A little more than a week after my last 'job' and at a little after 9.00 am. yesterday morning, I collected a hire-car from Guildford and headed towards a Ministry of Defence (MOD) camp in South Wales where a coach was waiting to be delivered to Anston, near Sheffield.

The coach wasn't due to be ready until early in the afternoon and, since a cousin of mine lived in the area, I 'phoned to ask if it might be convenient to call round for a cup of tea and a chat. We hadn't met for over sixty years until attending an uncle's funeral last year - when we exchanged addresses - and this was the first opportunity I had of visiting him and his wife since then.

Although I hadn't realised it when I 'phoned, they live less than a mile from the MOD camp and, after our brief 'reunion' and a promise to meet again, I headed off to collect the coach.

As is customary (and right and proper, IMHO) at MOD sites, there were a number of security procedures to negotiate before I gained access to the camp. However, once in, it didn't take long for me to me on my way out again and heading north.

In view of the late collection time, it was unlikely that I would reach Anston much before six or seven-o-clock in the evening and, since it had been hoped there might be further 'jobs' in the area, I had fully  expected to be away from home that night. Sadly, there were no 'jobs' in the offing and, as a consequence, I was expected to go home.

In the event, as I found myself becoming slightly stressed whilst experiencing delays during the evening rush-hour, I decided that, rather than get home rather late and very tired, I would prefer to stay out. However, after I had delivered the coach, I didn't feel nearly as tired as I had expected and elected to 'give it a go' and headed home. Luckily, I wasn't required to work today; so I could look forward to a lie-in.

For the last fifteen years, at intervals ranging from four or five times a week to once a fortnight and to an extent ranging from something akin to a mild toothache to being stabbed - and then having the blade twisted in the wound - I've suffered from a pain in the neck.

During that time, I've consulted physiotherapists, chiropractors, accupuncturists, sports masseurs and general practitioners and have been led to believe that the problem might be the result of a variety of issues ranging from climatic conditions, a trapped nerve to poor posture or stress. In the meantime, I've sought relief using magnets, health-suppliments, heat-creams, heat-sprays, ice-packs, wheat bags (heated in a micro-wave) as well as conventional painkillers.

Recently, having accepted that the most probable cause was some form of stress, I was advised to consider a form of psychotherapy known as Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and, since nothing else seemed to have worked and in spite of the fact it was awfully expensive, I reckoned there was nothing to lose - especially if it could reveal whatever might be the 'trigger-point' which sets off the attacks.

I had my first appointment on Thursday.

From the outset, the therapist has a pleasant and welcoming demeanour - asking, for example. if I would like a cup of tea and offering me the opportunity to 'spend a penny' before the session and enquiring whether there was any time constraint (from my point of view) before suggesting that the session would take 'as long as it needed'.

As we drank our tea, in what seemed to be a preamble to the session itself, he asked me to outline the history of my problem in some detail and to explain what my hopes were as a consequence of the session. He seemed confident that he would be able to help and, in particular (at my request) teach me how to practice some form of 'self-hypnosis'.

With the benefit of hindsight, I have formed the impression that his method involved two fundamental strategies.

Firstly, he tried to get me to recognise 'characteristics' of my own which might cause an element of tension - which, in turn, could (presumably) lead to the attacks. In order for me to recognise the aforementioned characteristics, he would tell 'stories' about meeting 'someone' in a supermarket, for example and, in describing that person's behaviour, I got the distinct impression I was expected to realise that it could well have been me he was describing.

The second strategy, I felt, involved getting me to focus on significant incidents in my past and, while concentrating on the memory of it, I was asked to follow the movement of his hand. I suspect, this was an attempt to induce some degree of hypnosis. It happened three, four, maybe five times and, so far as I could tell, didn't work. From my own point of view, I found it extremely difficult to concentrate on the memory and the movement of his hand at the same time.

Thereafter, the session seemed to be devoted to the first strategy and several examples of my own (sometimes latent and occasionally not very attractive) characteristics came to light and I was starting to get an understanding of what might be my own contribution towards my pain in the neck.

Suddenly, however, at a point where I was becoming really optimistic that a 'breakthrough' might be approaching, in spite of the fact that (at the outset) there had been no apparent time-limit, he suggested that he was concerned that the car parking certificate (which he kindly provided, by the way) was about to expire and that we would have to close the session.

