Just another quirk of fate
I wrote the recent post What goes up...: Malt nearly three weeks ago now. It shows how busy I've been that I've only just got round to blogging it. At the end, I wondered how my life might have changed if I'd been successful in getting a copy of the free paper and been able to look through the job adverts. Knowing my luck, I would have spotted something and got myself a part-time minimum-wage drudge job.
Fortunately, that isn't what happened, because if it had, I wouldn't have been able to take on the role of doing the ground-clearance at my brother's house. For two weeks now I've been cutting back brambles that have wound their way to the very tops of the apple trees, felling dead trees that were dangling perilously over the neighbour's cars, lopping off the tops of some fast-growing conifers that were threatening to bring down the low-flying jets from nearby Boscombe Down, thinning out rampant willow trees, and scything through chest-high grass.
My arms ache. My legs ache from carrying pitchforks of cutting up to the dump area. My fingers are scarred and punctured by two dozen bramble thorns. But I'm loving every minute of it. Even the shouting and flailing act when the brambles and stinging nettles bite back. Foolishly, I cleared all the easy dock plants away, the only ones left are buried deep in the last cluster of stinging nettles. Next time, I'll do things differently.
So now I'm wondering if it's time for a career-change yet again. From software engineer to ground-clearance operative. I hate that term, operative. One of the local minimum-wage jobs I could have applied for was a 'hygiene operative' spelt exactly so, which was, of course, a cleaner. So I'll be honest on my business cards. I am a labourer. A navvie. I dig, I carry, I steer a wheelbarrow. I'm not very bright, but I can't half lift things. If I can get that translated into latin I might just adopt that as the business motto.
Fortunately, that isn't what happened, because if it had, I wouldn't have been able to take on the role of doing the ground-clearance at my brother's house. For two weeks now I've been cutting back brambles that have wound their way to the very tops of the apple trees, felling dead trees that were dangling perilously over the neighbour's cars, lopping off the tops of some fast-growing conifers that were threatening to bring down the low-flying jets from nearby Boscombe Down, thinning out rampant willow trees, and scything through chest-high grass.
My arms ache. My legs ache from carrying pitchforks of cutting up to the dump area. My fingers are scarred and punctured by two dozen bramble thorns. But I'm loving every minute of it. Even the shouting and flailing act when the brambles and stinging nettles bite back. Foolishly, I cleared all the easy dock plants away, the only ones left are buried deep in the last cluster of stinging nettles. Next time, I'll do things differently.
So now I'm wondering if it's time for a career-change yet again. From software engineer to ground-clearance operative. I hate that term, operative. One of the local minimum-wage jobs I could have applied for was a 'hygiene operative' spelt exactly so, which was, of course, a cleaner. So I'll be honest on my business cards. I am a labourer. A navvie. I dig, I carry, I steer a wheelbarrow. I'm not very bright, but I can't half lift things. If I can get that translated into latin I might just adopt that as the business motto.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 7:08 am
1 Comments:
Wow! Your Post Office queue obviously has a higher than average IQ. Round our way, people don't get much further than talking about the weather. Maybe your local queue should enter a team into University Challenge. If you want to borrow a bear as a mascot, we've got several bagfuls of the blighters to choose from.
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