The Night Shift

By

'Pixie Chick'

          My nights are pretty much run of the mill really. Some nights are really good, and some are just plain lousy; it really depends on the intruders I guess. Once or twice I have a very good night and manage to nab three or four but that doesn’t happen very often.

          Ah yes, the night shift worker, odd really how some prefer to work during the day though. I’ve been in this job now for as long as I can remember and I must say I’m pretty good at it, which is just as well because I don’t think I’d be much good at anything else. Yes, it’s a satisfying job, no hassles, no bosses, no jumped up little subordinate telling me how to do my job. Can be cold sometimes though, and wet. I hate that! The heat can be quite tiring as well but I cope with that; an extra wash here and there and then a quick snooze then I’m up and at it again. At least in my job, there’s no-one to dock my pay for taking a nap.

          Seven days a week I work the night shift and if I feel like a night off, I just take it. Yes, my life is good and I can’t complain, after all, who gets a job this good these days.    

                                                                 

Mornings are always the same old routine too. Mother has my breakfast ready when I come through the door, then its bath time and bed. Most days I get to sleep all day undisturbed, but the days that really brass me off are when people come to see Mother when I’m trying to sleep and insist on making a noise and waking me up. Mother’s friends aren’t so bad mostly; they just talk and laugh loudly and it’s really annoying because it wakes me up. I give them one of my filthy looks, but it never makes any difference. It’s the ones who can’t take a hint that really get to me, you know, those ones who laugh so loudly it’s enough to wake the dead.

Sometimes I just have to leave my bed and go find somewhere else much quieter to sleep, and sometimes I don’t even get back to sleep at all.  Children are the worst; they just can’t bear to see me sleeping during the day and insist on annoying me till I just can’t stand it anymore and I have to leave.

          The weather plays a large part in my job. When it rains there aren’t as many intruders willing to get wet so those nights are always slow. However, when the weather gets cold, whoa! I catch many more intruders. That makes my life much more interesting and besides, with more around, I’m never bored. I wonder why they come around here when they know I’m on duty. Ah well, more for me anyway.

                                                                                     

Yes, this is a very satisfying job. There are a lot of us on the night shift and we are all good at our jobs; we are quiet, patient, and persistent and we have a very high success rate at catching intruders, after all they don’t make it easy for us with the places they can get into. Then I guess if we weren’t quiet, patient and persistent, we cats would never catch those horrid little mice would we! 

                                                                                                             

The Water Lamb

By Pixie Chick

 (Susanne Hughes)

    Handing me another lamb, this one cold and wet and very soggy, Tom, the farmer next door chuckled and said he thought this one didn’t have much of a chance, just as he chuckled with all the lambs he brought to me.

    We lived on a tiny property we’d purchased surrounded by farmland, and being former farmers ourselves, I was quite used to the annual influx of orphaned lambs that came through my door each spring.

    I kept two Saanen milking goats who also kidded in early spring and they produced so much milk that I would freeze it and use it on the orphan lambs when they arrived, and the two orphaned calved we would take in as well, or save it for when the nannies had reduced their output then use it on the late lambs. It saved a lot of money by not having to buy dried milk for the orphans.

    Being new to the area, the local farmers took me as a bit of a joke because I volunteered to take all their orphans off their hands as I knew that most farmers on large stations would not even pick them up.

                                                                         

      It was just too much hassle for them to raise pet lambs as they didn’t have the time. That didn’t mean they didn’t care, and when they heard I would take the orphans, they would bring them home and either drop them at my house or I would collect them.

     “He’d been born in a puddle of water; mother just up and left him there,” said Tom.  It was a cold, wet spring morning and the weather didn’t look as though it was going to clear up anytime soon.

    I had the fire going in the dining room which was nice and warm so I put the lamb into an old towel and rubbed him to try and get his circulation going, and to dry him off a little. I always kept goats colostrum in the freezer for the new lambs as many of them were very weak and hadn’t had the first milk they needed to survive.  

    The little lamb was too weak to even suck and I myself had a few doubts as to whether or not he would make it, but I persevered. I ran warm colostrum down a stomach tube to try and start off the warming process and to give the little guy some strength. I moved him onto a special pillow I had made for these little babies who were so close to death, made of an old mutton cloth filled with Angora wool, from our other goat that lived with my in-laws. (Each year we would shear his wool to make him cool for summer, and I kept the fleece for my orphans).