I can't deny I was rather disappointed and I reminded him that I had got the impression that, if nothing else, I might have been given some understanding of self-hypnosis - to which he said he would send me an e-mail.

In the meantime, I presume, I'll have to make another appointment - if for no other reason than it seemed as though I was on the point of discovering 'the 'trigger-point' I've been searching for.

Quite early on Tuesday morning, I took the hire car I had used to get home from Birmingham on Monday, to get me to a National Express depot at Crawley, near Gatwick airport.

From there, I took a Volvo coach (which looked as though it had seen better days, but drove quite nicely) to a coachbuilder's depot at Waterlooville, near Portsmouth - where, conveniently, there was a bus waiting to be taken to Hounslow, near Heathrow airport. Both journeys passed quite smoothly and it was about 12.15 pm. when I reached Hounslow.

Bearing in mind my own car was still at home, the office had assumed that a hire-car would be required to get me there. However, I know a Woking taxi driver quite well; so, I suggested that I could telephone him and try to negotiate an attractive fare from there to my home. The reason I did this is that there is a frequent coach service from Heathrow to Woking railway station and the combined cost of that fare - plus the taxi fare - might be rather less than a hire-car would cost; which it was.

Over the weekend, a hire-car had been delivered to my home and, this morning, I drove it to Harlow in Essex where a rather smart-looking double-decker bus (see photo in New Buses & Coaches section) was waiting for me.

Evidently, it was a bus I had driven on several occasions when it had been a demonstrator vehicle. Subsequently, it had been spruced up in preparation for an ambitiious, overland, trip to Beijing, in China, as part of Mayor Ken Livingstone's plans to publicise the 2012 Olympics in London.

Unfortunately, however, his successor, Boris Johnson, decided that the expense couldn't be justified and the project was abandoned and the bus had been bought by a bus and coach operator in Birmingham - which is where I came into the equation.

It was an especially nice day and, having left Harlow at about 10.30 am. and stopped for a light lunch at the service station on the M6 near Coventry, I arrived at Birmingham at about 2.00 pm. Once again, a hire-car was waiting and I managed to get home just ahead of the evening rush-hour.

Bracknell, in Berkshire, is one of those places which is just a little too close to where I live to make any sense in booking a hire-car to get me there; and yet, it's far enough away to be quite awkward to reach using public transport. So, it was decided that I would use my own car to get there this morning.

The garage I was going to was supposed to have prepared two buses which were being returned to a leasing company in Milton Keynes. Unfortunately, however, although the extremely helpful lady 'in the downstairs office' had left all the necessary instructions, it seems there had been a breakdown in communications and, despite the fact that the engineer's appropriately and very properly dressed dog (see photo) did his very best to organise the work force, I still had to wait over an hour before the first bus was ready and it was about 9.15 am. when I left.

Although the first few miles of the drive were on the M4, rather than use the motorway system for the whole of the journey, I had decided to travel 'cross-country' via Aylesbury and, with that in mind, I left the M4 at Maidenhead.

The roundabout at this point is controlled by traffic lights - which were red. Unfortunately, when they turned to green, the bus seemed to have lost power. However, it could be moved very slowly on 'tick-over' and I managed to struggle away from the lights to a point where I could pull over to allow the queue (which I had caused) to get past me.

Eventually, after a few minutes 'rest', the bus seemed to regain it's capacity to accellerate and I continued my journey - only to encounter the same problem at the next roundabout I arrived at. Once again, following a few moments 'rest', I managed to set off again. However, after experiencing the same problem at five or six roundabouts, I'd 'had enough' and pulled onto a side road to telephone the engineer at the garage in Bracknell.

Initially, having talked me through one or two procedures, he decided he had little alternative other than to come out to the vehicle. However, a few minutes after he had put the phone down, he called me back - explaining that he suspected there might be a problem with an electrical sensor on the footbrake.

From then on (to try to cut a long story short)  I managed to complete the journey by leaning down to the footbrake and pulling it towards me every time the  bus came to a halt and that seemed to sort it out - although I took aver an hour longer than I might have done had there not been a problem and it was some time after 1.00 pm. when I arrived at Milton Keynes

As usual, a hire-car was waiting for me and I headed straight back to Bracknell - stopping on the way for a quick mug of tea and a bacon sandwich at a transport 'cafe' in a lay-by.

