out of the car, got me thinking sensibly again. What if I tried phoning sis-in-law at her work, after all, I did have her land-line office number.  I tried the number using my mobile phone, she answered the ringing extension, which was near her desk. 

We kept in contact at regular intervals the rest of the day and also the next. Like so many others, s-i-l found ways to get to work the next day and in the days that followed.   

Two weeks after the atrocity, after returning  our visitor to London Heathrow Airport, we were on the bus route on the other side of London, where another attempt at bombing was tried, but failed.

We were lucky; the innocents who were murdered and their families who have lost their special loved ones remain in our thoughts.

DELIVERIES IN RAGING STORMS

Storms are raging over Shetland.  Elsewhere in the far North of Scotland there are gales.  To give some perspective, a Gale is anything about wind force 7 to 9,  (anything less than 7 is rather windy) and a storm is wind force 10.  Force ten is really  fierce.

In our gales of about wind force 8 today, Royal Mail delivered our post.  The poor post woman who arrived on our doorstep, (to my surprise) looked quite dazed and battered; she said it was really difficult to hold on to the post she was carrying and delivering.  

The seas rage, the winds blast, scream, push and shove; it knows no chivalry.  The lifeline ferries to the islands take shelter and stay in port.  There will be no deliveries of the everyday commodities to the islands that we take for granted.  There has been little let up in the gales and flooding this week causing transport and domestic chaos in many parts of the UK.

In view of the extreme weather conditions the management of Tesco Limited, have chartered a Hercules Transport plane to make four deliveries of commodities this weekend, to the storm bound Shetland islanders. I am not aware of any other major food and goods retailer that has a presence on the island, who would do this.  

THE RUNAWAY BUS CAME OVER THE HILL AND IT BLEW...

Because of the storms last week, post and other deliveries have been seriously delayed. No commercial planes were flying passengers, nor to distribute post to outlying areas, or, to heavily populated ones either. Just imagine the bulky back-up of Christmas and business mail that resulted. Some long distance passenger buses tried to maintain a limited service when the trains could not. The bus drivers were brave, and the buses that battled with the weather, were extraordinarily late in their arrivals. They did, however, arrive. Passengers had some hair-raising tales to tell. It is just possible that a mail van limped through the stormy trail as well, though one of those, by no means, would have dented a sizeable backlog very much.

Trickles of mail arrived here at home by Friday evening. Apart from one letter, everything else was local. Is it possible that the bosses had allowed the local sorting office to do their own local sorting rather than bag everything up to travel hundreds of miles South, only to return North again I still have difficulty mentally sorting out the economics of that exercise. 

At about 4.30pm, Monday 12th December 2011, a wadge of mail landed on the mat, mostly Christmas mail. No packages or parcels have arrived. Don't get me wrong, I am not expecting tons of presents, I am however, expecting our usual arrivals of mail order, which haven't shown up. It is this current pattern of deliveries that leads me to believe that there is quite a backlog of mail somewhere in the system, much of it caused by extreme weather conditions. Now, we are waiting for the next severe weather experience that is forecast, which, is bound to have a further impact on mail and courier services.

From past experiences, especially that of last Winter here, I am sure the individuals who work for most of the delivery services will do their level bests to meet the extra demands of Christmas and get their post and parcels to businesses and households. 

I cannot speak highly enough of the local postal services and the efforts they made in the severe Winter of 2010/2011 with the most difficult of weather conditions - blizzards, ice and deep snow underfoot.

TRANSPORTED THROUGH DIVERSE THOUGHTS AT THE ROYAL WEDDING

Unexpectedly, as I watched the spectacle of the Wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton, I found myself thinking back to the first major state occasion I ever saw. It was courtesy of a friend that we saw the 1953 coronation of The Queen, relayed through a small TV screen, in black and white. Then I was a young child. As an adult, I remembered my curiosity felt much the same as I peered then and now into a surreal world.

In these theatricals there must be uncountable project managers with departmental stage managing-directors to report to. Can there be an executive CEO to pull things together? These things are so big and diverse, I think that the State occasions in the UK, would be more than Cameron Mackintosh, (Phantom Of The Opera) could handle.

As I watched today's events, I was fascinated by the structuring of them, the type of policing control I saw, limited by what the BBC media cameras focussed upon. 

The 'Wing's' company buses used for the extended Royal Family were a curiosity. Anyone from the grandparent generation and their offspring, populated those, (except that is, The Queen, Prince Philip, and their family line). One commentator said that the mini-buses would give a connection to the people. London Taxi drivers will probably have some thoughts about the chosen mode of transport. One or two red London Buses,(low level entry platforms) would have been perfectly acceptable and easier for the less agile guests. I think seeing London Buses in use, would have been a delight.

PEEDIE TRANSPORT IN INVERNESS

We were recently in Inverness. Now, I know Hogmanay is thought to be sacrosanct in Scotland by those South of the border, and the rest of the globe,  but not to the extent where a bus company, Stagecoach, can disconnect a whole city and then offer a Sunday service, (read highly limited into that) for the remainder of the period. Taxi services were on tariff three for two days, that means they could charge sky high sums for journeys on those days and a bank holiday tariff for the other days. Workers could not get into work without begging favours and lifts if they happened to live outwith reasonable walking distance from their places of employment. I heard of some workers being bused in by a taxi mini bus, paid for by their employers, if they lived a certain distance out of the city. Others had to pay excess taxi costs from low wages to get into work.

If you want to get around and about when staying in or near the city of Inverness, think twice before visiting the Scottish Highland capital during a holiday period without access to private means of transport. Its public transport services, in any case, are rather limited to its conurbations after about 6pm. If you're happy to be in the centre and take a tour when tours are functioning, you may be suitably catered for. 

In Summer 2009, I met an Australian couple who had arrived in Inverness by car. They were seeking a city visit hop-on-hop-off bus. It only runs on Wednesdays, the tourist office said, and this was a Friday.