Well al the holidays are finished and I’m back to reality…. how sad. The next holiday is the 26^th of January and I am hoping that we will be closed….10 months to go and counting………

The renovation is progressing, I’ve just about set everything and filled in the gaps around the concrete piers and other fiddley bits and I have even sanded two walls and I must admit I am quite happy with the finish. I hate setting and I could only do a couple of hours at a time but it has turned out better than I expected although I would have rather had my friend’s son do it, just so that I didn’t have too. I still don’t like setting.

I bought the paint and if all goes well I will start this weekend coming. I’ve still got some undercoat left which should be sufficient to do one coat and then top coat it. Architraves will then be put on and at the end of the month I’ll get the builders back to finish off a few things.

The weather has been quite miserable, high humidity and not very pleasant to work in. Even the setting has taken a long time to dry between coats.

New Year’s day I caught up with the family in Brisbane at Southbank. It’s been five years since we last did that. On the Sunday I went for a bush walk at mount Coo-tha with a friend, we walked on the Honeyeater trail, it’s quite good but a bit short for me, it’s only 5kms. I prefer to do at least a minimum of 10 and to try and get one that is a bit of a challenge, get the heart rate up a wee bit.

I’m still not convinced of this work thing. Today has not been too bad, it’s been busy and I have been out on the trade counter helping out there. Lunch Man is still freaking out about almost anything. He keeps on telling people how busy he was last week; he was obviously in a different reality to myself because I didn’t think that at all. Mind you he pops a lot of pills because of his “damaged Knee” and so half the time I don’t think he is on the same plane as the rest of us.

I have a friend that is a mad Trump supporter and we had a chat the other day, he is a member of the Trump caliphate of nutters. He was telling me how ridiculous it was that the election had been “stolen” and that the democrats were utterly corrupt………..he also watches Sky News and Fox news which is one and the same thing. Now this guy is quite intelligent and I am really surprised at just how stupid and gullible he is being in regards to the information about this election and at the same time fascinated by his alternate reality. He also thinks that Trump is an amazing business man that has done nothing wrong and that the impeachment and everything else has been concocted from false information. It’s really staggering……….

I used to watch Dallas on the TV years ago and I think Trump must model himself on JR, mind you he is definitely not as smart in business as JR was but is certainly very devious and corrupt with very few boundries……..

This time last year I was on my way to Singapore to start my solar eclipse adventure. This as it turned out was my last visa run and last taste of the great lifestyle I had been living for the past number of years. As usual I had to travel every three months and this time it worked out perfectly.

I stayed in Malaysia at Johor Bahru and went into Singapore on two days to explore and to do some bush walking and of course to watch the solar eclipse. Krabi followed and my final destination was Chiang Mai.

I returned to China on the 8^th of January and immediately began to finalise my last remaining months before I had to return to the UK to renew my visa. I got my trip to Taiwan organised and then started to book my travel to the west of China where I would leave from to head to the UK via Jordan, Egypt, Greece and hopefully Barcelona.

About a week after I returned the Coronavirus was spreading rapidly and China went into lockdown. Overnight travel was curtailed and a police state began. Movements were limited and life as we knew it came to an end. Suzhou is a bustling city and almost overnight the city centre turned into a ghost town. All the business ceased trading over the course of about three days leaving only one or two restaurants where you could only buy takeaway which for me was a lifesaver. My local Muslim restaurant stayed open luckily and so I was able to feed myself.

Security was ramped up at supermarkets; you had to register with them before entry. You also needed a Suzhou health card which was an app on your phone which you had to show if you wanted to use the metro or gain access to shopping centres. 

I still went to the park every day after breakfast to do my exercise and even here I had to register with the security guards. The park was very quiet almost deserted. After a few days there were still no more people but there were more birds, the wildlife was beginning to return and as we have seen all over the world this is one of the great side effects of Covid.

I sometimes got into an argument with the gate security of the complex I was staying in. They wanted me to prove I lived there and wanted me to show them my passport and I told them to fuck off. One day a young guy kept on asking for my passport and I said “Why?” and he looked totally confused. There was a young police officer on the gate that day too and he told him to let me through.