Mercifully, the second journey to Milton Keynes was completed without incident. However, the evening rush-hour was just 'kicking-in' as I set off  back towards Bracknell. Nevertheless, it could have been a great deal worse; epecially bearing in mind it was (for most of the UK) the Friday when schools broke-up for the summer holidays and, according to BBC Radio 5 Live, the motorways were experiencing much heavier volume of traffic than usual.

It would be about 6.30 pm. when I got back to my own car - and my journey home wasn't too bad because, by then, the worst of the rush-hour was over and done with.

The hire-car I had taken home on Friday was required to get me to Harlow (near Stanstead airport) quite early this morning. So, since it was a Monday, I decided to leave home at about 6.30 am. in the hope that I might be just ahead of the rush-hour. Sadly, I wasn't and it took the thick end of two hours to get there.

Anyway, having collected a mini-bus which had been 'in' for some modifications, I headed back towards the Dartford Crossing (photo in People & Places section) and took it to a London Borough of Greenwich council depot in Thamesmead - which is a few miles upstream from Dartford on the south side of the Thames.

From there, it had, originally, been intended that I would meander (via Waterloo) back to Guildford and my own car and, with that in mind, I had brought my newspaper with me in order to tackle the crossword. However, as is often the case, a new job came in and the office 'phoned to ask me to hurry back to Dartford in a taxi in order to collect another hire-car.

The reason I had to go to Dartford was that it takes about two hours for a hire-cat to be delivered to whereever we might need it. So, since there was an element of urgency with the 'new' job and there was insufficient time to bring the mountain to Mohammed, a 'walk-in' was the only alternative.

It would be about 11.00 am. when I left Dartford. Evidently, I needed to get to an industrial estate at Iver in Buckinghamshire before the chap who looking after the vehicle I was collecting left at 12.30 pm. Luckily, the traffic on the M25 was running quite smoothly by now and I arrived with a quarter-of-an-hour to spare.

The vehicle I was collecting was a Scania coach which was a little more than ten-years old. Although it had seen better days, it ran quite well and I set off along the M4 in a westerly direction and aiming for junction 17 where I would turn off towards the town of Malmesbury in Wiltshire.

Earlier in the day, I had tried out my SatNav device to locate the council depot in Thamesmead and, later on, the bus depot in Iver. Since on both occasions, I experienced a quite lamentable lack of success, I decided to stop on the outskirts of Malmesbury to telephone the garage I was aiming for to ask for directions - and, it's just as well I did because I would never have found the place had not one of their drivers come out in a van to 'guide' me there.

On this occasion, there had been time for the office to order a hire-car for me. So, after a welcome mug of tea and some biscuits, as most of the drivers from the garage set off to start their afternoon school runs, I headed for the M4 again - arriving back in Guildford as the evening rush-hour kicked in and I managed to get home just in time to catch the BBC early-evening news headlines before jumping into a steaming hot bath - and a belated stab at the crossword.

For some reason the office had thought I wasn't available on Friday. Nevertheless, when - at very short notice - a request to return the bus I had collected from Heathrow on Wednesday morning came in, they 'phoned to see if I could do it.

Friday afternoon isn't the most attractive time of the week to try to negotiate the M25 and it was agreed that Saturday morning would be a better option. So, at about 9.00 am. I set off towards Guildford and, from there, having parked my car, it took less than an hour to get to the National Express depot to deliver the bus.

Probably because, the request to do the job had arrived rather late on Friday, it hadn't been possible for a hire-car to be waiting for me. However, the office had negotiated for me to 'walk-in' to a hire-car company's compound at the airport and one of the National Express controllers arranged a lift for me to get from the bus depot to the airport.

Given the choice, I wouldn't choose to try to collect a hire-car from Heathrow airport on a Saturday morning again. Quite simply, there were too many people wanting cars at a time when too few seemed to be available. As a consequence, it took over an hour for a car to be ready for me - that despite the fact that my office had indicated what time I would be arriving.

To add to the delay, traffic on the M25 was practically stationary when I re-joined it. So, I took the earliest opportunity to leave it and I used conventional roads to make my way home - where I had been asked to take the hire-car because I would be needing it to get to a job early on Monday morning.

