The upskilling today was about the trailer. I had to carry a great big battery, and a tower light. It was loaded onto this shaky looking trailer by the telehandlers and then checked in great detail by the wizard. Then the boys from powerlog ratcheted it all until we knew it wouldn’t move. I was helping / making damn sure this explosive stuff I was carrying was properly secured with the straps. But then I realised I would be driving for hours once it was all secure. I jumped in my Suzuki and spun up to catering while Daf checked the batteries. Brilliant food as ever, but I was in a hurry. I selected a white spaghetti with peas. Alfredo, I thought. Or maybe a carbonara. I put it on my plate, put the plate on the passenger seat, and spun back down to the loading area. One of the stewards suddenly put their hand out for a hard stop, so I hit the brake. Oops.
It was fish pasta. The plate slid off the seat and upended in the passenger footwell. The car immediately filled up with the smell of fish. I was waiting for a recovery vehicle to pass, so I leant across and gathered all of the fallen fish spaghetti in one dusty stinky smelly handful. The woman on security, who has become a working friend, then wanted to make small talk. In order that she knew I had other FISH to fry, I stuck my pasta filled right hand out of the open window. She let me pass. No roadside bins. Obviously. It’s an event site. I drove all the way to the staging area with a fishy fistful of pasta incomprehensibly sticking out the window. I didn’t want my car to smell of fish. Too many people saw it, but I also didn’t want to be seen to be thoughtlessly throwing anything anywhere on this race where we race for the planet.
When I got back to staging they were still checking the battery on the trailer, and I still had a handful of fishy spaghetti. I discreetly threw it into a hedge for the birds.
Lots of people saw me with this inexplicable handful of pasta. It’ll take me a while to live it down. Will I be spaghetti-man?
Pasta-Person has things to do.
I drove the load to Fairlie and reversed down a long jetty with the trailer. That was a new game with high stakes. Trailer reversing with explosive stuff down a narrow jetty with no barriers between you and the sea while hungry. Turns out my hand-eye coordination is still pretty good and I can parse the logic of the trailer going bassacred to the steering. You’ve never done something until you’ve done it. Next time I’ll be more confident and just as careful. But I’m happy with myself for the whole delivery and yeah, it feels like a small upskill.
No time to stop though. Straight back for transfers. I ended up taking a lovely journalist to Edinburgh. Then back, in time to join a big evening of “hooray we did it” in Wetherspoons Ayr while the lucky few made sense of the lighting tower on the Fairlie boat with the famous DJ.
Now I’m home. Earlier than I might normally be. There was talk of a karaoke bar but … the thing with driving is you have to be alert. I’ll be getting that trailer back from Fairlie at some point tomorrow, all interspersed with being charming for interesting humans. Not as punishing as my karaoke friends, who will be rolling up the tents and pulling up the posts and labouring. But I want to be clear headed. So I will be. Night night.
AlBarclay 