It felt a bit like the first day at school or the first day in a new job when I went to collect the bike from James the previous rider who very kindly spent some time showing me around the bike so I would know where to find everything  needed for the weekends duty.

The 30 minute ride home to Yate gave me a chance to get rid of the butterflies and get a feel for The Flying Crane as the BMW bikes are in many ways very different to most bikes, arriving home around 18:30 I let the Co-ordinator know when I was ready to be 'on-call'

At 19:20 my first job came in, collect samples from the Royal Mineral Hospital and deliver them to the Pathology Laboratory at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath. As the Royal Mineral Hospital is in the centre of the city I found myself having to ride through groups of people who for no particular reason were walking in the road. That job completed it was back home to await further calls. I was quite pleased not to get any calls through the night as it rained very heavily all night.

The first call on Saturday morning didn't come until 10:30 and that was to take medication from RUH to Cedar Ward at Chippenham, then straight back to the RUH for more medication — this time for Frome Community Hospital and collect samples to go back to the RUH, calling into Paulton Birthing centre to collect more samples for RUH. With no jobs outstanding it was back to Yate for some well earned refreshment. This is actualy very important if you don't refuel your body you can become tired and your levels of concentration drop which is not a good thing when riding a motorcycle. Although the next call was non urgent I got back on the bike and headed for the Riverside NHS Walk In Centre to collect what looked like the whole days samples to go to RUH, but before I left Riverside an Urgent call is recieved for blood samples to be collected from Frome birthing Centre so i head off to Frome. I was about half way there when i have to stop to take a call from the coordinator to tell me the Frome collection had been cancelled as the babies the samples were from were being transfered by amblance to RUH. So it's back to RUH to deliver the samples from Riverside. It is now 20:00. Little did i know at 19:55 a call from Cedar Ward at Frome came in to collect samples for the RUH so it's back to Frome, they did apologise for making me go back after cancelling the first call but i didn't mind it was quite a nice dry night a little chilly though so the heated hand grips became very useful. Back home at 22:00 with no calls during the night.

The first call on Sunday at 08:22 was to take two units of blood from RUH to Frome for this I had to use my car as the Flying Crane is awaiting a special rack to be fitted to carry the large containers which keep the blood cool. Sunday had started quiet but after leaving home at 11:30 to collect samples from Paulton Hospital which was less than an hours journey from home I didn't actualy get there until 15:20 as this job was Non-Urgent it got postponed while I took care of several Urgent jobs which inluded Meds from RUH to Warminster collecting swabs from Warminster to go back to RUH but first collecting more samples from Trowbridge Community Hospital bound for the RUH then collecting the samples from Paulton on the way and delivering them all to the Pathology lab at RUH. Arriving home at around 17:00 theres time for some tea before the next call at 19:14 to collect samples from St Martins Hospital Bath to go to the Pathology lab at RUH completed by 20:15, fuelling the bike on my way home to ensure the next rider started his duty with a full tank. I got back home by 21:00 and had no further calls. With no calls through the night i gave The Flying Crane a wash to help her (or is it him?) stay looking as smart as the day that All Hallows presented it to Freewheelers.

There was one funny and slightly scary moment. As I entered a long deserted corridor in one of the hospitals i heard a voice shout "STOP!" a few seconds later and as my heartbeat was returning to normal the voice, which I then discovered came from a talking sign on the wall asked "Have you sanitised?" It was there to remind all visitors to use the sanitiser before entering and leaving the ward.

An enjoyable weekend and I'm looking forward to my next duty at the end of March.