Study period: two frantic weeks of library lock-ins, near-toxic caffeine levels, and chronic stress. The stress is actually not that misplaced; most of us have an entire semester of work to catch up on in a period of days to prepare for 60%-percent-of-your-grade comprehensive final exams. Oh goody. I say "us" because, alas, reading bricks consistenly lost to Call of Duty on my priority list throughout the semester.
Basically, reading period was really going to suck for me. So I left.
And went back to Josef's farm! I had had such a good time at Birriwa earlier in the semester that it was a much more attractive option than sitting in Canberra and feeling my blood pressure rise. Last time, there were warm days, cool nights, lots of excellent food, work in the sun, and more than enough Boggle for everyone. This time proved to be a little different.
First of all, I want to make it clear that Josef and family are excellent hosts who made me feel entirely at home the whole time I was there. I had my own room, unfettered access to internet and refridgerator, and no early morning wake-up calls. All in all, it was a fun week.
Josef and I arrived at Birriwa on Monday just as his parents, Mary and Keith, were heading out the door to Sydney. They were planning to be back on Thursday, but didn't make it back till Friday night. So it was just Josef and me at the farm, with Ebony the poodle to keep us company. Now, Birriwa has a stove/oven unit from the 1950's which is powered by petroleum gas and normally works great. Unfortunately, the gas regulator had broken, so our cooking appliances were limited to a teakettle, a toaster, and a barbeque. Well, that's fine; the fridge was stocked with grillable meats and Keith left us an old butane camping stove which he promised would suit our needs just fine. (I'll explain why this stove did not make it onto my list of appliances later.)
Monday and Tuesday: Morale is high. Josef and I are quite productive. We scrape off old wallpaper, water the plants, gather up a bunch of brush, and play lots of Boggle. I also get to meet three interesting characters: Mick, Whack, and the Australian blowfly. Mick is the painter who has undertaken the considerable task of repainting the entire house. He's about sixty and has red hair and a crazy-thick Aussie bogin (~redneck) accent. He enjoys taking the piss out of, well, everyone, especially Josef and I for getting up at the obscenely late hour of 10 am.
Whack is actually named Robert. He's the construction hand around the house for the heavy lifting and hauling. Whack is especially suited to such exploits, as he is easily over 6'6" and when we shake hands his was so broad I can't get my fingers around it. I think he could have palmed my head and lifted me up off the ground if he wanted to. Fortunately, he's a very kind-hearted giant, and I am sad to not see more of him after Monday when he comes down with a bad case of gout. Yes, they have gout here. I had thought the last person to have it was Benjamin Franklin, but whatever.
I'm not going into the Australian Blowfly here. If you want to know about them, check my last entry. I'll just say that on Monday afternoon, I get way closer to the whole freakin' blowfly extended family than I ever wanted to.
Wednesday: Morale takes a blow. The running water stops running. We still have access to bore water from the hose outside, but needless to say this is too inconvenient to actually make use of. Showers and dishwashing cease. Diet now consists primarily of toast with Vegimite, supplemented with the occasional barbequed snake (kidding! - maybe). Intense Boggle ensues, with the occasional break to do chores, like plant some potatoes or clean out cobwebs. But mostly Boggle.
Thursday: Morale dropping further. The gas in the barbeque has run out, and there is no spare. We don't want to drive into town to get a new tank, because we might not have enough gas in the car to get back. Then, in an attempt to make pasta, we fire up the camping stove. However, this stove is old and quite finicky. Today, the seal around where the butane tank plugs into the stove mechanism has decided to leak, and so the butane bottle itself catches on fire. We manage to turn off the gas before it explodes and kills us both, but we also do not attempt to use the stove again. With no oven, stove, gas, or running water, we are effectively down to a toaster. Dinner: toast with Vegimite.
Friday: Dazed and probably quite smelly. Josef and I are both sick with the mucussies, much to Mick's amusement. We go out and get gas for the BBQ anyway, and make it back safely. Also, the plumber comes and fixes the water, so I get to take a very cold and unsatisfying (but necessary) shower. Mary and Keith arrive late at night, which is nice, because they make us dinner. Mmmm meat.
Saturday: Wake up at 5:00 am to catch a 6:00 bus from Gulgong to go back to Canberra. I wake up Keith and we head out in the station wagon. It's been raining, which is great for the plants, but the road is slippery. Half way to Gulgong, a routine road-position correction sends the car fishtailing, and Keith and I ultimately slide across the road and do a 180 on the steep dirt embankment. We end up unharmed, facing the direction we had come from.
Now, if the car had been a skateboard, and we had been in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 instead of on a little country road, this stunt would have been a sweet indy nosebone off a quartepipe into a switch manual and a kickflip. We would have gotten like 13,000 points and it would have been dope. However, the car is not a board; it is a Peugeot 407, and it gets its wiring ripped out, its undercarriage banged up, and its rear left tire destroyed. Furthermore, we are not in a video game; we are trying to get to a bus stop in the night. This is made more apparent when we discover that had we gone straight instead of spinning out on the embankement, we would have run right into a big ol' tree. Cool. We're fortunate enough to crash in the 200m stretch of road that got cell phone reception, though, so we call Birriwa and get Josef and Mary to come pick us up.
Mary and Josef arrive soon in Josef's car (remember: the one with almost no gas left). Josef and Keith stay with the Peugeot, I wave a quick goodbye and then Mary and I tear off in the direction of Gulgong. We get there six minutes late. The bus is gone. I tell Mary to turn back and I'll go back Sunday, but there is nothing stopping her. We drive all the way to Mudgee, about 30 minutes from Gulgong, on nothing but fumes. Fortunately, we do manage to run the bus down, and I successfully travel back to Canberra in time to prepare for my Monday exam. Whew.
So, yeah, it was good times at the farm. I met a dude named Whack, decided I like Vegimite, didn't bathe for days, played Boggle more than is healthy, fought an unsuccessful battle with a TIE fighter squadron of blowflies, and was reasonably close to death twice. Yeah, it was fun, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't happy to see my dorm room in Canberra. Sometimes, being a consumerist drain on society rocks.
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