Every day when entering the complex you had your temperature taken, sometimes I was so cold after being in the park that their thermometers didn’t register anything for me………..this used to be  a source of amusement………..and possibly because I was an old guy in the height of winter still wearing shorts and a shirt ………..crazy foreigners.

After a few weeks it was becoming clear that Covid was going to be a bit of a problem. It had started to travel around the globe and countries were slowly reducing flights and banning flights from China. Australia closed its borders in March and so when I heard that this was on the cards I thought it was time to head back there for a while, after all my visa ran out in April and I would have to leave anyway. Flights were becoming scarce and expensive. I was unable to transit any country on the way back due to the Covid restrictions and so a direct flight was the only choice. Prices were going up and up, some as much as $8000. I checked all the time and I was lucky to find a direct flight for $1000 to Sydney and so I bought it with a sense of relief. Just a few days later the flight prices just got more and more expensive.

I was lucky that I could stay with Catherine and Stuart in country NSW to do my two weeks’ quarantine rather than having to go to hotel quarantine. I ended up staying with them for three months. By this time there were more cases of Covid in Australia and the state borders were closed, this meant that I could not get back to my home state and to be honest I really enjoyed my stay in Armidale………..it had been over 30 years since I had spent this length of time here and it allowed me to adjust to a very different lifestyle, after being in China for the best part of four years and coming to a place that was so quiet was very different but very enjoyable too.

And so now to the present day………It’s Christmas Eve and I am working at my new job rather than jet setting around the planet which is shit really, but the job will allow me to put away a few bob for my future travels. I’m not a lover of Christmas and being in Asia at this time life goes on and you don’t know that it’s Christmas and for me that just fine. We finished at 2pm today and I’m off for four days and rather than going to a family gathering I have opted to stay put and work on the house and maybe I’ll get out for a bush walk or ride on the bike.

One more thing………. every night on the news there are stories of people stranded overseas and complaining because the Australian government won’t bring them home, it’s Christmas and this is just not Australian. Give me a break, what a load of shit. I know people that did not read the signs and thought everything will blow over and life will return to normal, what’s all the fuss about. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Not everyone that is “stranded” is stranded because of circumstances beyond their control, some were of the afore mentioned. Hell mend them I say. I personally know of one family that did not leave China when I did and they were faced with ticket prices in excess of $10.000 per person, but as it turned out they were lucky because two months later they managed to get a ticket for just over $1000. They too ignored the warning signs but were just fortunate that an opportunity arose. Much the same as other locations around the world, flights have become available and people have made it home. And some of the early travellers were also lucky that they didn’t have to pay any hotel quarantine.

Many people are using this time of the year to get their 15 mins of fame complaining about the Australian government because they are not here for Christmas…………these folk need to get a life. After all it’s an old pagan festival that has been high jacked by Christianity and then turned into a commercial fiesta………In this day and age where we can use technology to communicate what’s the big deal. If you are ill or sick or there is an underlying reason why you really need to get back to your home then that is different, but I don’t believe for one minute that the estimated 40.000 Australian’s “stranded” overseas are all in this basket……………many ignored the writing on the wall and only have themselves to blame…………….

On Saturday after work I went over to pick up my lawnmower from Peter who had been kind enough to rebuild the chassis a little and to strengthen the handles. The grass was beginning to get out of control and if I didn’t do it soon I would need a scythe to tackle it. 

On Sunday I decided to start the setting of the gyprock, reluctantly of course………..Mick, my neighbour, told me that his son was taking “ICE” again and that he had not seen him for nearly a week. A few weeks ago his son and I had gone to the dump to get rid of garden waste and we spoke about him coming to do the setting on the new build that I have done. It wasn’t much and he said that it would take him a day and that he would charge me $200 and I said “Bargain”. 

The week before last he had been working down the coast and could not do the job and so I thought that this week would be the best option. I knew that he had been on the drugs before and because of this knowledge I had changed the locks on two of the doors so that he could not enter the garage just in case his little fingers went shopping. But when Mick told me about his latest episode, well I wasn’t surprised just a little bit disappointed that I would have to now finish the setting. And so I did the taping and put one coat on the walls and it doesn’t look too bad, even if I say so myself. 

