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By the time I left the flat, Chelmsford was in the grip of a vicious traffic jam that snaked right through the town. The A12 had been closed for some reason or other, so that’s the only alternative. It’s quite impressive to see all the cars and trucks snaking down the hill and past the end of my road. Fortunately they don’t know that it would be quicker to turn left and zoom right down it, bypassing all of the other cars that are in turn bypassing the bypass.

It held me up on the way to the station and I arrived late at work. I dumped my bags and went straight down to the lab, where I stayed until eight this evening, testing kit for a group test.

It’s ages since I’ve done one and I actually quite enjoyed it. I used to hate them when I had to do one every month. I’m only half way through, and not quite that far with the testing, but I’ve made a good stab at it, and hope to have it finished off by Wednesday evening, which will be a personal record.

Only trouble is, my pass doesn’t let me into the lab. It used to, but then I stopped using the lab so often so it got deactivated. Leo can come and go as he pleases to I talked him into switching passes with me for the afternoon, and that’s where the trouble began.

At eight I reached a natural break. I’d just finished writing up one bit of kit, and testing the next one, and my legs were starting to ache - the air conditioning was still blasting out enough air to cool a building full of 500 people, but there was probably only me, the cleaners and security there.

I squared my edges and boxed up the stuff I’d left out and wandered up the back staircase to pick up my bag.

Only none of the doors would open. Apparently they lock at eight. Or at least that’s what the guy on the front desk said when he explained why I couldn’t get in and collect my bag, just before he looked at Leo’s pass and realised the picture looked nothing like me.

It took a lot of explaining to convince him I hadn’t found it on the street and I ended up signing into the building I was already in so I could get in and collect my bag.

Hmmm.

Bumped into Steve on the train home. We crawled through the fields between Shenfield and Ingatestone reading the small ads in the back of Private Eye. ‘A noisy noise annoys an oyster’ was the best headline. I’m very jealous.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2002 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.