Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
No cyclists. No road closures. So peace and calm looked on the cards today. And so it proved. One of the best days I've had in fact. And the busiest. 330pm to 130am and all go from the start. Spent the first six hours or so in the depot providing the "RFT" [Request for Transport] service. Quite a lot on and all pretty straightforward. It really is like a taxi service. People ring in to ask for a car. Someone runs out from the control room at the back [we're not allowed to even look in there] with a bit of paper. They give it to one of us and off we go.
Ought to explain that the cars aren't for anyone though. There's three main categories of transport. Tier 1 cars are for very very important people. They get a car and a driver allocated for their own personal use. There's far more tier 2 cars which are for far less important people. [It's really funny but back at the depot where we're all wearing the same uniform tier 1 drivers don't mix with us tier 2 drivers]. And tier 3 - I think that includes all the athletes - have buses laid on for them.
Did a few RFT jobs picking people up and taking them somewhere. The best one was someone called Shirley Addison who wanted to be picked up from the Glasgow Art Centre and taken home to Motherwell. She was over half an hour later coming out because the speeches at the reception she was at went on a bit but I didn't mind. It was in the centre of Glasgow, it was Friday night and there was a really good buzz about the place. But I got her to her home eventually and made the most of being out of radio contact and out of the range of their tracking system by parking up for a bit. Incidentally, chatting on the way to Motherwell, she said that she was the "Village Chieftain". Gather she's competed in the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games herself. And every host city has an Athletes' Village Chief [or Chieftain as they've decided to call it in Scotland]. When I did eventually make it back to the depot someone told me that she's been on Gladiators as well.
Wasn't at the depot for long though. Sent up to Hampden Park to collect people when the athletics had finished. It was mayhem up there. Thousands of people and dozens of cars but the roads were so clogged up that I'm sure it would have been quicker to walk. Incidentally, there's lots of stories doing the rounds at the depot about people taking advantage of the cars for ridiculously short journeys. Best one from a tier I driver. There's a car park in Glasgow beside the Exhibition Centre which I think is known in the city as either the Beirut car par or the Cheesegrater. This tier 1 driver told how he had met his very very important passenger on level 5 of the car park but he wanted to get to level 4 and insisted on being driven there.
So all in all, a pretty good day. And to round it off, when I got back at the end of my shift, they were just dishing up Scotch pie and potato tatties. Know it's probably not too healthy to put all that stodge down your throat just before bedtime but I wasn't going to pass it up. Funnily enough, mu niece Gail who I'm staying with gave me potato tatties a couple of days ago. It was the first time I've had them and thought they were very good. She tells me they're dead simple to make. If you'd like the recipe, please send a stamped addressed envelope and a £10 cheque made payable to me to cover the admin costs.
Day off tomorrow. Were all hoping to go to Loch Lomond but the weather forecast doesn't look good. In fact, on the drive back here an hour or so ago, none of the motorway signs had anything on them about motorway traffic or roadworks. Half had messages about the Games. And the other half had a dire warning "Heavy rain forecast".
- comments
Rita Allcorn £10 is on its way Ken hope it gets to you before you return home Rita
Michael They look like potato cakes to me!