I got the desperate phone call again on Tuesday and would I mind doing a couple of rounds at “your usual rate”.  No worries, my friends, but we were looking after Muppet on Thursday and I was  hoping to be there and play with her but desperate meant desperate so I negotiated rounds to have one in Ocean Grove yesterday.

The one on Wednesday in Geelong brought back a flood of memories when I read the Highton shopping centre.  I was 5 or 6 when my best mate and I had picnic lunches packed by our mothers and we wandered over the fields by ourselves to a hill overlooking the Highton creek.  We settled on the hill which overlooked this beautiful, meandering creek lined with tall willows and gum trees.  All we could see was farmland and the odd house along dusty roads and the St John’s church about 500 metres away which was badly damaged by a tornado in 1926 (very rare in this country) and was rebuilt and is still there today.  Incidently, it injured several people and killed two even though the area was sparsly populated so goodness knows what destruction it would have caused today.  The newspaper report here for my local readers who might be interested.

I had to read houses on the hill behind the shops and came to one which I reckoned was about the spot where we had picnicked.  Now all you can see are houses stretching into the distance, the big shopping centre built over the creek and cars and people everywhere. Progress? 

Yeah, I know, I’m getting old and feeble and wallowing in my flashbacks.

Incidently, my mate must have been 6 foot tall when we started school together and he went on to have a great career as a footballer with Geelong in the Australian Foottball League and his son is now a champion player with Geelong.  Having a mate that tall was great insurance because I was never bullied or picked on in school and it only cost me helping him with his homework occassionally. 

We went our seperate ways and it’s been years since we’ve crossed paths but 10 minutes after my trip down memory lane, I was back in the shopping centre reading and who did I run into!  Yep, this huge outstretched hand greeted me and there was no mistaking that mischievious grin showing off the broken teeth and the nose at right angles courtesy of one too many clashes on the football field.  What a coincidence!

Yesterday, I was reading back in OG near home and managed to slip back for my coffee break and Muppet and Ninny were having great fun drawing, playing dollies and I wasn’t really required.  I went back out and put in a real burst and was home by 1:30pm and had a couple of delightful hours with Muppet before mum came and picked her up. 

The only drawback from “a real burst” was being completely stuffed after two, six hour rounds of rapid walking after a big break.  Consequently, I slept very well last night.

I ended the week with a couple of meter reading rounds.  The desperate call came through on Wednesday and the two rounds were only 4 hours each the added benefit was that it paid for all the bike gear we purchased recently.

This place had me puzzled.  That meter box lid is new, has new hinges and a latch and is secure so what gives with all the woodwork?  As my good Irish mum used to say, “Ejits”.

Our passports arrived this week and the postman was good enough to ride his motor bike right up to our front door.  Lazy sod.  It appears we only get the city of our birth on the front page and not the country so mine is just Haifa.  Handy when the Arab terrorists storm the aircraft demanding passports and I’ll be screaming, “Palestine, Palestine!”.  These new ones are biometric and we only have to twinkle the irises at the camera to be admitted into the land of Oz.  Blink and you’re out.

And no, you’re not seeing my passport mug shot.

MP here.  I’m sorry to report that DB went out meter reading and hasn’t returned.  The humidity has been unusually high lately and DB kept complaining (more than usual) about how uncomfortable it is working in those conditions.

He didn’t return home on Thursday so I contacted the police who conducted a search of the area he was working and they came up with some clues.

On Tuesday, we decided on an easy rest day after our toil in the garden of late so it was out for a run where we finished at the beach for a swim in water that must be around 30c at the moment.  We had it all to ourselves and what are the workers of the world doing today?  Who cares!

I was sitting down to a leisurely lunch at 12:30pm and by 1:10pm I was over in Pt Lonsdale reading meters.  I got the panic phone call to do three rounds, but firstly, another MR wasn’t going to finish a final day round so it was over to help him.   It was easier to take the PDE and tear around at a furious pace while he leap frogged ahead grabbing readings on a notepad and we managed to finish with 5 minutes to spare. Don’t worry, that cost them a lot of money.

I did a round today and the humidity was stifling and I was drowning in my own sweat in the end.  You may ask why I still do the odd bit of meter reading.  Nothing beats power walking for 8 hours in tropical like weather to help lose a kilo or two, the “panic” money is good, and it gets me away from retaining walls and laying crushed concrete.  Temporarily. 

Now, what was that about the workers of the world?  Oops!

