I finally heard from my daughter, after 8 years or so, having never seen nor heard from her in that time, apart from a brief 5 minutes as I was leaving at Damians wedding. She’s getting married on the 11th November in Queensland, to Matt, who couldn’t even bring himself to say “hello” to me at Damians wedding last May.
I’ve been invited to the wedding, as more of an afterthought to give her the excuse that “oh, we invited him but he never came” and not tell anyone all I got was 2 weeks notice, and I would have to get my passport renewed, and pay out close to $2,500 in airfares, accommodation and travel costs to get there. Like I have $2,500 just laying around in my back pocket as spending money on short notice.
I realise I’m horribly old fashioned, I actually asked Stefs father for permission to marry his daughter, we were both 24 at the time, but it was the way things were done, and while it was more courtesy, it was still something that added to the value of what we were doing.
I guess things have changed, and now you can be as rude, impolite, ignorant and downright rude to your brides parents and think nothing of it.
I wish her well, pity she has lost her father, my Mum disowned Mel long ago, and refused to see or acknowledge her before she died, I’ve had to make the same decision and disown her as well finally, despite spending the last decade writing to her, without a reply, and trying to keep some communication open.
Damian and Mel
Peter the Plumber and I have been putting up election billboards for the coming election, he’s a strong Labour Party man, with Green leanings, after the time I spent in the Green Party, and having worked within the Labour Party before that, and now voting National, we have some interesting discussions while we’re driving around Golden Bay putting up signs. And we’re putting up Labour Party *Damien O’Connor Labour* billboards. I’ll probably vote for Damien as the local electorate representative, and give the party vote to National, both of us agree the Greens are a waste of time now they have gone all Global Warming and trying to stop any industry/development or improvements.
I’m not in favour of a lot of both parties policies, but more against the Labour parties ones, if that makes sense. They want to increase the minimum wage to $15, for unskilled and fresh off the unemployment employees. With the costs involved, payroll tax, holiday pay, ACC levies, PAYE, training, etc, you need that new employee to be producing $1600 of value in the first week to cover your expenses. Like that is going to happen. All that will happen is that unemployment among the unskilled will increase, there will be a bigger pool of totally unemployable people, who live off the benefit, and taxes will rise to cover the cost of paying out for more unemployed
My version is that the minimum wage is set at $20 above the basic benefit, at present it is $201 per week, and PAYE doesn’t start until $221 per week and then only on the $ above that. At present we pay tax from dollar one, no discounts, personal allowances, and both major parties expect people to start saving. This is after increasing GST to 15%, no wage rises for nearly 10 years that I know of, I actually earn less in dollar terms now than I did 15 years ago, my annual income 15 years ago was $15,000 more than it is now, and I have less than I did then.
And ok, I do lead a gypsy lifestyle, and give away a lot of stuff, and travel and work at jobs that don’t pay much. I get $18 per hour, plus overtime at the farm, I charge out between $22 and $25 per hour for gardening depending on distance from here, expenses are petrol at $2.29 a litre, my Council rates at $1200 approx a year, electricity, about $180 a month, telephone and internet $120 per month, repair and maintenace of equipment, I’m just up for $560 to replace a 6 month old lawnmower, and I’m having to replace the defunct grass cutter as well at $890. Then there is the hedge trimmer, another $650, and I spend $220 average a fortnight on food. I don’t count Tuffy the Wonder Dogs expenses, I class that as mental health related expenditure.
We’re having the usual Bainham Spring weather here at present, which means the rain only comes sideways once a week, and falls straight down the other 6 days. The rivers are flowing well, which is both good and bad. It flushes out the river beds, which gives the trout good egg laying stretches, but causes too much flow for the whitebaiters along the river as the whitebait are trying to run upstream. I’ll get photos of them once I take the camera out, I’m wary of it being in the rain, and trying to get batteries for the Nikon F50 film camera is almost painful here, they have to be ordered in at the pharmacy, and I never seem to be in town on the right day.
AI (artificial insemination) has started at the farm, we’re putting about 20/40 cows a day out of the herd as they come into season for treatment, drafting them out of the morning milking, treating, once the AI person arrives about 9am, then putting back into the herd in the afternoon. We’ve started to recognise the cows coming into season, they kick, stamp and are in general a pain in the A*** to deal with. Brigid and I have gone back to spraypainting a large K in blue on the udders for kickers, and I end up persevering with them to get the cups on in the mornings. So far I’ve been lucky and dodged any damage, but it comes close as the unpainted ones go into season and lash out without warning.
For people that aren’t morning persons, you’d hate the milking shed when Brigid and I are working. We have a choice between, we’re milking cows, we get shat on, pissed on, it’s 4.30am, it’s cold, it’s wet, it’s a crap job, or,
We might as well make the most of this, so lets have fun. I’ve mentioned the Indian Herd Manager before, to say neither of us have a high opinion of him is probably an understatement, we do a mean imitation of him, dressed in a gold loin cloth, singing Heartbreak Hotel, or imagining him as Lord Krishna with his Gold Loin Cloth, little round fat belly, calling to his little Poppadom. Plus the off colour one liners, jokes and in general sending up anyone and everything.
The jokes run from fairly average to not fit for work, and beyond, in amongst it all, we do manage to get all the cows cupped up, notice any with problems, from lame to mastitis, keep the shed clean, and still leave smiling in the mornings.
I did tell Brigid the other day that I was going to stop all of this frivolity, because people would start to think I was some redneck bigot, and once she stopped laughing, and rolling on the floor, she said, “But Warren, you ARE!”
So I called her a dumb blonde bitch, and she said it was only blonde out of a bottle and she was really an incredibly intelligent brunette, so I asked why the F*** was she milking cows at 4.30 am on a wet cold spring day if she was so intelligent, and she said it was because fecking bigots like me that expected women to be on their backs and chained to the kitchen sink and to just shut up stopped her from running the country, and I replied that if she was running the country instead of being at home looking after her husband and servicing his needs then she would be the one causing the problems, so she squirted me with the wash down hose, and I tipped the bucket we have of hot water over her.
Then we both stopped laughing, and got back to work, singing Heartbreak Hotel, with added emphasis on the “UGH UGH”
Insanity is contagious, we have attacks of it every morning.
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