I was getting into my car on Saturday, when a man came up to me and asked for a lift. I said "You're looking great, and the world is your oyster." I think he went away happy! I hope so anyway.
I started the second last block of shifts, before my Gran Tour back to the UK, so the routine was pretty normal, with an early start, to get ahead of the traffic, and headed down to Mandurah, ready for my 8 AM start today. It was only about 1 hour drive as it was the weekend, and there weren't too many cars on the road.
On arriving at the depot, both the night crewed ambulances were there, but unusually, they looked like they hadn't had a wink of sleep through the night. It can be quite deceiving working at a supposed "quiet" station, as on Friday night, everyone was out in the town, and feeling quite frisky. A couple of the calls that they had attended made the news.
My day was filled with mostly mundane, usual types of calls, but I was very tired when I headed to the beach house in Golden Bay after work. I remembered my experience last week with trying to keep warm, and so I stopped off at a roadhouse (petrol station on a country highway that doubles up as a restaurant/general store – a little like a Little Chef and Petrol Station all rolled in to one – with food that looks about as tasty).
I looked around the store, and then located what I was searching for. Outside (not under cover) were some big bags of firewood. It had been trying to re-enact the Genesis account of the Great Flood story for most of the day, so I rummaged through the bags in an attempt to find a bag of firewood that wasn't sodden. I was almost successful.
With my damp firewood in one hand, and my small bag of belongings under the other arm, I was very relieved to finally get into the dry of the house. I set to, and with a couple of piles of twigs and newspaper balls, I got a fire roaring in the pot belly wood burner, and then opened the bag of firewood I had brought with me. It didn't take long to realise that the bag of wood was really going to take a lot of convincing to get burning.
It was mostly damp wood, and with the limited trail craft I've got, I knew I was fighting a lost cause trying to keep the fire going. But after a lot of poking around, and piles of twigs and more newspapers to coax the fire into life numerous times, eventually it was warming the place up – just in time for me to go to bed.
I didn't need anyone to give me a lift today, as I was feeling pretty good about things – for the first time in a while. I am really just wishing the next fortnight away in a hurry.
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