                                                                                

    I continued to gently rub him to keep his little heart going and to help warm him by the fire, and soon he started showing signs of life. I named him Moby.  As the day wore on he got strong enough to hold his head up and as night approached, he could sit up, although he was still quite wobbly. He was holding his own and began to bleat so deciding that he may see the night through, I put him in a plastic lined box with warm dry hay in the bottom.  After two middle of the night feeds, he was gaining.

    Moby made it through the night and before long, was running around all over the lawns and gardens with the other orphans, thoroughly enjoying line up at feed time, with five other heads all vying for the bottles.

    Weeks went by and soon there was no need to keep feeding Moby and his other adopted siblings so he was put out into the paddock with the others, to graze his life away. He would amuse me as he played tag and head butt with the other lambs but his one enjoyment seemed to be sleeping on the tree stumps in the paddock. None of the others ever did that, only Moby, and sometimes he’d sleep so soundly, he’d fall off.

    Months went by and he was happy in the paddock with his mates until one winter’s day, Mike noticed the sheep in Tom’s paddock, where Moby and his siblings were with Tom’s sheep, being chased and he knew there was no-one there. He sped across the paddock on the quad bike, to the opposite corner, and around the end of the hedge spotted two dogs barking at Moby, who was standing in the trough, and wondered why Moby wouldn’t get out.

    Mike shouted and the dogs ran off but Moby was still standing in the trough. As he got to the trough he saw a bull terrier inside the trough lying in the bloody water, holding Moby by the throat. Mike was angry. He knew how much my lambs meant to me and he knew how much I hated seeing packs of dogs on the loose. After a struggle he had managed to release Moby from the dog’s brutal hold, and dragged the bull terrier away from Moby and tied it with a piece of wire, to the nearest pipe.

    He ran back to Moby who was still standing in the trough, and realized the extent of the viciousness and brutality inflicted on my poor defenseless lamb.  His entire bottom jaw was gone, ripped away brutally and agonizingly, by a pack of bored dogs. His tongue hung down on the outside of his neck and blood poured from his severed veins. The only thing Mike could do was put him out of his misery. It was such a sad end to my poor little water lamb that was born in the water, and died in the water.  

'Mr. Undies'

By Pixie Chick

          We moved house a few months ago, from a single level unit to a townhouse. And while there isn't much joy in moving house, other than the fact that you get to live in a whole different place with new places to explore, and new neighbours to meet, I really do not like moving at all.

          It's not the actual moving that beats me up, that's easy....get the movers to do that one. It's the packing, sorting, unpacking, sorting, finding places for everything and then on top of all that, having to remember all the different companies I have to change address with; power, phone, internet, transport department, insurances, Post Office to mention just a few, but most importantly, my family and friends.

          However there are things that really make moving house an absolute grind, on the day. The heat for one. Here in Queensland I think I should have thought this out a lot better and do as the dairy farm workers do in New Zealand, and move in the middle of winter, although I guess there is always the possibility of rain there or possibly even snow in the high country....or mud, or all three!

          The day our belongings were moved, I had arranged for the movers to come and transport everything as I am too old to do it all myself anymore, and movers are generally young, strong men. Hubby went to work as usual, which was rather necessary as I am sure we'd have ended up in arguments over the moving and placement of stuff...so it was easier just to get the movers to do it, and a lovely friend came to help me move my potted plants.

          Everything went plain sailing, loading up and moving and most of the unloading. I'd used this company before and the movers were really good then, had sensible ideas on putting things together and moving things about. However, I didn't know that these two were actually just international backpackers. The driver was an Italian doctor and his sidekick was a literary student from Sweden and neither had been in the country very long, and knew diddly squat about moving furniture.

          They managed to bring everything into the townhouse, only breaking the corner off my workstation, which didn't bother me that much, but when it came to moving the bed up the stairwell, that was a whole other story. The mattress went up just fine, but being an ensemble bed, the base did not want to fit. The guys tried different ways but still it would not fit past the newel.

          Suddenly, a half naked man appeared from somewhere, and tried to give his sixpence worth to the moving men as to how to get this base up the stair well. He was dressed only in a pair of old grey undies, but they had holes in the bottom and there were 'bits' hanging out where there shouldn't have been. I was stunned and didn't really know which way to look. I didn't know who this man was, so my mind nicknamed him 'Mr. Undies'. I'd been trying to ensure the movers didn't mark the walls so when Mr. Undies invited himself in to 'direct traffic', so to speak, I had to leave the room and hid out in the kitchen behind the cupboard.

