08/09/14

Seed dressing again today, and I expect the rest of the week will be the same.  Only two customers today but the first was near Harrogate, well out of my usual area.  It wouldn't have been so bad if I had been given the correct address.  Firstly I wanted to go down Sutton Bank but it is closed for the week so I had to go round.  When I got that closure negotiated I got to the address on my paperwork easily enough with the aid of my friendly sat nav.  There was no-one there and neither of the telephone numbers I had been given were ringing.  Great! Called back to base"does the customer possibly have two farms?"  "Not that we know of."  By now I'm getting suspicious, the office staff (wasn't that a polite turn of phrase, everything considered)  had given me the billing address not the address for the job.  Luckily a man with a tractor pulled into the yard, "Were you expecting a man with a seed dresser?"  "Yes but not here, we expected you at our other farm about half a mile away."
The half mile turned out to be about a mile and a half but he did guide me to the correct place.  His brothers comment was "They've been coming here for fifteen years.  Didn't they say?"
That's the third time since I started seed dressing this season that this has happened.  I do wish our nice office staff would be a little more careful.  (There! I'm being very polite again.)

The job went reasonably well and off to the next customer at Sutton Under Whitestone Cliff.  Not content with shutting Sutton bank the nice highway maintenance people had decided to dig up the roundabout in Thirsk thereby cutting off the normal access to my next customer.  The day just got better, after a detour round twisty narrow single track roads I finally reached my next and last customer.  When I got set up the elderly customer said"I'll just go and get my cup of tea while you tie up the bags."  He was using second hand bags and couldn't be bothered to tie them himself.  Note there was no offer of tea for the operator!  Funny thing customers like that who use old bags often find them difficult to untie.  Strange isn't it!  To cap the day off when I got back to the yard about six pm the operator of the other dresser informed me that he would be out with his dresser tomorrow and they had given him my favourite customers.  That was enough I went home.  See you tomorrow, perhaps I'll do less grumbling.