Normally we allow one person a week to be off on holiday. Via a combination of freak events we ended up with Taz, Jamie and Paul all away for the week, and Rob needed Tuesday and Thursday off, all of which left us a wee bit tight for staff!
Taz has been away with Nicki's family in the Italian Alps, although he kindly telephoned a couple of times to offer words of encouragement!
This meant that I had to sail the ship alone this week, apart from yesterday when even I needed most of the day off due to a social engagement, and Ant agreed to run the company for a day (and as far as I can see did a pretty good job apart from accidentally taking my office keys home with him).
And as if that wasn't enough, I have also had the pleasure of looking after Tommy, Taz's cat. Just to maximise the 'aah' factor here are some pictures of Tommy...
In the third one he is indeed lying on my computer and this was taken shortly before he decided to remove the 'i' key and space bar, which took me a fair while to reassemble.
Workwise, apart from Tuesday which was a complete mess and will shortly get a post all to itself, the week went surprisingly smoothly. Because of the number of people away, all the remaining staff worked every day apart from Sunday, and Pete joined us on Tuesday and Thursday. But everyone turned up every day on time and we had no staff problems and no major vehicle problems.
On Wednesday we collected J841 TSC from Qualiti Conversions at Botley, who have done a superb job of repainting it, and also recoated the hand poles yellow which has brightened up the interior a lot. This bus has original Edinburgh plastic seats which are perfectly comfortable and - like everything about this bus - in immaculate condition so don't justify retrimming. But they do look a bit, um, municipal!
Since Matt has adopted this bus, the plan was for me to meet him in Eastleigh Bus Station at 1500 on Wednesday when he finished duty 1, and take him down to Botley to collect the bus.
Mikey has been with us all week as well - doing a superb job of producing promotional material for the new service starting in September, promoting these routes in Eastleigh Bus Station and looking after our service A customers. It therefore seemed a good idea to take him too for the experience. Then Ant invited himself along - some excuse to do with needing someone to take photographs - and suddenly we had a carload to collect one bus!
Ant was on duty 3 which does the 1140 - 1425 portion of the Ringwood routes, then uses a double decker to travel empty back to Eastleigh, with the next piece of work in school holidays then being the 1650 A, so he had plenty of time assuming he would get back to Eastleigh at around 1500.
Then of course events intervened. At around 1400 Mikey had a problem with his phone and needed to get to the Vodafone shop in Southampton urgently, so we sent him off to Southampton on the bus. But this meant there was no prospect of him getting back in time to come with me and Matt, so I texted Ant and asked him to wait in town, meet Mikey and take him straight to Botley on the changeover bus.
So the definitive answer to "how many people does it take to collect a bus" is four - two people in a car and two people in a double decker bus. But at least it meant Ant could get these shots...
Looking good, don't you think???
We were running a bit late by the time we were ready to leave so Ant had to scurry off to do his A. I followed Matt back through Botley expecting him to turn right up Winchester Street, but of course he didn't. I guessed that Matt's coach driver instincts and love of 841 were going to seduce him into doing a scenic tour of South Hampshire and took the direct route back where I found the local bus paparazzi waiting on the corner of Barton Park to take piccies when the bus finally made it back.
By the time I had been into Brenhaul to talk about when we could service 841 and answered their questions about who those strange blokes were loitering on the entrance to the industrial estate with cameras, there was still no sign of Matt. Luckily he had Mikey with him, so I was able to obtain position reports from him. Eventually he appeared heading from completely the wrong direction and having taken a mere 40 minutes or so to do a journey that takes 15 minutes direct!
Steve fitted the ticket machine on Friday and the bus should be serviced tomorrow, so although it lacks graphics it should be ready for the road by early this week, if we choose to use it. The other two should emerge this week and next week respectively.
By now, Taz should be back from the Alps and Paul should be raring to go again so this week is looking a lot better staff-wise!