          The operation went on and on and after a while I'd had enough of the sweltering heat and humidity and the nonsense going on in the next room, I had to come out from my hiding place and tell the movers, "Don't worry about it, just put it in the garage and we will sleep on the mattress on the floor."  With that, Mr. Undies wandered off and as I went outside to show the movers which garage was ours, I spotted Mr. Undies sitting outside his unit 2 doors along.

          A couple of days later, he saw me returning home from somewhere and asked if the movers had gotten the base up the stairs. I said they hadn't and that it didn't really matter too much at the moment.  He was still sitting outside in his old grey undies, so I opened my door and walked inside, not wanting to be engaging in conversation with a strange man who sat around in his holey undies all day.

          Since that day, there have been many times when I come home from being out, and he has been sitting outside his unit, smoking his smelly cigarettes and still sitting in his grey undies. The only times I have ever seen him with other clothes on is when he is waiting at the gates for his ride to work.

          One day, I was trimming up my rosemary which sits in a large pot outside the front door. Mr. Undies arrived on his chair in the front of his townhouse, and started chatting to me, so I answered politely and carried on with what I was doing. He asked me what I do with the cuttings, so I told him I grow them. However, I did have rather a lot of clippings so I asked if he used rosemary. He said he did, so I offered him a bunch of cuttings which he took and put in his freezer.

          I got the feeling he was a little lonely there as he never has visitors and lives alone, so I asked him where he worked. He told me he was a gardener at a local golf club. I thought, that explains his garden and his interest in plants. Now, I'm a friendly sort of person and I like to know my neighbours, but for all my trying, I just cannot get past those undies. It makes me cringe, and each time Mr. Undies has tried to involve me in conversation, I politely answer then quickly walk away. I can't, in all honesty, stand around talking to a strange man only wearing holey undies!

          Most mornings I get up anywhere between 4 a.m. and 6 am. to do the work run as hubby doesn't drive. Whenever I get back early, it's generally a really good time to water my garden out back. I don't think there's been a single day when I have been out watering, when I haven't heard Mr. Undies in his back yard, coughing his very bad smokers cough. I know its him so I don't even bother to look.

          Then the other morning, hubby was up early in the weekend and he decided to go and water the plants for me. He heard Mr. Undies out back, coughing and coughing. At one point he thought the man would collapse from all the coughing, so he looked through the palings in the fence and was stunned to see, Mr. Undies was out back standing in his yard, stark naked! Hubby couldn't believe it so finished watering then went inside to get the bird food. (We feed the birds around here every day, then go upstairs to watch which birds are coming in and which ones bring their babies).

          He watched the birds for a few minutes then found that Mr. Undies, still naked and coughing in his back yard, was distracting so he sat at his computer and watched a movie instead. About an hour later, he'd heard the crows arrive for breakfast and looked out the window to watch these smart birds, dipping their food into their water dish to make it soggy before eating. They were showing junior how to do it. Then Mr. Undies coughed again and hubby looked over and saw he was still in the same place and hadn't moved, and now that the sun was higher, he didn't think it was appropriate for Mr. Undies to be standing outside stark naked, when he has single women living either side of him. (Or maybe that's why he does it.)    

     

          I wondered, is this just me or does he have the same affect on everyone else as well? So, the next time I was at the office, I asked the manager if he sits around there all the time in his undies because I find it quite inappropriate in a communal living space like this. She just laughed and said she'd seen it too, but she doesn't engage in conversation with him either for the very same reason, yet when he goes to the office, he is fully clothed.

          I wonder why he does that? Why sit around out in public, in holey old undies where people can see you and your 'bits'? And why stand in the back yard of your rental townhouse, stark naked, knowing that when residents look out their upstairs windows, they can see you?  I don't get it. If he wants to run around naked in front of people, then join a nudist colony!

About Time!

by 

Pixie Chick

             "Procrastination is the thief of time, " so said Charles Dickens. How right he was, is and ever will be. We all procrastinate about many things, everyday things, once in a lifetime things, things we know we need to do today but put off until tomorrow, or the next day....or never. I'm good at that, unless I have a deadline, then I am onto it and whoa betide anyone who interrupts. 

            I have worked on and off most of my life until two years ago when the company I worked for, decided they didn't need an old person working in their production....despite the fact that the work I put in was twice the amount my generation Y assistant did. However, this is not a pick session...far from it.

