Trough Pilates, Rain Meditation and Low Key Celebration

 I have had a few days off work as I was so good a wife as to be available to celebrate in whichever way was seen fit a 0 number on V's calendar.

Of course, I then immediately turned around and  shattered this romantic gesture by offering him the larger share of my respite, as I am a flag-waving representative of the sandwich generation. And the smaller portion was allocated to a trip over to Mum and Dad.

As I arrived, Dad met me at the car. 

"You packed your working gear?" He asked. "We have a trough to fix while the carer is here."

I dutifully put on my working gear - after all, he has been the same father for well over 50 years now, and we are well trained to anticipate- and hopped into his Land Rover (The Land Rover is genuinely robber-proof and only Dad and the chosen fools who agree to drive it are allowed).

We turned off the electricity for the fence as "last time I came down to fix this I got tangled up and took a tumble". Yes, you read that right, an 85 year old man - alone in his ancient Land Rover - took a tumble while checking out a trough surrounded by lots of thick green grass, growing pools of water - and accentuated with an electric fence wire across the top of it - as he was removing the cover to see what was wrong in the first place.

However, as said, he HAS been my Dad for (well) over 50 years now, and expect the unexpected is a motto we live by.

The alarm from his falls watch goes off as he charges gears in the Land Rover. He is sitting right beside me so I reject the phone call - so of course it immediately rang the rest of the list. 

"Did it go off on the day of the tumble" I ask.

No. And he had been wearing it.

We drive down to the trough and water is pooling around but he is prepared, so we battle with historical stiltzens (I just had a Mandela effect moment when I typed that - you know what I mean don't you?) and the world's largest (& therefore most economically efficient no doubt) shifting spanner to undo the float mechanism from the pipe gushing water, because the trough is fed by the dam which is solar pumped to tanks near the house and then gravity fed back to this trough and so at least 3m drop of several thousand litres of water held only by an inadequate float mechanism. So in this instance not held 

When we removed the mechanism, we found another problem. The kit came with a reducing and an expansion nipple but nothing for through the side of the trough. The old mechanism had it attached somehow but the new one did not. So we had a dilemma (my original discovery of the Mandela effect was due to me being of the number that remembers being taught that was dilemna)

We had to hold this water back while we went into town, got something that would go through the side to join the gushing pipe with the trough mechanism - as there was no tap on the pipe anywhere. Luckily we McGuyvered the new float mechanism and the pipe with some grass and some gravity principles and hared off to town (about 5 km away).

Apparently what we needed was a tank boss. They have been around so long that they assumed that it would have been installed!

So back we went and eventually worked out how to connect the float mechanism WITH FLOAT attached (as the area too short to attach after) so that the off position on one side aligned with the unseen hose attachment requirements on the other of the tank boss - then we realised that the bend we had put in the float arm so it could fit in the area with the float attached at all meant that the cover couldn't be put back on.

When I was a kid and even a visiting adult, my Bull-at-a-Gate father would take the lead role and I would just do what I was told.

Now, I still do what I am told but have to pre-empt a little as, at 85 and with only one good eye, he doesn't bounce as well. My body, however, has had a few decades of air-conditioned office chairs and occasional yoga stretches.

O. M. G.

I was in bed that night at 8.30 because I had found muscle groups that had completely lost my address!

I had spent the afternoon doing a bit of the air-conditioned office chair in hopes of tying up some bureaucracy loose ends but alas thwarted at every turn - including one officious gent who, when being advised we needed to sort something that I had attempted to sort November, was brutal in his demands of authorisation from Dad and then discovered that they had stuffed up in June and never tried to resolve. He promises it will be sorted - next week.

This meant that we had the opportunity, however, to see my beautiful sister.

(I am telling everyone to smile)

It was determined that the short way - The Pinnacle - is far superior in distance but it's detractions are lack of bitumen and low gullies - oh and that whole hills and forest and unfenced road hazards - but it really feels like you are getting there - as opposed to the other way (until the bridge is fixed) - where you go a long way to get back to where you nearly started.

The storms didn't look that bad, we agreed, it doesn't know how to rain properly any more out here. A small discussion on what direction they would come from or go to ensued, and as we were agreeing that they came from the direction where they were and heading in the direction where I was going, it was decided that haste would be my pony and I had best chance it.

The first 20km - until you turn right at Kalpowar - was fine. Brooding sky so sunglasses off but no windscreen wiper activity.

The next 5 - winding on dirt through Lantana and scrub on gravel I heard thunder but luckily no wind.

At the top of the hill, where it opens out into the bald of cleared timber I contemplated stopping to capture the cloud and rainbursts on three sides but time was not on my side.

The rain started in earnest just past the landmark of where Jeanie and the car before the car before this one lost faith with each other- and did not abate until I stopped for fuel 120km later - 80 of those on dirt. I definitely did not speed and luckily was travelling WITH the rain so the creeks were not yet up - and any wind had gone before me.

I had to get home as yesterday was V's 0 number. We did exactly what he wanted for his celebration - a lovely meal at home and no social expectations and bowling and a nice meal tonight with 'Salina. Oh and Paris and I made his requested vanilla cake and buttercream. I found this recipe. I didn't realise that V and Paris had made a special trip for a cheap packet mix until I stumbled upon it in the pantry this morning. Oops.