I’m not sure I ever mentioned how I bailed out of my 9 to 5 job at BIT in 1999.  The electricity industry was being broken up and sold off to private retailers with the promise that it would make electricity cheaper.  Nope.

My section was sold off to a Melbourne mob but I was offered a job locally by another manager that turned out to be a dud within a few days so I was ready for retirement at 51.  I applied for a severance package on the Monday and was gone by the Friday.  Funnily, I had no emotions or nostalgia about leaving the place having worked there on and off since 1966 (had a 10 year break). 

I wasn’t interested in an official send-off so I took all my workmates out for lunch and shot through on the Friday.  They kindly did a whip around and gave me a nice signed card and this beautiful Seiko travel alarm clock which I’ve found to be invaluable over the years.  It kept very accurate time until about a year ago when it stopped (yes, I did replace the battery) so I took it to the only watchmaker in Geelong who wasn’t interested/too lazy to repair it.

So I stuck it away in an ice cream container with a lot of other computer junk and forgot about it until four days ago.  At 5am in the morning, I hear this loud shrill beeping coming from somewhere in the house so I crawled out of bed and had to snoop around everywhere until I found the clock merrily announcing that it was awake again and so should everyone else.

I checked that clock a couple of times over the last year and it was as dead as a Dodo and suddenly it comes to life again and has been working flawlessly since.

I tried to convince MM recently that our house had ghosts.  Jeez, I’m starting to believe my own BS! 

Of course I didn’t ring 000 but it crossed my mind.  Wil was on the ball saying that the mobile call would have been recorded and traced.  I’m glad I didn’t do it because I’d be shitting myself now after being reminded about that.  Actually, I’d probably be in a jail cell contemplating what the bar of soap was doing on the floor.

It reminded me about another post I did back in February 2007 when I came across a grass fire while reading out in the mulga.  Nee Naws rocked up from the Mannerim fire station which I had to read a little while later.  I always had trouble finding the hidden key for this small fire station and then squeezing past the fire trucks to read the meters, and when I came back down the road later, the guys were back in the station and I told them I just thought of a great way to make things easier for me to read the meters in future.

That got a laugh and they just reminded me about that bar of soap.

I forgot to mention an incident from my meter reading last week.  Reading the major accounts, we have to do the ambulance station and fire station which are across the road from each other in Geelong.  I have to use a phone at the entrance of the ambulance station and ring a bell at the front door of the fire station to be allowed in to read the meters.

Everytime I go there, I have trouble getting anyone to answer the door at either station even though the two places are manned (or womaned).  Someone usually saunters out when they feel like it much to my annoyance as time is money in this business.

So I was walking towards the stations and decided a quick call to 000 reporting a car fire and someone injured would be in order.  Next thing, out screams a fire engine and an ambulance and in strolls one meter reader through the open door to read the meters.

Of course, I would only think that.

Or would I?

Finished my stint of meter reading today.  I was supposed to do one of the major rounds in the car but a MR couldn’t get a late walk round completed yesterday so I had to finish it off.  I was home by 11am and happy to be off the track considering it was going to be 33c today.  It’s forecast to be 41c on Monday so I was extra pleased to be finished.

Received a note from LIT which said inter alia, “Thank you so much for your help and professionalism. Great when we can give you work and we know it will be reliably done”.  They know how to stroke Dogbait’s ego.

I was driving up the road this morning and came across these guys.  They were heading away from the lake but the solitude of the Nature Reserve ahead beckoned so hopefully they were heading there. Duck season is around the corner so they’d better get a wriggle waddle on.

From yesterdays travels.  That’s the company car along the Bay and it’s specially modified for meter readers as it has a turbo charged V8 and Sat Nav.  Zzzz.  Sorry, I just drifted off for a sec.  Must have been dreaming.  Actually it’s a 1.5 litres Mitsubishi Colt and is quite a nippy machine. 

The second photo is my warped sense of humour.  That sign on the fence made me chuckled as those old gates were the entrance to the local Drive-In theatre long since abandoned and probably where half of Geelong’s population was conceived.

This is my morning coffee break today on a beautiful day.  So who can tell me where it was taken?  Competition only open to my overseas readers.  Hint.  It’s about an hours drive from my place.

What’s the chances a bushfire will roar over those hills before the end of summer?  It did in 1983 but turned east on a wind change just before it hit the town but burned down over 1000 houses in the area nevertheless.