My husband had just been employed in work in factory quite some distance from where we lived; my own job being 40 kilometres south of home, but easy to get to straight down the M1. My husband's work was 25 kilometres to the west of where we lived and he not being a driver meant I had to drive him to and from work, and the days when I worked I would clock up a hefty 170 kilometres per day in driving to both jobs, and back.

         It didn't bother me doing the driving, I'm good at it and I enjoy it, although the stupids who like to drive like 'tubes' on the freeways, forced my hand into finally buying a dashcam, which has proven to be a very handy investment. Sometimes, I'd have to work late and that meant I couldn't contact hubby because neither of us could take our mobiles into the factories. One day he finished early due to a power outage in his factory, and I finished late which meant that he had to wait for four hours before I could collect him. The situation was frustrating at times, to say the least.

        Then one day I developed a skin condition possibly from the chemicals we used, and told my boss. That evening I received a call from my employment counsellor who told me the company had decided they no longer wanted my services. Hmmmm, I thought. I wasn't too upset, as I just assumed that at the age of 61 the boss would rather employ a younger person. I spoke to hubby about it and his response was...."That is good, you can now stay at home and retire, and just drive me to work." I wasn't keen on that idea but decided that I'd give it a go anyway, at least for a while.

       I got itchy feet and wanted to be working again, but finding work for an over 60's female with a disability or two, was not the easiest, so after several months resigned myself to being just a housewife. Once I got the idea through my head that I wasn't going to find another job at my age, I began to enjoy being a housewife, something I hadn't done for many years. However, living in a motel room, where I'd been for the previous 6 years, was proving a challenge by then. It was way too small, cluttered but clean and tidy. There was no kitchen, just an improvised one I'd made up when I moved there all those years before. 

       One day, I decided to sort out some of my stuff that I felt I could do without, and indeed managed to get rid of some, but not enough it seemed. The room still didn't look any different so I challenged myself a little more, and on going through my older stashed files, came across my writings. Years before I had studied with The Writing School and earned myself a Diploma in Writing. I hadn't forgotten about it, it was just somewhere in the back of my mind and everything else was blocking my view. Procrastinator!

     I opened up some of my study files and sat on the floor, leaning on the bed, began reading some of my work. I was quite surprised when I read the comments of my old tutor who said I had a flair for writing and should consider writing more. Most of the rest of that day was wasted sitting reading my old modules and then I remembered the ones I had saved on my old floppy disks. Hah! I thought, that will be a waste of time, my modern computer doesn't even have a floppy disk drive.....does it?  Not one to be terribly interested in the ins and outs of computers, I like them to just be able to do what I want them to do, and hadn't taken any notice as to whether or not, my pc even had a floppy drive, after all, they really are pretty outdated now. But, curiosity got the better of me and I took a look, and lo and behold, my pc had a small floppy drive. 

      The next idea posed another challenge....will it actually read my floppy disks? I put one in and to my immense surprise, it did! I was really excited by this time because it meant I hadn't lost all my work, or the book I had written way back in 1995. How wonderfully satisfying. So, for the next couple of weeks after I'd done the work run in the mornings, I'd hurry through my chores then sit down at my pc and read my work. I was suddenly spurred on to start writing again. 

     Since then, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing about all sorts of things and began doing travel reviews for Trip Advisor, my all time favourite site, as well as one travelogue for Matador . However, I haven't written any on there for a few months as I have been absorbed in writing other things. I have many sitting on my pc just waiting to be edited and read. Therein lies the problem.....they are on my pc.....they are NOT on my blog page or anywhere else for that matter. 

    A few days ago, I was on my way home from the morning work run and stopped at a servo for a much needed energy drink (yes I know they are bad for me, but I had been unwell and had no energy, so that was my excuse). The young Indian guy behind the counter asked if I was on my way to or from work, so I replied that I am my hubby's driver. He asked what I do and I replied I was a housewife but I spend a lot of time on my pc writing. He was curious as to what I write about so I told him, anything I want, but mostly short stories, travelogues (which are my favourites) and I also take and edit photos, mostly landscapes.

      He was very interested in my writings, and asked me for a link so he could read what I write. That's when it hit me! I never in my life believed that anyone would ever be interested in reading anything I wrote, yet here was a complete stranger, interested enough to even ask. I was more than surprised and embarrassingly had to admit, I do have a blog spot and have had since 2010, but there's nothing on it! I don't know why I never never got around to it, maybe it was just the thought that nobody would ever be interested. Procrastinator!

      Well, here it is...my first blog for my own blog spot, and its well enough, about time!