Yesterday was hot (21/12) I had many plans for yesterday but after doing a little bit more setting and cutting the grass I decided that I would retire to the comfort of the air con for the rest of the day. The humidity was high and I was feeling absolutely knackered. 

I cooked lunch, stir fry mince with tomatoes and other vegies and chilly of course, then I put on the new Bee Gees movie which is more like a documentary and I really enjoyed it. If you liked their music check it out. After lunch and a bit of TV it was then time for a siesta which I have really missed over the last few weeks. This work thing really does ruin my simple way of life; I really have to win lotto. 

Three days of work this week and then it’s a four-day weekend as it’s Christmas. Looking forward to that. I’ll go out on the bike at least once, maybe Christmas day because I guess most folk will be doing the family thing and so the roads will be quiet. I’d also like to do a bush walk if possible and maybe work around the house, lots to do and not enough time to do it. 

Thursday the 17^th and I’m bored to tears. I brought a book in with me today, “To Kill a Mockingbird” which I started months ago and got bored with it. I’d left it on the table outside and grabbed it this morning to bring to work. This afternoon after lunch nothing was happening and I had already gone through a few training modules and had enough of that so I thought I would read my book for a bit. I’ve tried to keep busy doing the online training or creating spreadsheets which I think will be useful to me in the future but there is only so much of that you can do to kill time.

I had 3 customers come into the showroom area today and they only wanted some quick info and then they left. The trade counter was busy before lunch but has been dead since. I know it’s partly down to this time of the year, many people will be heading off on holiday and I’m sure I’ll be complaining in the future that things are just too busy.

The guys in the trade side are busy with many other tasks and so I only get taught anything when I need to ask a question. The Manager that had been here for some time has left; this is what I got an inkling of the other day. He had personal issues and it was now beginning to interfere with his work and so it was decided that he had to leave the building. He seemed a nice guy and better than the newly appointed temporary manager that is just a lazy bastard. Today for instance he was too busy making his lunch to come and help at the counter. I tried to help one of the customers but had no idea what he was talking about so I went looking for “Lunchman” to get him to come out and help. He is on manager’s wages so he should be looking after his staff and customers rather than be a selfish prick. He comes in on time and leaves after his 8 hours even although for much of that time he is doing fuck all and he is guilt free. Mind you I will have some fun with him if I decide to stay here, I don’t know if I will last 12 months…………

This weekend I have the Monday off and next week will be a short week and then it’s Christmas. The Christmas weekend will be a four day weekend

Week two, somethings afoot…….. but I was told I’d find out on Monday. I sense a change in the air, maybe a little bit of despair from one or two of the staff. When I came in this morning (Saturday) two of the guys were talking about the situation but quickly changed the subject when I appeared, but I can wait till Monday and I don’t think that the events on Monday will make too much of a difference to my position. Mind you there is one staff member that has been quite helpful and knowledgeable and I have a funny feeling that they will not be here much longer……. there are some underlying issues that I mentioned before but this time I heard that there is money missing which adds a different feel and possible consequences to the mix.

I got paid last Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised with my pay packet and thought to myself that this working gig might not be that bad. I divvied up the funds to the appropriate places and made a generous contribution to the holiday slush fund which if all goes well should be looking pretty healthy by the time I can travel again. As I’ve been on the dole for a few months I intend to live on that same amount and put the rest away for a rainy day.

And last night the rains came, problem was I was awakened a few times through the night because the rain was bouncing of the corrugated roof. There comes a point where the soothing pitter-patter of the rain on a steel roof turns to a deafening roar and no longer fills you with a sense of peace and tranquillity, but it was good to see the rain because everywhere is looking rather dry and I’m sure many will welcome it. The deck at the back of the house was playing shelter for many of the birds, lined up on the balustrade looking drookit and bedraggled, mind you I would prefer it if they had the decency not to shit all over the place while they use it.

So this is Saturday morning, I’m at work but it’s so quiet that I thought I would put pen to paper to pass the time. I finish at noon……….I really wanted to go or a walk somewhere but I think the rain will be too heavy and I really should stay home and do a few jobs around the house. I have the kitchen tap to replace and I have new venetian blinds to put up, so it’s a good day to get on with this.

