Thurrock? Where the hell is that?

Yep, that was my response to being told where I was going to be stationed upon completion of my ambulance course.

I got a map book out, studied it for a while and then rang Carley.

‘Right…’ she said.

Not much of a response I know but it was better than I had first thought. I knew she wanted as much as I to escape Felixstowe so I was quietly confident we weren’t going to row. I felt guilty as hell though. We had been hoping to get Chelmsford. Yet as just about everyone else in my class was being allocated their respective stations I got a little impatient and rang up the human resources department instead of waiting for them to call me. Had I waited then I may have got my first choice. Okay my first choice was a little non-specific (I simply wrote Essex North on the form) but it still would have been a damn site better than Thurrock.

I firmly believe that this was one of those great forks in the road, where either choice is going to set you traveling down a road of immense change. I said to the lady on the phone that everyone else on  my course had pretty much been allocated and as we were nearing the end I needed to know roughly where I was going to be posted. I was going to have to move home from Suffolk to god knows where and so the more notice the better. She was very nice and explained that North Essex was a popular choice and they couldn’t guarantee I would be allocated Chelmsford. Why I didn’t ask about some of the other stations like Whitten, Colchester or even Harwich I don’t know. She said that if I wanted piece of mind and also give myself plenty of time to move… would I consider Thurrock in south Essex?

I must confess a few things. Firstly I was still over the moon about getting my foot in the door. I didn’t really care where I was going to be living. Secondly, I didn’t spare even one iota of a thought for Carley and what it would mean for her and ultimately for us. This I believe was a big mistake and exceptionally selfish.

Yet, young reckless me probably wouldn’t have listened to reason anyway. So I accepted and promptly rang Carley with the news she had been waiting for… Where we were going to be moving to. It was of particular importance to her as she would be the one with the crappy job of packing our life into a variety of cardboard boxes and moving it all down to Thurrock. Of course she would have to get her arse down their first though and have a snout a round for something we could afford to rent.

If only I knew then what i know now! I could have kept my mouth shut, hung out for any one of the northern stations and then who knows what? It’s entirely possible we wouldn’t even have had to move. I could have commuted. Alas, these things were not to be. That fork I came across in the road was massive and yet I stumbled blindly past.

I can see all the little turns after that now. I can see how everything that was to occur over the next few months most likely would not have happened had I been thinking clearly in the first place. Amazing thing that hindsight thingy.