I’m back into the meter reading caper for two weeks.  I was asked to do the major accounts which is a cushy job driving around in an air-con car all day, or more to the point, playing dodgems with the tourists.

Then I get the desperate call asking if I’d mind doing three walk rounds in Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove this week before I tackle cushy.  No worries, as we euphemistically say here.  Since I can only work a short day on Thursday, it was put in big today. 

It’s been 2½ years since I did an 8 hour round, and damn, do I know it!  After 8½ hours of power walking with just two 10 minute breaks, I’m utterly stuffed. I keep reasonably fit in retirement but the only training for meter reading is meter reading.

I had to contend with sweat, flies, mozzies, dogs, and the hell of all, hordes of rubbernecks aimlessly wandering the streets as I had to negotiate the shopping precinct.  One perverse pleasure I get from doing the shops during the holidays is that a lot of the RN’s think I’m the local laws cop with my uniform and I have people coming up to me asking what the time limit is here or if it’s okay to park their car over there.  You should see the looks I get when I say, “Park there forever if you want” or “I’m just about to book everyone in the street” or something similar.

The frightening thing is that I have to do that all over again tomorrow, and althought it was only 25c today, tomorrow it’s going up to 34c.  I might just have to whack on the budgie smugglers under the shorts and hit the briny during the round to cool off.

If you hear of hordes of RN’s going into cardiac arrest, you’ll know the budgie smugglers made an appearance.

More tomorrow if I’m still alive.

My second day of secondment had me meter reading along my favourite round, The Esplande between St Leonards and Indented Head.   What a contrast from the previous day when it thumped rain and now I started with a beautiful cool morning, and by the time the sun started beating down, I was finished. 

This photo was taken from the same spot last year and you can see the skyline of Melbourne in the background. Since you mainly read one side of the road only (the Bay is on the other) it requires a 3k walk to the starting point but we’re here for the exercise, so who cares. 

Actually, I’m here for more than exercise.  The government has just deposited $1500 into my account just for doing a bit of work the last financial year.  Generous, eh!  If I earn about $2500 in wages for the year and put $1000 into my Superannuation account, they give me the freebie.  I have two Super accounts so I just transfer the money from one to another.  I haven’t had much work from July and may pick up a couple of weeks over the Christmas/New Year doing the major accounts and if I scrounge up another weeks work before June, it should see me across the line.

So there you are.  Exercise and greed.

I got the desperate call yesterday evening that all was not well in dogbait territory and would I mind doing a couple of rounds to ease the pressure.

So I rustled up the work gear and headed out this morning under threatening skies.  Hey, we live in the age of global warming and drought so what’s the chance of some decent rain while Dogbait hits the track.

It thumped down rain for four hours from the moment I stepped out of the car, so that much chance.  I could count on one hand the number of times that I’ve had to don the full battle gear while doing this meter reading caper over the last 5 years and today was one of them.  As they say, shit happens.

I did 6 hours in a fast reading area, and boy, do you get out of nick quickly.  Put it this way, it’s 6:30pm and I’m ready for nigh nighs.

If I could just get a word in edgeways here………..

Thanks to Muppet’s Mum for her guest appearance.  We wish her well for the big climb and look forward to another post with plenty of photos of the event.  Just a word of advice, stay around for the presentations!

I did note that she got 8 comments to my 4 from the previous post!  I’d better not call for a vote on who’s to run this show.  Anyway, it’s called Dogbait’s Babble which was originally designed to report on my meter reading exploits and all is not lost as I did some this week.  Old soldiers never die….

I got the desperate phone call earlier this week asking if I’d do two rounds in Pt Lonsdale and Queenscliff to help ease the pressure.  No problems as it’s one of my favourite areas, and as it was forecast to be hot, a nice breeze off Swan Bay would make it a bit easier.  However, nothing to report, no people, dogs, kids and it all went smoothly and I got most of it done on one day and a couple of hours the next day to finish before the forecast 37c hit.  They are just starting to install the new smart meters around the State so meter readers will go the way of the Dodo soon.

I do have an ulterior motive to doing some meter reading, because if I can earn about $2500 a year in wages, the government will pay me $1500 into my superannuation fund if I contribute a $1000.  I have two super funds so I just transfer $1000 from one to another, and bingo, I get the freebie.

Have you ever gone out to buy something expecting to pay $400 and it only costs $32?  It’s been a good week!

I’ll tell you that one tomorrow (If I’m allowed!)