Week one and I am really struggling with this job situation, I wasn’t meant to work. The job itself ain’t too stressful so far and the folk I’m working with are very down to earth but it’s funny how after only a couple of days you begin to see the cracks appearing. The bitching about the place started on day two, I guess when they realised that I was quite laid back and not a career guy. Happy in the knowledge that I was no company man and would easily become one of them.

Mind you if you have half a brain and can read people it doesn’t take much to work out those that bluff their way through life and those that actually work for a living, you get them in every company. I’m not going to name names as that would just be silly thing to do at this stage. But I was surprised when others had no problem in discussing them when they had left the building.

They complain and give the impression that they could leave here in a heartbeat and walk into another job which might be possible but I don’t think so. As usual there is one staff member that is getting too much work put on their plate and the reason for that is that another has the gift of the gab and spends most of their time talking to customers and basically talking shit. So it’s just really like any other company where the employees are only here for the money and I fit into that category too.

On day one(Monday) I had no login details set up to access the network and it was Wednesday morning before I could start to explore the systems. Uniforms have to be ordered and they won’t be here for a week or so, which means I have to supply my own shirts in the meantime. Steel toecap boots are needed and again I used my own, none supplied. I’ve had about 10 mins of training which was only done because one of the guys was a little bit bored and I had asked him a few questions. Apparently I’ll get training on Friday which is just in time for the weekend.

I’m not complaining just stating what happened. It doesn’t surprise me at all, big companies focus so much on the pre work paperwork and all the OH&S to make sure that they have given you all the information to shift the onus for any future happenings from them to you. If something happens down the track, they will happily retrieve the piece of paper that you signed stating that you understood how dangerous it could be to stand in front of the forklift. The process to get here was long and sometimes frustrating, especially when you go for a medical and they send you to the wrong place. The next appointment lost the urine samples when they were sent off to pathology and it took two weeks for anyone to realise and that was only because I sent an email asking how the results were and there were none to be found. Then again I wasn’t too fussed as I was happy working at home on the house and garden and I’ve still got plenty to do………..I’m not really sure why I took this job in the first place. Yes, I do……………I need the money and there are not many jobs around at the moment.

It pays more than the dole and is only 5 km from home and the jobs in the local area are few and far between. Mind you I would have no problem leaving here if I found something that I thought I would really enjoy. It’s only for 12 months and I’m sure once I get to know more and finally get some training then my day will begin to speed up rather than drag as it’s doing at the moment………so I thought I would blog to pass the time.

With any new job or situation, it takes time to adapt, to work out when to get up in the morning, breakfast is no longer as long as I want, I’m now against the clock. What to have for lunch and preparing it the night before. Having to go to the shops in the evening rather than during the day and much more. I have to squeeze my lifestyle of bushwalking or cycling into a weekend rather than to just go when I felt like it. My whole world has been turned upside down because I need to work, life is a bitch indeed…………………..

Plan B seems to be working out as I had planned but I wasn’t a big fan of plan B but as plan A didn’t work out, I then have no further option but to follow it until I can think of a plan C or maybe plan A might still work.

Plan B was to return to Australia and sit on the dole to Christmas and then find a job until the middle of next year and by then hopefully Covid will have fucked off, at which point I will dust of the passports and get a travellin’

Plan B is now going like this: tomorrow I start a new job for one year…..beginning on the 30^th of November and finishing on the 26^th of November 2021 just in time to fly out of the country to a place that does not celebrate Christmas. Hopefully I’ll be able to tuck away a few dollars towards the travel plans which I still have in my head.

Apart from the extra cash the job will bring, I will also benefit from using the company air conditioning….the temperature today got up 36°C today and that temperature is under the back deck and not in the sunshine. It felt OK mind you because I think the humidity had dropped a little so I was able to work outside without the sweat running doon the shuch of me arse. Summer begins soon and it’s going to be HOT!!!

My last day of freedom was spent doing jobs around the house and the garden. I got up just before 8am which is very unusual as I’m usually out and about by this time. Today however being my last day of freedom was going to be slow and easy. I sat for some time trying to decide what to do, whether to go out to look for a few things on the shopping list or just close the gates and stay at home………..I did the latter.

