Woof

So completes another week of toil at the mine face and one more to go.

I have three doggie stories for you that helps perpetuate my name.  The odd thing is that in each case I have never had trouble at these places and there wouldn’t have been any hassle if their brainless owners hadn’t been around.  It also reinforces the fact that one should never let their guard down on this job even though you may have worked the area many times before without incident.

It might be too much for one blog and your attention span so I’ll split them up.  Just pretend I’m on the couch and you guys are the shrinks!  Therapy is good in this job!

I had one account to go which finished at the beach and my car in easy reach.  At the 2nd last house, I was reading the meter and saw the woman next door sitting on a banana lounge and she had her huge, snarling mongrel tied up under the meter box.  There was no fence between the two houses and she asked if I was coming into her place and I said is the Pope a catholic.

She then got the dog and took it inside while I read her meter.  I suspected something wasn’t quite right as I heard a commotion inside and her shouting at the dog.  I always exit this place out the back gate which leads to a car park for the aptly named Doggie Beach where dog owners can walk their mutts.

I was half way across the lawn when this beast smashed itself out the flywire door closely followed by it screaming owner who had absolutely no control over her animal.  Fortunately, he headed towards the previous house where he had last seen me while his head was jerking around looking for me but I was off faster than a brides nightie.  I knew the back gate had  a sticky lock so I engaged the brain into overdrive and headed for the fence instead with this rabid dog and it’s equally rabid owner hard on my heels. 

I remember clearing this fence with one leap and landing at the other side and my first thought was, “Hey, not bad for a 60 year old”. 

This thing was hanging off the fence giving me an earful so I gave it a parting whack with a handy branch and the owner a lashing with my tongue while she tried to drag it back inside.

Woof-woof and woof-woof-woof to follow.

The Feint Hearted

Another big day on another beautiful day.  Started off in 4c and the hands soon froze with my gloves still back in the car.  However, the sun soon popped over the buildings and things warmed up quickly.

I had an hour of the final day round to finish and then knocked off the Ocean Grove shopping centre for the 19th time.  Needless to say I have a fair idea where they all are in this rabbit warren.  The only trouble is that it takes me a lot longer than when I first started as I’ve got to know a lot of the shop owners and we’re all in for a chat.  Except for one.

The local bike shop owner has taken on a partner who is a right prick. I heard a couple of his workers left because of the way he treats them so I was reading at the rear of his store when he came out the back door to meet a delivery van driver.  A couple of places back I’d had trouble with an errant lock on a meter box and took the opportunity to ask if I could borrow a pair of pliers.  I never got past the words, “Could I ask a favour……….” when he said to me, “I don’t have time for you as I’ve got customers waiting”. The van driver thought he was a prick too and kindly lent me some pliers.  I was one of his customers too having spent a lot in that shop in the past.  The emphasis is on the ‘was’!

I did have some fun at LIT’s expense today.  I was working at 4pm and still had the completed final day round in the PDE and was just hanging out for the panic phone call even though I’d tried to smooth their nerves two days back and convince them that I wasn’t a total twit and could be relied upon to get the work in by 5pm.

They still think I’m a twit, as sure enough, the call comes in at 4:15 and so I impersonate a twit and tell them I thought it was tomorrow! 

Okay, so I didn’t realise he had a crook ticker!

Too tired to think of a title

I’m totally thrashed after another 8 hour day and managed to get 1¾ rounds completed in record time.  I moved along very rapidly for the 8 hours and only had a quick break when I dived home for some tucker and a wee.

I temporarily joined this man’s army for the exercise, and boy, am I getting it!  It’s more of the same for tomorrow and Thursday and I may have a very short day on Friday as MP and I have become a Great Aunty and Uncle to our niece (MPS’s No 1 daughter) and we may have some visiting to do.  If not, I may sleep all day!

I dropped LIT an email this morning before work telling them not to bother me with nervous phone calls, because if they ask me how I’m going, I’ll just talk about the weather.

Seems to have worked a treat, and by the way, the weather is just dandy too.

A Technicolour Yawn

I started off working at sunup in the Geelong suburb of Belmont thinking I was in for an easy 6 hour round.  However, I ended up feeling quite stuffed at the end even though it was easy reading in an older area with small gardens and meters in easy reach.  Muppet’s daddy had me working like a mule at his place yesterday shifting tons of gravel around his driveway so I think I was suffering the after effects from that. 

It started off chilly but soon developed into a beautiful day of around 16c ideal for this caper.  I was sitting on the boot of the car temporarily enjoying my egg and lettuce sandwich and coffee when a car screeched to a halt behind me and a girl in her early 20’s jumped out and proceeded to deposit a technicolour yawn all over the nature strip just a few metres in front of me.  When she finished barfing away, she looked up and gave me one of those, “what are you looking at” looks so I couldn’t resist a, “You don’t feel like the rest of my egg and lettuce sanger by any chance?”.  If looks could kill and she then turned and gave the grass one last spurt!

I was on a final day round and LIT gets very nervous on these occasions because it costs them heaps if they miss the deadline uploading the data to BIT.  So they now have this new routine going where they ring you in the morning and afternoon to see how you are getting on and to be sure you don’t throw a spanner in the works.  I tried to convince them that I was capable of knowing what day it was and could be relied upon to maintain the status quo but they said rules are rules and they would continue to ring and check every day I was on a final round.

Some mischief is brewing in my head for tomorrows call!  Could have a bit of fun here.

