Out the window on the right…

…you’ll see roses planted at the ends of the vine rows. It is often said that white roses mean white grapes, red roses red grapes. While this is true in some cases, there is actually a more practical use for the gardeners delight. Fungi and aphids will attack the roses before they go for the vines, so the growers use them as an early warning system as to when and what to treat the vines for.

--- *** ---

After I arrived back in Australia after my time working in Africa [link] I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do. I went a sat for my Heavy Goods driving license. I passed.

While the job market in the corporate sector was suffering from a downturn, due to various reasons I thought I’d drive a truck to make ends meet. Lack of experience put paid to that idea, so I stumped up a bit more cash, sat a test and got my Bus Drivers Authority.

Now I’m driving a silver 14 seater Mercedes Sprinter from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, three or four days a week.

I tried to get a bigger bus, but unless I started driving for State Transit (public buses) I needed to have experience. I got the gig I got because the owner wanted someone who didn’t have bad habits from previous roles.

I’ve done a few trips now, about 12 and apart from finding the 5am start and the F3 the most boring road on the face of the planet, I really enjoy it.

I do however need a proper job…the amount of cash for a 14 hour day is a tad beyond daft!

Manual Labour

As some will be aware I have my truck drivers license. I can drive a vehicle with three or more axles up to 22 tonnes. Not really that exciting if you’re not into driving, but if like me you love driving, it’s just another machine to conquer.

In my current state of unemployment and in a desperate corporate environment, I thought I’d give driving for a living a go.

Over the last few weeks I have made nearly 80 phone calls to various companies asking if they need drivers. Dustbin collection, cement, line-haulage, bulk landscape supplies, coach companies and car haulage. A guy at one of the car haulage companies said, ‘it’s more of a man’s job love’.

I had an interview with a bin collection company, but for my interview I think I was over dressed. I wore jeans, a business shirt and jacket. If I hadn’t have washed them for a week I would have fitted in perfectly. Unfortunately, my outfit was clean and I was wearing deodorant. They didn’t call me back.

I went to an interview with a tour bus company. It sounded good, but they have never called me again.

The third company to respond to my requests for employment was a warehousing company with property in Sydney and Canberra. They wanted a night driver to ferry goods between the warehouses. At their request I sent in my CV, with the disclaimer that it not a classic truck drivers CV, but I was really interested in driving. I was called into an interview.

‘I’m looking to retire’. This was the opening line of the interview.

My interviewer preceded to tell me about wanting someone to take over the operations manager role and looking at my CV I seemed capable of such a role. Driving a truck, he told me, was not worthy of my talents.

‘I didn’t grow up thinking to myself, when I grow up, I want to be a Change Communications Consultant. I grew up wanting to drive taxi’s trucks or buses. I was hoping to take this chance to live a dream’.

He asked me to start on Thursday at 7am. ‘Wear your lovely new steel toe caps.’

I set my alarm and got up at six. I saw the sunrise. That is just so wrong on so many levels I can’t go into it now. But let me just say I believe sunrise so only be seen on spontaneous romantic mornings, mostly when sleep hasn’t been had yet.

I’d packed a lunch the night before and I was ready for my first day as a truck driver.

Upon my arrival the warehouse was already busy with trucks being loaded and unloaded. Men in Hi-Vis of yellow and orange buzzing around. I had personally selected the yellow vest that I use when riding my bike in adverse weather. The Boss, saw me and told me to observe for a while, ‘see if you can figure out what’s going on and who’s doing what’.

That took me about five minutes, I stood there for nearly any hour.

Then the box shifting commenced. First I helped a guy load his truck. Then I moved some boxes from one pallet to another. Then I cleaned up all the bundles of discarded pallet wrap and cardboard boxes and got to use the Elephant Foot garbage compactor. Then back to moving boxes, but now I got to use the hand pallet jack.

At the end of the day I got to clean up the big puddle of water in the middle of one of the cold rooms. The mop I was given to use was so dirty it wouldn’t absorb any water. I ended up using a giant squeegee to push the water out into the open air.

I didn’t stop for seven hours.

After driving home, I stopped the car in the driveway. It took me about five minutes to get out.

This morning I crawled out of my lovely warm bed at 0610. I got to work at just after 7. The place was a madhouse. Six truck inside the warehouse being loaded, two outside. I was immediately put to work.

‘Help Ali load, he’s bulk picking’.

By ten past seven I was loading boxes full of pre-cut salads bound for Pizza Hut into a refrigerated truck. Having moved over 250kgs I assisted another truck driver load. Then I was asked to move the water collection barrel out of the cold room and drain it. Now sweep the floor. Moved these drink can pallets with the pallet mover. Now, make these six pallets, three pallets, by hand.

I was complimented on my pallet wrapping skills. ‘I’ve never seen anyone wrap pallets so effectively the first time out.’

I just smiled and carried on.

Being knackered and ready to tell people to FOAD. I had a chat with The Boss. I told him this wasn’t really what I thought I’d be doing and that I didn’t really think I wasn’t cut out for such a labour intensive job, after all I’d applied for a night driver job. He told me, he’d already hired a night driver.

14 hours of hard labour. $264.

Knowing I never, ever, ever, never, ever have to go back again and get so dirty it takes a thirty minute shower to get clean: Priceless

That was an experience.

Career Change

I’ve been working in an office environment for a long time, most of my working life, in fact. While I enjoy my job. Talking to people, training and writing. I feel I should extract myself for a while and fulfil a childhood dream.

There were a few things I wanted to do, be a vet, join the police force (sorry, service) or drive a bus. Specifically, be a Tour Bus Driver.

Blame Cliff Richard and Una Stubbs

So now that I’m no longer working in Africa and I’m having issues finding a corporate job in Sydney, I thought I’d pursue my driving ambition.

On the 6th October I spent the day driving a three axle vehicle loaded with 22 tonnes of rock, at the end of it, I passed the test and converted my licence to heavy vehicle one.

Next thing was to sit through the most ridiculous test I have ever done. 200 odd questions including things like, ‘what does VIP stand for?’ and other daftness, see the picture for examples.



For the last two weeks I have been making phone call after phone call to allsorts of companies. Big ones, small ones and just as Baby Bear did, just right ones. The story is always the same.

Minimum two years experience.

Here’s the thing. How does anyone become a heavy good driver when experience isn’t pre-installed?

That said. I do have two interviews tomorrow.

The first is at 11am with a waste disposal company. They want to groom me for a manager role. Apparently my CV is too impressive to be ‘just a driver’. Nice, but I want to be.

The second is at 1pm with a tour company. While they would like me to do a ‘bit of casual driving’ they really want me to rewrite their website and develop training that all their drivers will go through.

Do you think I can get away with charging my corporate daily rate?

I’m happy with lower wages to drive a truck…but majorly discounted office work…I’m not sure that’ll work for me.

NatGeo Wild

I’m in Nigeria, working at the moment and the only telly channel I have found that is reliable and doesn’t shows series that you get into is National Geographic Wild (aka NatGeoWild). I learnt all sorts of things about when Crocodiles ate Dinosaurs and giraffes being relocated, amongst other things.
One thing though that has been reoccurring is an advert for sister channel National Geographic. I shows a series of beautifully taken shots (it would, it is National Geographic after all) with the following voice over:

If you Are, you breathe
If you Breathe, you talk
If you Talk, you ask
If you Ask, you think
If you Think, you search
If you Search, you experience
If you Experience, you learn
If you Learn, you grow
If you Grow, you wish
If you Wish, you find
If you Find, you will doubt
If you Doubt, you question
If you Question, you understand
If you Understand, you know
If you Know, you want to know more
If you want to Know more, then you are ...
Alive


I love it! :-)

Kids!

A few of my friends are mothers of the two legged varity of child. One such child had his first fisty-cuff at kindergarten today and has a bit of a black eye to prove it. In the photo he looks a bit happy about it all, a bit cuffed with his war wound.

Mum, Dad, Aunties, Uncles and friends of the family are incensed. Nearly all want to lynch the other fighting party, even though he's also only three or four years old. The comments on Facebook under the picture stretch to a few pages. My comment of 'Any ideas what started it all?' seems to have gone ignored.

I'm confused by this. I understand that Mum and Dad are upset, that needs no explaination but I don't understand the idea of the intense ill will toward the other child from those away from the situation. I understand that other family members are protective the child.

How is it that such venom can be directed at a child that seems to have been involved in a playground scuffle regardless of their role in starting it all?

The Bearer of Bad News

Once upon a time bad news was spread by hand written letter. I meant that you may have had to wait but you heard that your loved one in the next village, town or city had fallen to unfortunate circumstance.

Not too long ago, the phone would have rung and you would have received news of this nature from a familiar voice. A comforting aunt, brother or other sundry person may have been the bearer of tragic news within hours of the occurrence.

These days (and I’m not bagging the internet because I generally love it) Tweets, Facebook, texts and emails can be composed sat at hospital bedsides, so bad news, as well as good, can be spread about the world by means of a hastily composed, emotionless short message.

I have been on the receiving end of such messages, in the past and more recently.

Harry’s Dead :(
J is in hospital after a series of strokes and is unlikely to walk again.
N has had a testicle removed due to cancer, about to start chemo.

Why do people think it’s acceptable to send this type of news by such a detached means of communication?

Or do they do it, because it is detached and they don’t have to get into a discussion that may tug the heart strings?

Or, is it simply that people have lost the art of communication. Faceless notes without passion have replaced the lost art of the letter. Quick status updates and Tweets have replaced phone conversations.

I know with the spreading of families across the world timezones can cause a problem, but really is that an excuse not to make a phone call, or to wait weeks before sharing bad news?

I feel like we have become reliant on technology to share our bad news to avoid the heart ache and pain that come from giving bad news, but we often fail to consider the reactions and feeling of the person reading the message.

Climbing of the washing powder box now.

Thirteen Years

Today would have been my 13th wedding anniversary, but as my divorce is final (as of 7th November last year) and my ex and I are still on good terms I though I'd share a couple of things that make me grateful for the 12 years we were married.

I don't think I would have ever ended up in Australia if we hadn't have been together.

As a couple we had many good times, including many roadtrips around this wide brown land, so it wasn't all bad.

I had a chance to try my hand at farming. Alpaca, chooks, geese, mohair goats rabbits and a few other random animals...nothing worked, but it was good while it lasted.

He encouraged me to be myself and go for what I wanted. Of course it was this that ended us finally, but without him I think I could be a shy, brown mouse in a suburb somewhere cold.

This is a few of the reasons I decided that when I left I would keep it civil if we could. It worked. Now I have someone in my life that would be there for if I really needed it, and vice versa.

Happy Anniversary, some might think unlucky for some, 13 turned in a lucky number for us, because we finally made each other happy, as friends.

But, Is it Art?

The photographic artist, Spencer Tunick was at the Sydney Opera House this morning with over 5000 naked folks for a Mardi Gras inspired photography session.

I might have been temped to get in on the once-in-a-lifetime action, but frankly the 4am start put me off. Sleep is more important than art in my eyes. Between me and the cats, my house sees a lot of non-action.

I have however been interested by the debate that has started with the thought of people getting their kit off in public. Some think it's awful, some (and I missed this comment as it was deleted) think a bomb should have been dropped on the crowd (nice) and others started banging on about God and breastfeeding.

Below are a few actual comments (unedited) posted on the Yahoo newsfeed. I like the last comment most of all. :-)


David - No on got hurt and no one was forced into it and I'm sure thoughs involved had a good time Loosen up U guys theres people dieing in earth-quakes ect. whose to say the say thing can't happen here. Live once and enjoy it

Angela - hope men werent giving women the standing ovation...hahaha

Mustafa - Shouldn't they be arrested for public nudity?

jackrthom - Shudder, this must have been a gruesome sight! There are very few people in the world who look good with their clothes off. Most are simply revolting. If God meant humans to be naked he wouldn’t have provided us with silk worms or sheep. There is nothing artistic about this.

Holly - It not about art nor about loving your body.. I'm comfortable with my body yet i don't feel the need to get my kit off in public for pervets to see !!

Leanne - I wouldn't strip in public for anything, but good luck to those who did. They probably did it for a variety of reasons. So what! If you don't like it - don't look. I wish I had the nerve to do it, I'm sure it would be something that I would never forget, something to laugh about for...

Petra - Judging by the number of comments and the debate this has caused, I would say this is art at its best. And how does god come into this?

Scott - Forget the nudity. I'm more worried about all the illiteracy.

Mardi Gras

Only five and half hours before the 2010 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I think I should start getting ready. It take a little time to squeeze myself into the outfit.

Travel Blog

In the coming months I may be doing quite a bit of travel, some outside of Australia. So, I decided to start a journal on a site that is primarily set up for travel blogging.

I selected TravelPod after a girlfriend of mine started using it for her motorbike trip around Australia.

It has many funky features including easy photo upload, tracking maps, link ability with Facebook (still working on that) and a spell checker.

I’ll still be here for my questions, rants and general shooting of the breeze, but the bulk of the travel stuff will be done over at Jodie Sorrell TravelPod.

Promises, Promises

A few months back I passed my motorcycle test. This means I get to ride around the streets of Sydney on two wheels with a motor and sometime over-whelming amount of sweat between my skin and my armoured jacket.

As you can imagine it can get pretty hot when sat in traffic on a 38 degree day wearing full safety gear (helmet, gloves, jacket, Kevlar jeans and boots). You’re not moving it can be bad enough, but sat still, sometimes behind a bus that kicks out an extra few degrees, most motorcyclists nip between the rows of cars in a thing called, lane-splitting.

Europe has some of the most extreme lane-splitting

If you’ve been in a car, you’ve seen it. You’re sat in traffic that is barely moving and some bast*rd on a bike whooshes past you, either on the hard shoulder or between the two lanes of cars heading in the same direction. You swear at the offending so’n’so and wish that was you.

Shortly after started on my ‘L’ plates I did a mini lane split. I hopped around a few cars by going on the hard shoulder. My heart was pumping hard and it caused a slight hyper ventilation. I was so nervous about doing it. You see it requires good control of the bike and at that point I still wasn’t 100% confident with that control. I’m still not, but I’m a lot better than then.

I proudly mentioned my first lane split achievement to a friend at the time. Being a police officer she reminded me it was illegal. Yes, knew that. In fact it was illegal because it’s so dangerous. She then proceeded to tell me horror stories about cars suddenly changing lanes, trucks swerving and all manner of nastiness that car result of a bike hitting an immoveable object, such as a car, truck or ute. Then she hit me with:

‘Promise me you won’t lane split.’

I sat there, a rabbit caught in headlights, thinking. Is it a promise I can keep?

At the time, just under six months ago I could keep it. I was only about 30% confident around traffic. Everything happened really fast, so being stopped in traffic was OK. It gave me time to practice my slow manoeuvring skills, it gave me time to familiarise myself with my bike, Cap’n Hank. Genrally I had no issue with sitting in traffic.

Today I saw the folly in the promise.

What would have been at most a 50 minute commute to work this morning took one hour and forty five minutes. I’ll confess to cheating slightly even so. If I hadn’t I reckon it would have been a two hour plus trip.

How do you retract a promise?

Puss relaxes on the cool concrete in the shadows after Cap'n Hank's shower

What comes next?

Why is it that a really supremely crap Monday always follows a nice weekend?

My weekend consisted of a relaxing ride out to the Blue Mountains and Mount Tomah Gardens, a BBQ at a friend’s place with extremely pleasant company, a short stint laying on the grass in my back garden surrounded by my family (read Puss, O-Ren and Max) and a little bit of tidying. It was all rather nice and relaxing.

When the alarm went off this morning I was a little high on expectation.

It all went tits up when I got to the station, a mere 35 minutes after rising. I washed my fortnightly ticket in the back pocket of my jeans, by accident you understand. I only brought it on Wednesday last week so it still had nine day left. It had cost me $80. I was told by the station staff after my production of the receipt that a rail ticket is the same as cash, if you lose it you have to buy a new one and washing it is the same as losing it. ‘After all, if you washed cash or if you lost you purse, it would be gone’, I was told. It didn’t go down well when I told him that Australian cash is plastic and survives the washing machine quite well.

- I had to buy another ticket.
- I had to stand on the train.

A girlfriend suggested that I should have said 'Like cash ehh, I'd like to see you try and buy lunch with a train ticket.' Very valid I think. Thanks Nicole.

I got to work and took to my seat to play course administrator all day and deal with people complaining about the lack of spaces left even though they’d known about the course for weeks.
- I had to collate 160 six page documents manually.
- The meeting I prepared for was cancelled.
- And other general, I’m too important to talk to you moments.

I got on the train at the end of the day and it was 36degrees inside the metal tube. By the time I got off the train at my destination, after nearly an hour of rivulets of sweat running down my back, my trousers when soaking wet. For that pleasure, I'd paid twice.

I arrived home in what can be only described as a less than jovial mood. I needed something to take me out of that headspace.

Don’t judge me for getting some semblance of enjoyment from harvesting virtual sunflowers and milking cartoon cows that give strawberry milk.

Blogging Mobile

Is it possible to blog from bed using a mobile phone that's connectedto the Internet?

It would appear, that, yes it is.

How did the human race survive before Mr. Steve Jobs and his handy nerds invented the iPhone?

A Ride to the Mountains

I took Cap'n Hank for a ride to the Blue Mountains today. Along Bells End Line of Road and ending up at Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. Here a few of the pictures I took.


A honey bee collects for the hive


Self Portrait


An Eastern Water Dragon


The View of the Blue Mountains National Park from teh top of the Rock Garden

Fast One?

At 2.20pm yesterday afternoon I received a phone call while I was at work. On the other end of the phone was an Asian sounding lady saying she was from my Real Estate agents and that I was required to be home at 12noon today for an assessment. As I live in a rental property and this is the time of year that my annual inspection happens, I was a bit miffed at the short notice, but could cope. I tried to explain that I work during the week and that would be difficult could it happen on the weekend. I was told, ‘Thursday is the day for your suburb’.

So I arranged to work from home today.

This morning I got up, flicked the hoover around the house, put away a few things and got to work.

At 11.58 my mobile rang, it was a man called Mohammed (I think) he told me he was outside and wanted to come in. I walked out to the front porch to see a pale blue car parked on the road and out climbed a man of Middle Eastern origin dressed in jeans, a blue and white striped casual shirt and dark trainers. He was clean shaven and carrying a roll of white paper.
I waited on the porch for him to get closer; I greeted him with an outstretched hand. Before he could say anything I asked if he was here for the annual inspection. I had made this assumption yesterday during the conversation with the girl on the phone due to her insistence I be home and her repeating of the word assessment. Actually I only really caught one in every five of her words due to her heavy accent.

He told me ‘No, I’m here to do a Green Loan Assessment.’

‘What’s that then?’

He explained that he would come into my house and look at all my appliances, find out when I use the lights and whether I have energy bulbs (I do and can’t use my dimmers because of them) and generally check the house out. I asked if this was a compulsory check and who was asking for it.

‘It’s a Government form, I send it in when it’s completed and you get a letter telling you if you need to replace any appliances, and they’ll loan you the money if you need it’.

I asked if he had any ID.

He told me that he had the form that he had to fill in. He had no clipboard to lean on, so the form was all flippy floppy. I said, ‘if you’ll excuse me for second, I just want to call my Real Estate Agent.’

I popped inside and called my Landlord. I rarely go through the agent for anything except the annual inspection and rent payments. The Landlord, was furious and told me he’d get straight onto the Agents to find out what was going on.

I went back outside and the guy was still there, holding his rolled up Government form. I asked him for his ID again. When he failed to produce it, but say he had an assessor number, I let him have it.

‘You turn up here after giving me less than 24hours notice and expect me to let you into my house when you can’t produce any form of ID. You ain’t coming into my house, Mate!

And, you might want to reconsider turning up at the rest of the houses on the hand written list you’re holding with a rolled up form you could having printed off a website and without any ID. Bye’.

Well, there may have been a little more detail, but you get the gist.

This encounter played on my mind for much of the day. Especially after the Real Estate Agent rang me and told me that that had not arranged any such appointment.

About six in the evening I called the Police. They sent a couple of uniforms around for to give a statement. They thought it sound a tad odd too.

I still have his number saved in my mobile, under Dodgy Green Loan Guy.


PS. Green Loans are a real thing, but his lack of ID gave me pause. Having now looked at the website for the scheme I'm really glad I didn't let him in my house.

A Gift

Is it strange that I would prefer a dead rat to a living cockroach?

Monopoly

There are a few things that raise my blood pressure (beyond the medical condition that causes that), cruelty to animals, selfishness and having to use services that are terrible.

If you don’t like Microsoft, you can use Apple or even open source. If a plumber does a bad job you can use another one next time, if your carpenter turns up without a hammer...well you get the gist.

This is not the case with the Post Office. You have no choice. So they can get away with pretty much anything. Frequently they do.

I was home sick today, so I was home. You can imagine my surprise when I walked through the hall and noticed a shadow on the door. It was a delivery card stuffed into the screen door. I’d been in all day, so how come there was a card? I have a perfectly functioning door bell.

I decided to call to find out if the parcel was back at my local PO before walking down there. I rang the 131318 number on the card. Dial one for this, dial two for that and three for all other enquiries. Two.

Then. Dial one for this, dial two for that and three for something else and four for other things. If you wish to speak with an operator press zero. Zero.

A little bit of hold music followed by, ‘All of our operators are busy at the moment. If you would like to receive a call back from one of our expert customer service team, hold on the line for the next available call back time. The next available call back is at 1.30pm tomorrow. Press one to receive the call back.’

If you don’t press one you hear, ‘thank you, please call back later in the day’. Then the line drops. No option to hold. Just go through the automated phone system over and over again until you truly understand the meaning of the term ‘going postal’.

I went through this process five times before I decided to take a walk to the local Post Office.

It was two thirty. I stood in a queue of poorly dressed locals and undisciplined children for 25 minutes. While I stood there like a lemon and marvelled at the rubbish they sell from the buckets and shelves that line the wait area, plastic torches, car seat organisers and large format versions of Mr Angry (I love it when irony is unintentional). Upon getting to the counter I was told that the truck hadn’t returned yet and I had to come back later.

I wanted my parcel, so I had no choice. I went back later as instructed and queued again for another 30 minutes.

I got my parcel after nearly an hour and half of my day devoted to it, when I was in at the original attempted delivery time. I’ve never liked the Post Office. I’m one of those people that bulks buys stamps to minimise my exposure to the place. If I could use another company for my daily mail needs, I would. Only I don’t have a choice and neither does anyone else, so they can treat you as poorly as can be with little care and they get away with it. Everytime!

Plus, they’re closed on Saturdays, what’s that all about?

Boobs In the News

If I had more than two cats, I’d be called the mad cat lady.

If I whipped out my breast to feed a fellow human in the middle of a shopping centre, I’d more than likely be arrested for indecent exposure.

So why then are a couple in Arkansas finding fame for breeding to the tune of 19, yes 19 children. The latest was born at just 25 weeks and is currently in intensive care, and they are talking of having more. They don’t use contraception the news story states because they believe each child is a blessing from God. Who’s paying for these children? You can bet your butt that it isn’t only the parents. Why are these people considered healthy and well adjusted?

I read the other day that the Queensland Government are going to set up a day to encourage Gen Y mothers to breastfeed in public spaces because a survey has revealed that this generation is embarrassed at the idea. Too right they are. Why is acceptable to sit in public with lips wrapped round a nipple just because it’s a baby? Gen Y saw sense when they grew up seeing saggy, big nippled tits in shopping centre and realised it’s enough to put anyone off the ice-cream they just brought from the food court.

Stepping off my Soapbox now.

A Mothers Worry

I’m not a mother in the classical sense of the word. I have not have life burst forth for my loins and I hope that I never do. Mainly because it would likely kill me, but more so because I not really a big fan of the little ones that run around on two feet screaming. I can take them in small doses, but I really like giving them back to the parents.

I do however love the four legged variety of small creatures. Cats, dogs, birds, lizards, pretty much everything except for earwigs, they just give me the wiggings.

I have two cats of my own. Puss and O-Ren. I love them to bits and if anything happens to them I get extremely upset, I fret and I want to do bodily harm to the perpetrator of any wrong doing to them. Going by what friends have said about how they feel about their kids, I would say then that Puss and O-Ren are my children because I feel the same.

This said why is it I don’t get the same consideration from work that the ‘real’ mothers get? I digress, back to my point.

Last night I planned an early night. I didn’t feel like starting the week tired and washed out. I was already feeling a bit rough because of the rainy humid weather, so it was early to bed for me. At nine thirty I whistled at the back door to get the cats in.

Puss appeared not to have left the veranda all night and looked up at me from the deck chair by the back door.

Max (the neighbour’s cat who wants to move in, but due to his spraying can’t) came for his dinner of biscuits and brushing before disappearing back over the fence for the night.

O-Ren was nowhere to be seen.

I went back inside to watch House (season five, very good :-)

At ten forty I went out again and whistled. Puss looked up at me from the deck chair. No sign, so I went in and had a shower.

My early night was slipping away from me.

After my shower I dried and dressed and whistled again. Puss looked up at me from the deck chair, I asked him ‘Could you go and look for her please?’ He stretched then curled back into a ball. Max had reappeared at the sound I was making and smooched my legs in the vain hope of getting a little more food.

I went back inside and watched the end of ‘Swordfish’ while I waited. It finished at midnight. So much for my early night.

I went outside again and whistled again, there was silence. I went to the front of the house and whistled. Nothing, deathly silence, not even the roar of a nearby V8.

I decided to wait, in bed. I’d read I told myself. I lay in bed trying to read Lolita, but a read of Humbert Humbert’s adolescent crush over and over and over again. My mind kept flicking to the image of O-Ren after her last night out, twenty seven stitches, drains and a course of antibiotics, not to mention the $500 bill.

At 1245 I got up and put on my dressing and slippers. I grabbed the torch and wandered to the back fence. I whistled then listened. No faint mewing sounds. Was that good? Was that bad?

I walked to the side fence and whistled, then listened. No mewing or jingle of bell. There was no sound from the other side of the garden either.

I was starting to panic.

What if she was lying somewhere in the rain, unable to get home, badly mutilated but able to hear me calling her.

What if she fallen from a tree and impaled herself?

The darkest thoughts ran through my head as I stood in the middle of my garden at twenty passed one in the morning wishing my cat would come home.

I heard a faint jingle, then a white streak flew over the back fence and landed a few feet away from me before coming to a sudden stop.

She sat down and let out a small mew as she looked at me through her big green eyes, before lifting a paw and slowly, but deliberately wiped her ear. Then she stood and walked across the garden and through the back door.

Does my rage, but overwhelming relief sound familiar?

Retail Therapy

On Wednesday last week I took Bessie for a little jaunt down to Victoria. The intention was to see Little and maybe hire a motorbike and have a look at the Great Ocean Road. The motorbike didn’t happen and as it turned out I had a bit of a bug, so I wasn’t feeling on top form, so even if it hadn’t have fallen through I wouldn’t have been able to ride anyway.

I helped Wynnie out in her shop for three days.

Wynnie is also known as Sally, or Little Sally. She’s my sister or rather my step-sister. My Muv was also Sally, so when we moved in with the step family, Muv was Big Sally, Little was...well, little. She’s still petit, but not so little, being my big sister ;-)

She has a used furniture store in the Dandenong’s township of Emerald. Wynnies Used Furniture is housed in a old stable with a beautiful pressed tin ceiling. Everyday, except Monday, she opens up at 10am by placing piece on the grass outside under the awning. She dresses a mannequin up in clothing to suit the weather and places her in a position to watch over the roadside stock. At five PM she brings the goodies that haven’t sold back in and locks up. After the shop shuts, she does the odd house clearance or delivery, pretty much every night.

On a Saturday she rises before the sun and jumps in her beaten up white van with her three legged dog, Peg and drives for thirty minutes to a different town to go around the garage sales to see if anything worth having is on offer before getting back to Emerald to open the shop at 10am.

After doing all this, she also tarts up new stock items and deals with members of the general public.

And this is where I really take my hat off to her, not that I don’t admire everything else as well, but I’ve worked retail in my time and I’ll confess to hating it.

One customer, I’ll call her Fleur, because I can’t remember her real name. She’s been going into Wynnie’s for nearly three years and telling the same long winded sob stories about doing the lounge in blue and the bedroom in green.

I was sat behind the counter writing up the last sale, when Little handed me a note: Don’t get into a conversation with the woman in the front room, she’ll talk at you for hours.
Suddenly the woman was standing in front of the counter asking Little if she had something or other in green, because she was renovating the bedroom in bedroom. While she was banging on, Sally very discreetly picked up her mobile phone and flicked it open. Without taking her eyes off the customer and all the time nodding and making affirmative noises dialled a number with her thumb.

The shop phone rang.

I picked it up passed it to over. ‘Good Afternoon, Wynnie’s Used Furniture. Yes, we do do house clearances...’ The one sided conversation continued as a disappointed Fleur wandered towards the door.

Little raised her hand, waved and smiled. Fleur looked back just before stepping out into the sunshine.

I had trouble keeping a straight face as Little clicked the phone off and put it on the desk as she said, ‘she has never brought anything.’

It was all class, a fabulous way to get rid of the annoying customer that EVERY shopkeeper has encountered, and such a polite way to do it considering she must be exhausted.

The West

I had the pleasure of having to sit in Merrylands high street for a full thirty minutes today. I had to get passport photos and needed to wait for them to develop.

I planted myself on a bench outside the camera shop with a spinach and cheese Lebanese bread and a can of creaming soda and settled in for a little bit of people watching. After a very short time I selected my theme...
...spot the employed person.

I think I came up short.

I saw lots of dark hairy men in shorts and singlet t-shirts leading women covered from head to foot in dark unpatterned cloth pushing prams and dragging wailing kids.
Teenage girls in skirts so short you could see the curve of the buttocks, bare legs with platform heels with six inch heels and Ed Hardy’s riding above the muffin top.

Shuffling men with dirty clothes, no shoes and fungal toenails.

The stock standard suburban old folks wearing muumuus and dragging wheeled trolleys over the unsuspecting toes.

But the highlight of the watching was a Mother and Daughter pair. Mum was wearing an aqua t-shirt dress that should have, and in fact could have been, a nightie, she had a bleach blonde birds nest on her head and more make-up than the Revlon counter. Her pre-teen daughter had her puppy fat still intact was wear a cap-sleeve shirt and short shorts with ‘babe zone’ across her arse.

I don’t think I saw anyone employed but still on holidays. I think I was amongst the reason the west has a bad reputation.

Probation

It was the 29th December and Cap’n Hank was waiting under the carport for the 7am start and the first trip out west on the M4 to Penrith. Using the motorway would cut the journey time in half over the Great Western Highway and all the traffic lights and pot hole avoidance.

The day had been prepared for, my trusty Yamaha 225 Scorpio had been serviced even though it wasn’t due for one and he’d been helping me out with my U-turn practice in empty car parks. I’d even made sandwiches. It was the Riding Training and Motorcycle Operator Skill Test (MOST) also known as the P plate test day. Deep down in my tummy I felt a little sick.

The manoeuvres ran through my head. Obstacle avoidance, left turn, right hand u-turn, quick stop and the zig zag. The whole 80 speed limit restriction kept my speed down, even as another L plater whooshed passed me. Must not speed going to the test centre as it was double demerits and losing my licence on the way to the test would have been embarrassing.

After gathering with some 15 or some blokes, five for the MOST, the rest for the pre-learners, we filled in forms and logged in, then listened to the schedule for the day. Our number dwindled to four when one guy didn’t have any gloves. The number went down to three when one was told by the instructor, ‘Your bike has run out of rego’.

‘What do you mean, I’ve got no rego?’ I asked.

‘It ran out in October.’ He said, looking at me down his nose.

I didn’t know what to say, except, ‘Oh!’

‘How,’ he spat, ‘did you NOT notice? Didn’t you look at that every time you went out or when you checked your lights are working?’

The instructor just stood there looking down at me like I was scum, I muttered a four letter word beginning with F, put on my helmet and gloves and rode away from the testing range.

I didn’t ride far, just far enough for the sting my eyes to dissipate and anger at losing $161 booking fee to fade.

How was I going to get home?
Why hadn’t the RTA sent me a rego renewal notice?
If I risked riding home and I get caught, what are the consequences?
If I hadn’t of broken my thumb and ridden in the last two months, would I have noticed?

I paced along the side of the road, so many questions and swear words bobbing about in my head.

I rang the RTA, they were shut. I called Bikebiz, the shop where I brought the bike and told Tiny (the sales manager) the problem, he arranged for a ute to come out and rescue me. I walked into the shop three hours later while my bike was being off loaded, to try and find out why I hadn’t been sent a rego renewal.

Turned out that the shop hadn’t sent off the transfer paperwork, that, I was told was my responsibility. It was explained to me that the shop has a policy of only registering NEW bikes on behalf of the customer. With second hand bikes, the customer is given the paperwork to process the transfer directly with the RTA. If only I had been given the paperwork and told to send it off.

I asked a friend if they knew what would have happened if I’d been caught riding home with no rego. ‘Your bike could have been impounded, you would almost certainly have lost your learners permit and there would have been fines to pay.’

Later, I asked a traffic police officer mate for confirmation of the dire prediction. ‘Nah, it’s too hard to impound unless the vehicle has been involved in criminal activity and needs to be searched and rego offences are points free, but you’d get a heap of fines.’ I asked her to be more specific and she obliged.
Up to 15 days after rego expiry and you’ll cop a $506 fine for driving an unregistered vehicle on the road.

Driving with a registration more than 15 days expired will equal the same fine as already mentioned, plus using an uninsured vehicle fine of another $506, then comes the displaying an expired registration label fine at $84. You’ll also get the non payment of road tax fine at another $506. The police could also take your licence plate away and return it to its owner, the RTA. You would then, of course have to go and get it back which will cost you green slip charges and registration.

After a trip to an RTA office I had a fully serviced bike, a shiny new 2010 rego sticker and another appointment to take my MOST. Seven days later I was part of a six person group that spent seven and a half hours doing donuts and quick stops in a car park under the M4 before enduring seven minutes of vomit inducing, breath holding tension. At the end, Aaron, the tester held his hand out to shake mine and said, ‘Congratulations!’

I took a deep breath, took his hand in my gloved hand and exhaled, ‘Oh, thank f*ck for that!’


- Cap'n Hank with his new decoration on the Pacific Highway the day after we passed