It was OK Malcolm - why do you ask? Although I was just a little distracted at the time...
What a week!
First up, massive traffic snarls getting out of town. Cold, rainy, accidents, coppers, you name it. After six hours on the road I stopped for chips at a truck stop. They had a dining area signposted "Reserved for Professional Drivers", the sole two inhabitants thereof looked like bikers doing a drug deal, or undercover cops impersonating bikers. As a thoroughly unprofessional driver I ate whilst pedalling along a back road in the darkness, using my GPS on maximum zoom like a surrogate co-driver (it doesn't call the turns, but you get the idea). Arrived chateau half ten in the evening.
Next day, weather had turned about. For two days it was hot. Make that
SERIOUSLY EFFING HOT. What kind of numbskull sets himself up to dig postholes in the blazing heat without gloves? My steel bar got instantly superheated and burned major blisters into both hands. Stop laughing, now - it hurt and my Mum wasn't there to make it better.
The dirt was like rock - awesomely hard. Found the odd redback, too. To get out of the sun for a bit, I delivered some fast-moving beef pies to the café - about eighty miles return. Spheres need regassing. The local tip is free for garden waste, for variety I took a good number of trailer loads there on Saturday.
Sunday it rained. Enough to put a "damper" (Scrabble: triple pun score) on plans. We eventually moved two cars between venues with long intervals of visiting mates and yakking. I found a cute spider about six inches across, and poked it with my finger to get a response.
It reared up, showing a decent set of fangs. Hmm, maybe it wasn't the harmless type I initially thought.
Monday I started concreting posts in. I got to meet Buddy. He's a golden retriever pup, about 3/4 grown. I know he was called Buddy because it said so on his name tag and there was a phone number. My batphone has no reception there. Fail? Buddy wanted to share his favourite new toy with me. This was a dead frog; maybe three days so and well-chewed. Dog frog breath isn't nice, and dunderhead dog was intent on stumbling all over my stringlines as he mock chased this escaping amphibian. Tragedy struck; my shovel somehow picked up the frog and it fell into a post hole, to immediately be covered with a barrowload of concrete. Buddy wasn't fazed; he just jumped in and tried to dig it out. Yes, I know what you're thinking and I was tempted - but couldn't be sure how thick the concrete needed to be, before that microchip was unscannable. So - Once all the concrete was in place, Buddy got a good wash. I've never washed a dog before, let alone scrubbed concrete off a frisky pup's head - so this was an education in itself. He followed me excitedly down the street as I drove home...
My steering hose, recently repaired at great cost by an indie hose jockey, failed again that afternoon - I barely made it back to evening base before the PAS was all gone from fluid loss. I found this out on a late run for extra bags of concrete mix, leaving a beautiful green trail through the drive-in trades section of Big Hardware Chain. With a borrowed car, I crawled into the main town next day, plonked my hose on the franchise company's table and cried... almost. The repair was 2/3 of Sydney prices, but now I had to buy full synth ATF (no LHM in town), and brimmed the tank on my borrowed van. By one-thirty I was mobile again, finished off a couple of tomato sangers and headed back into the paddock for another dig session.
Last day came, and I split it between tip runs and concreting. Hot again, hotter than forecast and I was
roasted. I need to stop being such a nancy about choice of hat and just get a bloody titfer on my bonce. Then it was time - just as I was getting into the groove with barrow mix concrete - to scrub the barrow, load up and return home via the caf. Local answer to the chip butty is a potato scallop (like a battered potato cake) burger. Mmm! Washed it down with a cappucino and commenced the Big Drive.
Found a city type driver in the middle of BFN, too. They overtook me in their van complete with "My Family" stickers on the outward fringe of a small town, impatient with my slow gaining of speed. Guess who whooshed past them into the night shortly thereafter?
I maintained some seriously naughty rates of progress for the first eighty or so miles until the roads became too populated for quick, safe travel. At one point on the highway back into Sydney, temperature dropped to 11°C on the display - barely 1/3 of that day's working temperature. Big love for the 500ml bottles of "V" - seriously good kit when you're pressing on.
So now it's time to re-urbanise, at least for a few days.
That demonstrated it perfectively!