I haven’t worked for over four and half years and so it’s a bit daunting having to go back to work even although I knew that it would probably happen one day. I just didn’t think it would have been so soon. If Covid had not reared its ugly head I would have still been in China. Funny….I spoke to a friend today in China and she is on holiday in Wuhan.

Well you never know I might even begin to enjoy my new job, I’m certainly looking forward to having some more money and they pay weekly………..I’ve never been paid weekly for years so that’s a bonus. If possible half of the money will be put directly to the travel fund and I shall live off bread and rice crackers for the year.

I had to buy two polo shirts the other day, two navy blue ones. I won’t get a uniform for a couple of days and I don’t possess any navy blue clothes. Luckily I have steel toe cap boots and I also wanted to buy a new pair of breeks but couldn’t find a pair that was comfortable. Although I was surprised when I managed to fit into a 30cm waist………..been a long time since that has happened. The polo shirts were small instead of medium and I haven’t shrunk that much it’s just that Australia has go fatter and all the sizes as we know them are completely different. Small is the old medium or even large.

I think almost 95% of the population around me is fat or obese, I just can’t believe how big some folk are and I know someone that would say” well you don’t know their circumstances because they could have a medical condition” It’s called being a greedy bastard. They don’t all get fat because of a “Medical Condition” but they will certainly develop a few if they are a greedy bastard.

All the fat folk seem to have tattoos and a lot of them are saggy or stretched now because I’m sure they must have got them pre-fatty. And it seems they all went to the same awful tattoo artist, most of them are shite and usually the same shite. I always find it amusing that the tattooed folk would rather risk third degree burns or skin cancer than cover up their beloved shite tattoo. Vanity is a wonderful thing indeed. Mind you they must also still think that their bodies are still hard and young looking instead of looking like a Salvador Dali image………

And so as a new day dawns and another chapter of life begins it may not be all doom and gloom, I mean I might find some more things to complain about and more folk to write about and generally have a good time writing from the safety of my castle.

Today was the day for the hammock. It was given to me by my good friend Anne from Thailand many years ago. I use to have it outside under the deck but I decided that I would put it inside in the new room under the house, mind you I have two hammocks so I might still put one outside.

Of course I had to try it out and it is very comfortable, so comfortable in fact that I fell asleep and didn’t come to until the sun began to burn my hand. The western sun is rather strong and I felt like I was being stung by a wasp or something and so I rolled off the hammock and slowly, very slowly came back to reality…………

On Friday night a very fierce storm came from the south west and this always means trouble. The storm itself was relatively small in size but it packed a punch. The rain lashed the house from all sides and as the wind swirled around the house it finally moved to the south east of the house and the rain by this time was torrential. I went down stairs to see if the new build was holding up ok. The weak spot has always been the garage because of the slight fall in the concrete towards to garage. I saw a trickle of water coming under the new wall next to the front door as the water filled up the drain across the front of the garage door.

I quickly opened the door and grabbed the broom and started to sweep the water back out towards the new drain, but the water just kept on coming and bringing with it the detritus and dirt from the garden on the east side. The water was running off next doors property which always happens when the rain gets heavy like this but there was also a mound of earth that had yet to be moved from all the construction work going on and it seemed to be encouraging the water to come my way. So with the water from next door and the wind blowing it perfectly into the garage it was a bit of a fight to keep it out.

I knew the storm wouldn’t last long which was a little bit of comfort and the brush I was using was very effective in pushing the water back out towards to new drain and then suddenly it was all over and the drain that had been overwhelmed began to work once more.

No lasting damage thankfully, the water covered a fair bit of the floor but only touched one of the new walls and did no damage. Earlier in the day there had been things all over the garage floor, tools and the like, and I decided to put it all back on the shelves since I had lined the walls where the shelving would go………..a lucky move me thinks.

