Of Sand and Soil

I’m getting into home deliveries now. Today I had half a ton of sand delivered. Tomorrow it’s going to be a basket of cheese.

I had been worrying about the sand. It’s hard to know exactly how much half a ton is. It sounds like it’s going to be a lot. It sounds even more like a lot when you get an email from the delivery company telling you it’s going to arrive on an 18-ton lorry and that it can only be delivered if there is ‘sufficient access’. I wasn’t sure what sufficient access meant. Either I was going to have to measure the width of the garden gate or demolish the houses at either end of the road.

As it turned out, the lorry was plenty small enough to fit down the road and park in front of the house. It was big enough that it came with its own elevator though: a tail lift at the back to allow the unloading of heavy goods.

The deliveryman hopped out of the cab, greeted me, then raised himself on the tail lift to go and search for my sand.

I’m always happy to watch an expert at work. To be fair, I’m happy to watch anyone work if I don’t have to, but its always quite satisfying if they’re good at it. I sat back to see how half a ton of sand is unloaded.

Then the lorry began to rock from side to side. Not gently, like an ageing hippy, but violently, as though someone was holding a silent disco for punks. I slowly edged round to see what was going on.

In the back of the van were three palettes. One, a stack of paving stones. Another a rather enormous gas cylinder. And my sand.

Guess which one was at the back.

Since each of the pallettes was half a ton or heavier, the deliveryman had a palette moving machine. This device, rather like a hand-operated forklift, could be wheeled under the pallette, then pumped up like a car-jack until the pallette was lifted and the whole load could be easily rolled along. The delivery man was a charming man but no adonis. He wasn’t quite strong enough to operate the lifting mechanism with his arms alone, so he was hurling his whole body up and down on the lever mechanism until either he, or the load, began to rise.

I retreated to a safe distance. Just as I thought the lorry was surely going to topple, the vibrations stopped and the wheezing deliveryman emerged. He was pulling the sand on the trolley, the tail lift behind him. The sand was in front of him. He eyed the tail lift. Then he eyed the pallette. Then the tail lift again. There was no escaping the fact that, if the palette wanted to get to the tail lift, it was going to have to go through him.

Sighing, the deliveryman began a strange dance which involved him edging backwards and forwards, slowly trying to rotate the palette round while, at the same time, not falling out of the lorry. I was torn, aware that I should probably offer to help him but also certain that I would miss out on a lot of entertainment if I did.

Eventually, after much manoeuvering, the sand was balanced precariously on the tail lift, the deliveryman by its side. He pressed the button and stood, panting, as it lowered him toward the street

“You must keep yourself fit,” I said as we waited for him to come down to my level. In reply, he scowled at me.

He didn’t stop scowling until the tail lift was on the floor at which point he sighed and I realised he hadn’t been scowling but grimacing.

“That looked rickety,” I said.

“You have no idea.” He began wheeling the pallette towards the garage. “I had a delivery last week. Lovely lady. At first.”

“What happened.”

“The sack fell off the tail lift. Went everywhere.”

“Sand?” I asked.

“Manure,” he replied.

We both contemplated it.

“Anyway,” he said, “she went spare. Called me names that made me blush.”

“Not happy?” I asked.

“I don’t know why. I delivered it where she wanted it. Just faster than expected.”

It’s interesting how we expect others to be masters of their jobs. We all muddle through at our own work, but we expect the electrician to never cut the wrong wire, or the plumber to always reconnect the right pipe or the delivery man not to drop half a ton of fertilizer onto a little old lady from the back of a lorry.

Perhaps we should cut ourselves some slack. We can try the best we can, but we are at the mercy of our tools, or circumstances. A bad workman may blame his tools, but even a good workman can be slowed down by a bad internet connection, an accidentally deleted document, or a rickety tail lift.

When we feel less efficient, or unable to deliver what we promised, or things simply go wrong, it’s okay to take a moment to be disappointed but then its also okay to be okay about it.

The important thing is that we carry on. The speed with which we get there doesn’t matter.

Just as long as we eventually arrive.