Originally, it had been planned that I would take my own car to Sutton, in south London, quite early this morning and collect a nearly-new mini-bus from a local council depot and take it to an international transport company's premises in an industrial estate at Send (near Woking) where a demonstration of 'mobility' vehicles was taking place.

Since the demonstration was expected to last all day, the office had, very kindly, decided to book a hire car for me to use at my own discretion in the meantime. I could have gone home or played golf, for example.

However, as is often the case (best laid plans of mice and men etc.....) plan A soon became plan B and I was asked to drive the hire-car to the National Express depot near Heathrow and collect a bus which needed to be taken - post haste - to the manufacturer's factory in Guildford; which I did.

Anyway, the upshot of this change of plan was that instead of enjoying a day of leisure the office had planned for me,  I sat and twiddled my thumbs for three-and-a-half-hours until the demonstration was over.

Fortunately, it did finish about half-an-hour earlier than expected and I managed to get back to Sutton - and, from there, home - just before the evening rush hour kicked in.

Yesterday morning, I drove my own car to Guildford railway station to collect my boss (pictured below). From there, I dropped him off at fire appliance manufacturer's factory on the outskirts of the town before driving round to another factory on the same industrial estate (which has 24 hour security) where I parked my car.

Conveniently, by the time I had walked back, my boss had arranged for two fire appliances to be started up in readiness for us to take them to a Hereford & Worcester Fire & Rescue depot in Malvern.

Although I have driven smaller conversions, because I don't hold an HGV driving license, it isn't often that I get a chance to drive a fire appliance. My boss, on the other hand, has driven just about anything you could think of to just about everywhere and, as a consequence, he was familiar with the location of the depot  and led the way.

We arrived around lunchtime and, after a welcome cup of tea and some biscuits (they're a generous lot - firemen) and reluctant to turn down my bosses invitation to drive the waiting hire-car (he always uses a larger model than the rest of us) I drove him to a truck & bus depot in Avonmouth - where he collected a single-decker bus for delivery to a bus company in Eastleigh.

Under normal circumstances, it may well have been that I would have been allocated that job myself. However, I was due to attend an annual eye-check at Dorking hospital on the following day and, to avoid any complications (should the bus have broken down, for example) I drove the hire-car back to where my own car was parked in Guildford - and home.

I enjoyed a day off on Tuesday.

Following a call from the office this morning, at around lunchtime, I drove my own car to Guildford to meet up with another driver and we drove (in a hire-car) up to Leyland, in Lancashire, where we collected a couple of LHD double-deckers which were bound for Los Angeles (via Southampton docks).

From there, we managed to get as far south as Newbury - where we stayed the night - before delivering into the docks on Thursday morning.

At the time we arrived, there was no sign of any further work for either of us that day and we made our way to the railway station in order to get to our respective homes. Whilst there (at the station) the office 'phoned to ask if I could return the bus I had delivered from Docklands into Guildford last week - which I would.

Evidently, my company had been told that the bus would be ready at lunchtime. However, although I arrived at the factory at noon, it was a little after 2.30 pm. before I got away. In the meantime, the office had telephoned again to ask if I would be prepared to go back to Leyland to collect another bus for Southampton docks (a single-decker bound for Hong Kong).

Once again, another driver was involved and, when the hire-car eventually arrived at Docklands (it was late), I took advantage of the SatNav device I had been given at Christmas to get to his home in Hackney.

Although I don't use the SatNav very often (it isn't that good when large vehicles are involved and part of the attraction of my work is dealing with the logistical side of things), I have to say, it is a godsend in London.

Anyway, although we were caught up in the evening rush-hour, we made quite good time and arrived in Leyland a little before 10.00 pm. and, some twenty minutes after collecting the bus, I booked into the  hotel at the Charnock Richard service staion near Chorley.

The following morning, the other driver (a much younger and fitter version than myself) had some social activities planned for that afternoon; so, he had left long before I got up. Nonetheless, although it was a Friday, I arrived at Southampton a little before 2.00pm.

Coincidentally, another of our drivers was delivering a bus into the docks at about the same time and, since he was returning to his home in the north of England, a hire-car had been booked for him and he gave me a lift to the railway station.

From there, I took a train to Woking, a taxi to where my own car was parked (which was on the Woking side of Guildford) and drove home to a welcome hot bath - for me - not the car!