So on Saturday and Sunday I spent both days in the garden trying to modify the garden to try and make it more difficult for the water to reach the garage. It’s still a work in progress. The weather has been hot; around 36°C and the humidity high so it does not take long to get soaked in sweat and get fatigued and dehydrated. Trying to design something that you may think will work is the problem because there is no way of testing this until the next storm which I think they expect on Tuesday and so I have one more day to get it finished. It’s currently Sunday evening and tomorrow I should get it finished and hopefully all my hard work will be worthwhile because I’ve spent a lot of time and effort changing the downstairs area, not to mention the money.

It’s now Monday afternoon and I’m not completely finished but I think I have done enough…….I’ve dug a new drain down the side of the house which will hopefully remove any overflow but trying to get the fall is the problem. The ground is hard and of course the longer the trench the deeper it needs to be, this is a work in progress .I’ll have to line it or maybe I might dig it deeper and put in some pvc which would be the best option but it’s going to take a few more hours to achieve that.

So I’m hoping that I won’t get a repeat performance of Friday evening but I guess only time will tell.

Another week has disappeared and I just don’t know where the time goes. I’m still painting the house as well as doing many other bits and pieces around the place. I haven’t finished lining the walls yet because I’m a couple of sheets short but there is no hurry to get that bit done. I’ve been focusing on the painting and I’m glad to say that I think the colour looks OK.

Trump thinks he’s still going to be the president again, poor guy he just can’t admit defeat. So many deadbeats out there, 70 million or more crying and saying they were ripped off and didn’t lose………..the coming weeks and months will be interesting.

I went for a job interview and then I sent for a medical. I just had to do a drug and alcohol test and I’m thinking this will be a breeze. I haven’t had any booze for weeks and the only drugs I have taken were some panadol last week. I got breathalysed and that came up zero as expected. I then did the drug test which is done by testing a urine sample. It’s bad enough trying to pee on command and then only to fail the test. Apparently the test gave a positive result for Opioids, “really” I said. I was quite surprised and the nurse also looked a bit bewildered. I haven’t taken any prescription drugs apart from two panadol a week ago and I certainly haven’t taken any opioids for a long time.

The doctor came in and asked me twenty questions and I repeated that I haven’t taken any drugs for a long time and cannabis, well that was over 30 years ago. They asked me about my diet and this is where I think the reading is coming from because I have eaten a fair amount of Sesame seed over the last two weeks. The bread I eat has Sesame seeds and I ate a stir fry Teriyaki mix which also has Sesame seeds and so it’s possible that this is why the reading was a false positive. They then had to pack up my sample and send it off to pathology for further testing and I’m sure after that they will see that I ain’t no junkie.

And so that’s it for another week, nothing exciting has been happening apart from the Magpie and Kookaburra having a tête-à-tête first thing in the morning again, this time the Kookaburra won. I blocked someone on Facebook because their Americanisms and religious nonsense was irritating me, better to ignore than to engage me thinks. Getting too long in the tooth to be arsed with folk like that. There is definitely more to life and people need to get out more and think for themselves rather than follow the herd. And that thought will no doubt be the topic of another post when I’m in the mood for a vent.

Oh I just remembered……..I saw many posts on Facebook on November 5^th complaining about the fireworks and how the poor dogs were terrified by the noises and I know that to be the case because when I was living at home our dogs were also petrified by the noises and it’s only because they hear it once a year and they have no idea what it is, in the same way there is a thunderstorm they too will cower under the table or they may coorie in to you. Complain to God if you can find him………..

 So many people wanting the fireworks banned, what’s the world coming to, can’t the humans have a little bit of fun anymore………..it’s one day a year and yes I do know that some arseholes will take liberties and play with fireworks for a whole week, I was one of those arseholes when I was younger. But it’s a bit of fun, freedom, a learning curve where you realise that if you hold on to the firework too long it may burn you or blow your hand off………it’s a rite of passage. In this day and age where almost every bit of normality that I knew as a kid has gone I think that we just have to coorie up to our four legged friends and distract them as much as possible and let the eegits let their hair down until such time that we forget all about Guy Fawkes, which I hope we never do unless OH&S wins. The UK has a long history and many commemorations, I don’t like them all but that’s just our history……personally speaking I would ban Christmas, it’s just a fucking nuisance, more so than November the 5th, although having the day as a holiday is OK I guess.