A Wild, Wild Week...

It’s been over a week since my last blog - and what a rollercoaster of a week it’s been! I apologise about the lack of blogs, I feel like I've had to be either sleeping or on call to something, so never found the time! But a pocket of time has presented itself!

The plan was to work until the 22nd December and have from the 23rd to 4th off…

Unfortunately- as predicted, nothing ever goes to plan, and with so many drivers on Christmas Holiday, Central were running a “skeleton crew” - and being the newest at the Harlow depot - and having submitted my holiday request rather late, I was on the bottom of the proverbial doggy pile.

The good news was, that on Sunday, I got to work my favourite shift - ALL the local Harlow routes duty.

On Monday I worked another favourite of mine, running the #21 from Harlow to Epping Station, before a local route in the evening.

Tuesday started incredibly early with my two weekly races - my oval race kicking the day off, before GT4 at Oscherslaben.

Both - admittedly - were incredibly challenging.

Just before the oval race started, I nipped out to the bathroom, and on coming back into my room, I snagged the WiFi cable with my foot, pulling it out, and disconnecting me from the race.

After taking much too long to fully re-boot, by the time I rejoined the session, the race was 15 seconds away - sorry, 14, 13, 12…

Having missed qualifying, I started at the back of the grid - it would have been nice to be higher up the grid/field to maximise the slipstream, but hey.

Eventually I’d finish the race in 9th after starting 13th - I managed to avoid my first “wreck”, gaining two positions, and overtake a third car having a slight pace advantage.

Hopefully next week there will be less wire-snagging and more “position snagging”

The GT4 race was bitter-sweet.

After starting 5th, I’d manage to stay in the top 5, despite the internet gremlins trying to spoil the party - I’d end up in 3rd for a few laps, before P4 went down my inside, the computer thought we made contact and I lost the position.

I would come home to finish a very strong 4th position - a very good points haul after a DNS at VIR at the first round.

At work that day, I was on a slightly different route, running out to Waltham Abbey - a new route (to me) quickly becoming a personal favourite of mine.

Being Christmas Eve, we were all allowed to finish at 9pm.

The only issue with the late shift meant that had I gone home on Christmas Eve, I would have only got to the ferry shortly before midnight - and I wasn’t going to do that to my parents. Although I probably should have.

The following day was Christmas morning.

After waking up at 5am, I was quickly on the road. Being Christmas morning, the roads were almost completely deserted.

Fast forward 6 hours and two punctures later, I was home, safe and dry. It was absolutely lovely to see the parents again, especially after such a long day.

That afternoon, we had lunch, deliciously cooked by my dad and later opened presents from each other.

This year I got odd socks, a brilliantly designed tea towel, a nice Silverstone Jumper, a very nice thick, water and wind proof coat and a 2025 calendar from an online (social media) creator that I’ve recently started following.

That evening, I had a lovely bath and hot chocolate, before watching Wallace And Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl - which had only recently come out.

The 26th (the following day) was certainly a day of two halves as I woke up feeling rather groggy - which followed me through breakfast.

Even with so little time with the parents, I decided to retire and head to bed to clear the headache.

Thankfully, that’s all I needed, I came downstairs feeling a lot better.

On the 26th, we played a board game, watched an absolutely lovely Christmas movie called “That Christmas” about a Christmas that goes wrong and it all being resolved in the end.

After many goodbyes, I headed up to bed for an early start the following morning.

After a 6:30am start, I’d have a very small breakfast, begin writing this blog on the ferry, completely forget to eat and then drive from Lymington up to work.

Being the first day back after Christmas and Boxing Day were both bank holidays, the traffic was absolutely dreadful, not least helped by the constant speed-reductions and roadworks.

I arrived at my front door, answered one message from a friend, swapped into work shoes and then headed straight out to work again - as the fridge was all but empty, it was going to have to be another cheat day.