I waited all day yesterday for the Strulch, but it didn't come. The Systems Administrator reminded me that it didn't always arrive first thing in the morning, and later warned me that there'd been severe delays on several of the main roads and motorways, but at twenty past five I emailed the company to let them know it hadn't turned up, and ask when it would be. The woman who founded the Strulch company must live in her office, sleeping and dreaming Strulch, for ten minutes later the phone rang, and it was her to say she'd spoken to the delivery company, and they were sorry they were running so late, and would be with me in forty minutes.
That was tricky. By then it was going to be completely dark, and I had to go out at half past six on the dot, because I was going with a friend to a concert in Ipswich. The arrangement was that we'd meet at her house and drive on from there together, and she had the tickets. There are times when being ten or twenty minutes late because something cropped up is not a problem, but this wasn't one of them. I realised the SA was probably going to have take charge of the Strulch delivery. And it was raining.
Then I began to worry in case it arrived just as I was leaving, and my car got blocked in by the lorry. There is no way even a small lorry can drive right round our turning circle, instead, they have to drive up and reverse out, or vice versa depending on the driver's individual taste. I didn't fancy my chances of persuading the driver to back all the way down to the farm before he'd finished unloading, just so that I could go out, at half past six in the dark and the rain, on a Friday night. I decided I'd better park my car down at the farm in advance, so that I could get out regardless.
It was not yet entirely dark, and I could just about see the puddles on the way back to the house. I remembered to bring my torch with me from the car, since its batteries were on their last legs, and by a miracle we had some spare ones in the kitchen drawer. The SA suggested I took the Maglite from the hall table (which is a wonderful torch with a very powerful and adjustable beam, and a metal casing. Larger ones than ours, with even more batteries, are carried for self defence by gamekeepers on their rounds at night, since they function effectively as a truncheon but do not count as an offensive weapon. Our Maglite doubles as an oven light, since the Aga doesn't have one, and I keep meaning to buy a small one specially for the kitchen, while coveting one of the really large ones. I digress). I thought the SA might need the Maglite for the Strulch delivery and magnanimously left it at home. As I drove off the farm I passed a small, unmarked lorry going in the opposite direction, and wondered it that was the Strulch. It was raining quite hard.
The concert was really good, a female quartet who sang and played the fiddle (and in one case, the saw. Spiers and Jackson, she said, in case we were wondering), Carthy, Hardy, Farrell and Young. Eliza Carthy is folk royalty, with a fine, strong voice that can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. She had a drum. We knew it was hers, because it had 'Eliza Carthy' stamped on the side. Bella Hardy has just won the Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year award. I hadn't come across Lucy Farrell before. She was small and desperately sweet with long brown hair and a fringe, looking as though she'd stepped straight out of Inside Llewyn Davis, with a pure, voice described by one reviewer as 'honeyed', which is as fair a description as any. She was valiantly battling on through what must have been a complete fog of tiredness and hormones, since she was touring with two bands alternately, and had had a baby less than five months ago, that was tucked away behind the scenes somewhere. I didn't know Kate Young either, who turned out to be based in Edinburgh, and had a rich voice and a talent for scat singing. The four of them worked together very well. Apparently it was Kathryn Tickell's idea they form a band. They'd met at a fiddle workshop, and Kathryn Tickell said it would work, and it did. I enjoyed it very much, though I felt bad about the Strulch.
As I drove into our drive, I saw in the headlights a great tumbled mound of large, white bags, topped off with a pallet, completely blocking the path from the front to the back garden. The Strulch had evidently arrived. Apparently the driver had backed up to the entrance, but couldn't get any further. It was pouring with rain by that stage, and he was in a hired lorry which didn't have any working reversing lights. The SA said not to worry, they could leave it by the entrance. The lorry turned out also not to have an internal light either, so they had to unload by the light of the Maglite (I knew I'd better leave it at home). The Strulch had come packed on a single huge pallet, weight eight hundred kilos according to the bill of lading, which the driver managed to get on the the tail lift. As the SA stood behind the lorry waiting to guide it off, the driver shouted to get clear, and then the tail lift collapsed, and the pallet fell off the back of the lorry. It was still pouring with rain, so the SA suggested they throw the bags of Strulch off the drive into a heap, which they did. The driver was so grateful for the help, and for the SA not being pissy about the late and eccentric method of delivery, that he gave us an extra pallet, then drove off home to Witham, poor man. It was still raining.
The SA was remarkably cheerful about the whole thing, saying it had been like shoring up a trench in WWI. We are going to have to do something drastic about the Eleagnus hedge, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment