Big Sigh...
The days of me relying on my employer to keep me busy were cut short at the end of last year. This doesn't mean I'm not busy. When I saw it coming I got on the phone and rang a bunch of people I knew might have something for me to do and announced that I was worried. Not one of them had anything for me.
Shortly after that the phone started ringing... people I have painted or plastered for before (none of whom had any connection with the people I had called) or people who had got my name from someone else started calling.
"Would you have time to do a skimcoat for me?", "We're doing up another room, are you at all free", "that job I was hoping you would be able to do, can you do it on the twentieth?"
Obviously I do a good job.
Now I have two houses to paint, a gibstopping job (which I might get to paint too) and a couple of tiny things to get through. Work till the end of March at least... The problem is the headaches, trying to work out if I can do all of this in time suitable to the people who want it done, organising in advance, talking people through their choice of colours. Don't get me wrong, I like making people's houses look nice, but when the work floods in and you get a bottle-neck (three-jobs-that-should-take-a-fortnight-each-to-be-done-preferably-by-the-end-of-the-month) my heart rate increases semipermanently by twenty percent, my head aches, and I find I can't relax at all unless I'm up a ladder with a bush or a trowel in my hand. Can't but very nice to live with huh? That's why I quite liked having an employer.
so... the prospects of my producing a poem each Sunday, or getting my hand near a piano look dim for the near future - at least until I can calm myself down.
Maybe I should announce to the world at large that I want a nice, quiet, desk job... perhaps the phone will start ringing a different tune if I do...
Showing posts with label little whinges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label little whinges. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sunday, November 21, 2010
To the people who stole out of my car on the weekend
Even though you probably will never read this... Please give my stuff back.
There was a bag of hand tools, a hitachi sander my mum bought for me, a fly reel and a little aluminium case of hand tied trout flies, and a new pair of workboots. All up there was probably less than a grand worth to replace but I don't have a grand and my contents insurance doesn't cover anything used at any time to earn an income.
The tools and the boots I'll probably be able to replace bit by bit over time. But I have a close relationship with my stuff, many of the items were gifts and nearly every item has an association of memory attached to it.
What really made me sad was the fishing tackle. I don't fish by the way. The trout reel belonged to my Dad. He died in 1998 or there abouts. It was his favourite reel, I think, I don't know how much he used it. I think he'd had it when he was a boy in the 1930's and 40's when his father taught him to keep his arm still and cast only with his wrist by getting him to grip the family bible between his elbow and his waist. The family Bible was huge, and letting it touch the ground was a whipping offence.
The reel itself showed years of use. It had a notch worn in where the line had rubbed from years of winding, and that notch was worn into new metal brazed on to repair an earlier groove. Maybe it was so old as to be no use for fishing anymore and maybe that was the reason my brother pressed it into my hand on the day of the funeral saying I should have something of Dad's. (I got that, the flies and his swandri hat - which my wife won't let me wear. You didn't take the hat.) It was a name brand of reel. It might have been a Hardy's, I can't remember. It might be worth something as a collectible. Maybe you'll get a hundred bucks for it.
The flies probably aren't worth much. You might get fifty bucks for them. Dad tied them himself from feathers the neighbours peacock dropped and from bits off our various pet chooks that he kept in a little drawer in the desk along with other bits like possum fur, copper wire, thread and glue. He'd sit late at night under the green painted desk lamp with his glasses pushed down to the tip of his nose, bent over the fly-tying vice that I always thought was so cool. He was meticulous in all his movements whether he was tying a fly, repairing a cane rod or rebinding the handle of a cricket bat. Each individual twist of feather or thread was so practised it seemed staged. Even if he didn't know you were watching it was like a performance. Maybe he knew I was watching, showing me how it was done as I stood in the doorway behind him in my pyjamas. Or maybe he was still doing it just right for his own father - keeping the bible off the ground.
Anyway... that's what you took from me... I know I know I should have made sure the kids had locked their door... and I should have checked my insurance ages ago too.
All that's left is for me to have this little whinge... and move on.
The Gedle
There was a bag of hand tools, a hitachi sander my mum bought for me, a fly reel and a little aluminium case of hand tied trout flies, and a new pair of workboots. All up there was probably less than a grand worth to replace but I don't have a grand and my contents insurance doesn't cover anything used at any time to earn an income.
The tools and the boots I'll probably be able to replace bit by bit over time. But I have a close relationship with my stuff, many of the items were gifts and nearly every item has an association of memory attached to it.
What really made me sad was the fishing tackle. I don't fish by the way. The trout reel belonged to my Dad. He died in 1998 or there abouts. It was his favourite reel, I think, I don't know how much he used it. I think he'd had it when he was a boy in the 1930's and 40's when his father taught him to keep his arm still and cast only with his wrist by getting him to grip the family bible between his elbow and his waist. The family Bible was huge, and letting it touch the ground was a whipping offence.
The reel itself showed years of use. It had a notch worn in where the line had rubbed from years of winding, and that notch was worn into new metal brazed on to repair an earlier groove. Maybe it was so old as to be no use for fishing anymore and maybe that was the reason my brother pressed it into my hand on the day of the funeral saying I should have something of Dad's. (I got that, the flies and his swandri hat - which my wife won't let me wear. You didn't take the hat.) It was a name brand of reel. It might have been a Hardy's, I can't remember. It might be worth something as a collectible. Maybe you'll get a hundred bucks for it.
The flies probably aren't worth much. You might get fifty bucks for them. Dad tied them himself from feathers the neighbours peacock dropped and from bits off our various pet chooks that he kept in a little drawer in the desk along with other bits like possum fur, copper wire, thread and glue. He'd sit late at night under the green painted desk lamp with his glasses pushed down to the tip of his nose, bent over the fly-tying vice that I always thought was so cool. He was meticulous in all his movements whether he was tying a fly, repairing a cane rod or rebinding the handle of a cricket bat. Each individual twist of feather or thread was so practised it seemed staged. Even if he didn't know you were watching it was like a performance. Maybe he knew I was watching, showing me how it was done as I stood in the doorway behind him in my pyjamas. Or maybe he was still doing it just right for his own father - keeping the bible off the ground.
Anyway... that's what you took from me... I know I know I should have made sure the kids had locked their door... and I should have checked my insurance ages ago too.
All that's left is for me to have this little whinge... and move on.
The Gedle
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