I thought I posted my story but it had not gone thru and me thinking it had been deleted I had a dummy spit and deleted my stuff...
I was wrong and I said so but when you examine my day you can perhaps understand I was tired and uncommonly cranky..maybe the withdrawal from the morphine which I will cover later.
I appologised to Andrew and will now put the story together again..although it was yesterday and things are already getting dim
My tale starts getting up at 4am playingbmy guitar having meds, a long process, weet bix etc and getting to my job site at 6 am.
I keep getting marooned here due to the extreme wet..the ground just can't take it and so my road needs work..blue metal but I have not bothered to seek any as I know none will be available given the road repairs going on in our area.
So nevertheless I must do something..I have to vote after all on Saturday
So I swung the pick for quiet some time and shoveled heaps of clay to reduce the camber on a bend that when wet has you completely slip sideways no matter how slow you go round..it really is like ice..making it level will help just so much..in addition I have laid pavers and placed concrete , 12 bags so far to improve traction in the worst places...also I have dug drains everywhere to move the water and made a crossing with pipes no less..lots of work and I am rather proud given most days I can't stand up. But I stopped my cancer meds and got my feet back to get these things done.
I just had to as I really can't walk when they bite.
Well by 8 am I needed a rest cause tge pick takes it out of me even justvlifting it and letting it fall to save myself a heart attack ...so thought to mow a non used track to perhaps get a second route to my set up..it was sitting so I could recover...but I made that choice to rest really..anyways I got the mower well and truely bogged, even removing the trailer I could not rescue it..so get ready for my major drama of the day but not the last...I thought get some bark and you know make a track..so close by there was a dead tree which had bark, I took what I could reach but realised I could probably bring it down by rocking it..and I did start rocking it and I think I could have done it but then I heard "crack" I knew instantly what had happened so I grabbed the tree and pulled myself as close with one arm and covered my head with the other just as the top ten feet of the dead tree speared into the ground a foot away right and right where I was standing doing my rocking...so very very very close..but really what a great day to have cheated death again..honestly I dont know why it wastes time chasing me ..go after easier prey.
So what to do after trying with the bark I had gathered that did not work.
Mmmm walk 500 mtrs back to the van/ observatory and bring back rope and the turffer..( a winch type thing) sure easy but not so much for an old man who needs a wheel chair most days..so as I had no choice off I went using my shovel like a crutch....
I got back to the van and rested for an hour loaded up and drove my white car as far as I could to halve the walk back..I also got my little garden wheel barrow to carry the turffer and rope..so much rope..but you need it sooner or later...and it was sooner because the first tree I used as an anchor point started to move more than the mower each time I moved the lever..so undo all that find another tree..which I did but it was just so taxing as the grass is waist high and my balance is non existent..the next tree I tied off to a second tree so if it started to fall it would slow things so I could get out of the way..well it did not move but I would winch and run the cable out a damn terrible process because it is a crappy turffer and will be replaced..it's gone..it made a hard job near impossible...four runs of cable to move the thing ten feet..so finally I drag the mower and get it such that I could ride it out..which I did...pretty proud of myself by now and very happy not to be dead and amazed that I walked so far..I mean you must understand there are days where I literally can not get from one end of the van to the other un,less I in effect carry myself via my arms hanging off cupboards approach.
Also two days earlier I stopped my prescribed morphine and just waiting for the withdrawal to bite.. happily it hasn't..again so lucky..I am just so lucky..
So I get back to the car go back to the van and come back after a ,long rest and food to rescue the trailer and my tools and the little wheelbarrow and untie all the damn rope which now seemed to be everywhere...so not being able to get the mower anywhere close I ran out the rope and dragged it at the end of about 60 feet of rope.and that worked although I turned the thing over and had to empty the tools etc and the 20 litre full petrol container and bring them out a bit at a time in the garden wheel barrow...but I got it done..AND the complete irony..It was hot, so I took my shirt off and got very Sun burnt..funny given the rain has kept me grounded for so long.
ANYWAYS today I pulled up fine..at one stage I got hit by leg cramps that near made me scream but my trick was to stick some salt under my tounge and fortunately that worked If not it would have been a handful of morphine..so again so lucky to even have salt on hand cause I don't use it in fact avoid it as many folk do...
So that was my big day.
It may sound ordinary to young folk but for me with my issues I rate it like climbing Mt Everest walking on your hands...
But when I think of the past 18 odd months cheating death on three or four occassions but more dead than alive..going for months unable to eat and losing 25 % of my body weight, unable to play my guitar or even pop a pill out off it's little packet..that weak...so do you think I am happy to be just so very very lucky...and now again capable of doing the impossible..but its the result of being patient persistent and resourseful working around my issues...
AND being old no one cares or interested but presenting it here makes me feel good somehow.
Thanks for listening.
alex