It appears that we in the UK are to be subjected to 4 long months of election build up broadcasts. Mrs. Sanchez and I have got it wrong again. We don't return to Álora until the end of March!
It's a good job I've got something to occupy myself here in wintry Brum. One of my readers (almost a stalker, really) has complained about the lack of more gem encrusted posts during the last few weeks. Well it HAS been Christmas and New Year, Alan, and Mrs. S. and I have just entered a new world of pain and bewilderment by treating each other to a 'smart phone'. These are taking up a lot of our time at the moment. They are watching me as I write this.
and RVTL anti-aging to relieve you of £200.00 a month if you answer an ad. for a free trial and don't read the small print carefully. Take care all dear readers who might feel the need to turn back the clock a bit without costly surgery.
They don't like giving you your money back either, funnily enough. I don't usually give advice, so I won't.
Mrs. Sanchez suggested I should follow the example of millions of Spaniards, Poles, Armenians, Lituanians, Laps and Lats and not a few Brits and look for a job to occupy my time whilst in fair Albion. It was easier than I had imagined. I went to see the nice people at FareShare, Birmingham (see blog January 2014) and they took me on. They let me drive a big white van round the highways and byways of the West Midlands Conurbation and I only have to work two days a week. Only snag is they don't pay me either. (which I pronounce 'eye-there').
Here's a typical day.
FareShare Birmingham
7.00am. Woken up by alarm on new phone. Put on old jeans and shirt have a wash and shave and go downstairs to put the kettle on and let Tommy out. Rescue the fire. Make a mug of tea for me and a lemon and honey for Mrs. Sanchez. (Spanish lemon).
7.30 am. Take drink up to Mrs.S. and set off for work. Still dark and cold outside but traffic through Brum already heavy as parents criss-cross the city driving their children to schools just up the road or miles from where they live so that they can get a good education.
8.00 am arrive at FareShare Birmingham. Put on my protective boots and high viz jacket. Take a quick look at what food is about to be thrown out but 'rescuable' and a bIg Sainsbury's chilled lorry backs up to the unloading entrance to be unloaded. Steve, on forklift, asks me to get on the wagon and bring the pallets down to the back as Scotch John can't be found. First time I've done this as it requires pumptruck skills in a confined space and the pallets are packed tight. I resist offers to get the f....off and let somebody do it who is not .f......useless. Many insults later I get the first one cubic metre pallet to the back door of the wagon. I've got the hang of it now and five black polythene swathed towers of chilled food are put in 'chiller number 4'. I put the kettle on a for cup (plastic beaker) of tea. (no food or drink on the warehouse floor). Will (warehouse manager) shouts something obscene from the upstairs office window. I reply 'Happy New Year', as it's my first day back. 'F........that. Get that pallet stripped please'.
The black polythene is cut off and we start to unload boxes of steak pies, butter, yoghurt, soup, curries, pizzas- all manner of chilled food which has to be put in quantities, categories, checked for use by date stacked in one of the four big chillers and booked on to the computer database. The food must not be allowed to go below 4 degrees centigrade.
Inside chiller number 2
Time to drink my tea as other volunteers arrive. Around here I am known as 'Spanish John' to disitinguish me from 'Scotch John' who is a small wiry Glaswegian and now rolling a cigarette in the staff room. I take a chance that he is in a sociable mood and ask him if he made it to Scotland for Hogmany. I gathered that he had not. John swears a lot by which I mean 'more than everyone else', which is saying something. He only uses two basic root swearwords which serve for all parts of speech.
Tommy walks in. 'F......tax dodger' is Tom's usual greeting for me, but Tom hasn't been well lately and doesn't reply.. The radio is tuned to Radio 5 live so that means Francis is in. The smell of a ready meal curry wafts in from the kitchen microwave; Scotch John's breakfast .
9.00am. I go into the warehouse to check out what's in the chillers and what's stacked on the staging round the warehouse (ambient food). Chapatti flour, bags of potatoes, curry sauces, bolognese sauces, cereals, mixed tins cakes, chocolates, fruit juices pasta, tea, coffee, some pineapples,bottled water and more. I plug the van in to power the chiller up. We'll be loading the vans when Will has done the orders and it's worth knowing where things are when he shouts for eg. 'Two meat soup, two veg soup' or 'Four treacle sponge and two puff pastry, number 3'. When you're the oldest volunteer (I prefer 'father of the house') you can't show weakness or you'll be trampled to death.
'John!' 'Which one!' 'Spanish!' 'What?' 'Will wants you!'. I bound eagerly up the stairs to the warm tidy office where Eli, the new boss, is on the phone and Will hands me the orders for my round. If you'd clicked on the FareShare link earlier you'd have seen Eli on the home page. She's the one on the right. I don't know who the fresh faced youth is with her. They must have hired an actor. None of our volunteers looks half as healthy or enthusiastic as that !
Only three drops today. Our highly trained and motivated volunteer crew springs into action when I wave the delivery sheets and the first van is loaded within minutes. Off we go, Scotch John, Francis and Spanish John in the van with no radio (stolen) but gears that work. Scotch John has a pal called 'Cockney John' who is living in a big house in Winson Green at the moment; we'll give him a wave when we pass by on Thursday.. While we're hurtling through Erdington, Willenhall and Wolverampton, passing some of Birmingham's beautiful and world famous heritage sites, the other van will be loaded and driven off to Coventry.
A Tesco wagon was backing up when we left, so more food will be unloaded and stored ready for sending out tomorrow. We deliver more than 13 tonnes of food every week (800 tonnes a year) which would otherwise be destined for landfill and that's just from our depot. This is food that has never reached a supermarket but has been rejected, sometimes inexplicably, by the main depots of Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and others even though it is within its 'use by date'. If we can't shift it before that date we have to throw it away. We deliver mainly to 'food hubs', hostels for homeless people, drop in centres, women's refuges, schools, care homes for the elderly and food banks.
Meanwhile, back in Álora the Caminito del Rey is getting ready to open to the public.
If you can get down to Alora next month it's free. A very sceptical friend from Redditch has suggested that they want to try it out on the public and can't be held responsible for death or injury incurred whilst having a free go. As if !
Check out the new corporate image by clicking on the link above.
................Stop press............preview of next blog.......
Happy new year.
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