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Due to prohibitive internet
connections, this series of articles has been delayed
during the summer but now continues.....
Part
2 - 01/10/2004
It was a sunny morning… the temperatures had
hit 30 by 11am… everything was looking great…
then suddenly an ‘Independence Day’ style
cloud appears unleashing one almighty storm. Before
you know it the whole campsite is 6 inches under water.
Do you:
A) Screw the customers! Your courier tent is floating
away down towards the lake and you’re going to
save it. It’s every man for himself.
B) Grab your shower gel and shampoo as this is the
perfect opportunity to have a shower after a busy
morning cleaning. After all nothing can be purer than
the water falling from the sky.
C) Run towards the campsite maintenance staff in a
flap, grab a shovel and manically cycle to your customer
accommodation and start digging trenches even though
you’re up to your knees in mud.
Answers on a postcard to the usual address…
You may be thinking something like this could never
really happen to a poor innocent courier. Someone
who is in France simply to avoid the realities of
adulthood for one last time… and you’d be
right! But rather worryingly it is not that much of
an exaggeration. In fact having spent the last four
months in Eastern France I can honestly say that I
have seen more rain this summer than I had ever seen
before. And when you’re living under canvas flooding
is not something you appreciate. Yes I know the UK
had it bad as well, but trust me until you’ve
experienced ‘Jura rain’ you haven’t
experienced rain!
But don’t get me wrong, working as a courier
gave me plenty of opportunities to enjoy the stunning
surroundings I was lucky enough to call home. In doing
so I was able to catch a glimpse of ‘le Tour’
as it wound its way to Paris, meet some fantastically
interesting (intressant… boeie! – sorry
‘in joke’ alert!) people and of course work
on the tan. Yes we moaned about the weather, we whinged
about you lovely customers and we had to deal with
problems ranging from broken limbs to customers stealing
gnomes, but we loved every minute of it.
An average day for a courier entailed getting up
for morning reception at roughly 8:30 (9:30 if you
weren’t on that shift) then cleaning from 10ish
until around 12. This was obviously highly dependent
on how busy we were. Some days you could be cleaning
right up until the designated mid-afternoon arrival
time – though this never stopped families arriving
at anytime from 8:30 in the morning!!! Cleaning was
never fun but you’d often work in twos and chat
your way through it. If you were by yourself you’d
just bring your walkman and sing your way through
the dirt!
After cleaning was over we’d generally just
relax for a few hours. When the weather was good falling
asleep by the pool or lake was the norm. When it wasn’t
sunbathing weather we’d read in the live tent
or just sleep – sleeping during the day became
the routine and now being back in the office I’m
finding it hard to stay awake all day!
Afternoons entailed going onto reception where you’d
wait for arrivals. We split the shifts so you never
really did more than 2-2 1/2 hours at one go, this
made it manageable. Whilst there you would read, chat
to other couriers and mingle with customers.
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