I’m over here Fido

How did I fare on my first full day back on the track after a 3 month lay-off?  Not bad, thanks.  Did a round in just under 8 hours and pulled up feeling okay so maybe the running and walking of late has kept me in reasonable nick.  The only reason I’m back meter reading is for the exercise and getting me into shape walking wise for Nepal in October.  Getting paid well to do it isn’t bad either.

I started off on a very cold morning and threatening skies and with all the battle gear on and I had to work for a period close to Corio Bay and the wind off the water wasn’t much fun.  The first half hour was all fingers and two left feet but the rhythm soon returned and Dogbait’s cogs were soon well oiled as we whipped in and out of houses delivering more doom and gloom to the customers!

By lunch time, I was down to the shirt and shorts as the sun popped out briefly and it was a far cry from the lousy day we had yesterday so that was a bonus.

Oh, I did have a dog story today. A blind mutt got stroppy with me and was barking away at fresh air as I stood behind him so I had to keep reminding him where I was and then I circled around him to start the guessing game all over again!  Sad, I know. And childish! 

On Monday, I’m in the Geelong suburb of Belmont.  I’ve only ever done one round in Belmont before and by coincidence it’s the same one.  Then it’s back to OG for the rest of the week and hopefully I can come up with some interesting babble for you.

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho…..

It’s off to work we go.  So, okay, I’m a sucker for the words “please help” and so I’m dragging the gear out of mothballs for some more Dogbait adventures.  Probably just a week or until I get sick of it.  When I asked how long they wanted me at my rates, I was told as long as I liked.

Seems they are in trouble in other areas and are using the Geelong MR’s to fill in and some of the guys are being put up in motels 100’s of k’s away to stick their fingers in the dykes.

I can’t believe how insane I am, because at this moment, I’m listening to rain and hail pounding on the roof and it’s been like this all day and the temperature has barely struggled above 10c.  It would have to be one of the lousiest days for ages and the forecast is for worse tomorrow, but hey, who’s complaining about the rain.

So I get a PDE delivered this evening and my round for tomorrow is one I used to hate in the next town across and takes 7 to 8 hours.  It’s just damn boring in a nothing suburb and with a new estate thrown in so the bad language will be flying as I struggle through seas of mud.  The rest of next week is in OG and a lot shorter rounds so I might be able to get home for a nap!  If they get wind of that, I’ll be shoved off to a dyke somewhere else.

Better go and check the new tank as I’m sure it’s full now and it’s not even hooked up to the roof yet!

More, more, more

I’ve watched with fascination the hysteria shown by many blogger’s and newspaper commentators about the soaring petrol and food prices and personally  I have thought it was a good thing anyway.

The world needs to slow down and take stock because it’s going belly up very fast. Nowadays, everyone needs to have the biggest, newest, widest and a mortgage and credit card debt that rivals the GDP of a small country.

We still have to buy guzzling vehicles, consume food by the truck load and we are living well beyond the essential basics of life.  In a few months we will be back in Nepal which is a good eye opener to what you don’t need to survive.

I read a couple of days ago that the monster of all shopping experiences, Costco, is coming to Melbourne and this place sums up the excesses of Western society so well.

Catherine Deveny, writing in the Age today, sums it up far better than I could and it makes excellent reading.

I remember as a kid, before we had a car or TV, riding to the dusty corner store and buying a bag of broken biscuits for a penny.  I might be getting old, doddery and regressing to my childhood but do I yearn for those days again?

You bet!

Where’s Santa?

Our trip to the mountains a couple of weeks ago was well timed considering it has been dumping snow up there this week.  We made it to just below the summit of Mt Bogong without a single flake of the stuff to be seen and now it’s well and truly covering the mountains.  It’s the second week of the school holidays and the timing has been good for the ski resorts in that regard.  When it doesn’t get much above 10c at our place you can be assured of snow higher up and even a lot of country areas in lower altitudes got a dump of the white stuff today.

Today we lashed out on a new 2300 litre water tank which will be installed on Thursday.  Now we can run water off the roof and use it on the plants especially in the hotter weather as we can only water for 2 hours a day twice a week.

Damn, I forgot, it needs to rain to fill the tank!

Take it back!

What a nerve

I’ll post this one without comment, because if I did, I wouldn’t know when to finish.

The flying shitzu

I think my last two posts show that I’m getting a bit intolerant and sarcastic in my old age so today I promised myself that I’d mend my ways.

So I bounced out into the garden to get the lawn mown and had the garage door up while I got the leaf blower topped up and this shitzu dog came sniffing around my legs. It then followed me down the path so I turned and encouraged it with some choice words to vacate the property asap but to no avail.

Now my long term sufferers readers will realise that I have no love for these miscreant little shits ooze but this one was overly friendly but a nuisance as it jumped all over me scratching my legs with it’s sharp claws.  It had a coat on which signified it had a wacky owner who soon emerged as she walked past the house.

She made no effort to call her dog off my property and just said, “He’s just trying to say hello”.  Well blow me over red rover, another dog owner who presumes everyone loves their pooch. 

So here I am thinking about my new resolution which immediately went out the door when I said, “G’day, Rover and goodbye” and with that I fired up the Ryobi leaf blower.  Now this thing is as noisy as a 747 on takeoff and I pulled the starter while the dog was about 10cm’s from the motor and I guarantee you it took one bound of about 10 metres to land in his owners arms!   He’s called Zu now because I scared the shit right out of him!

I know, I’m wicked and a hypocrite.