Two Days in the Life of a Diminishing Radiographer

 Honestly folks, I’m sure you don’t believe me, but on this please do.  Most of my days start with a thought about you; you as a collective, not as an individual, although you - the singular = do get thought about pretty often.

After that I amble downstairs and stand outside and gaze with amazement at the starry starry sky.  The longer the pee, the more I enjoy the experience.

Back to bed and then the day starts.

I’ve picked up some casual work at Coney Wines, about 7kms away and you can buy their wine in Majestic, maybe in Leamington if you can ever venture to a shop again.

Tim is a most delightful oldish guy but probably as youthful as I am.  There is a degree of eccentricity about him and interesting conversation is intermingled with conversations of absurdity and stupidity, sometimes entering into a world of the ridiculous.  Heath Robinson invented a contraption to get the nets off the rows of vines.  I stand on the back of a small platform and stuff the netting into bag as he drives his 1960s tractor down the aisle.  Eventually I found the most efficient way for me was to stand in the bag.  Today, after having taken the nets off the vines I went down and, as he trundled down the aisle I obbed out buckets for the pickers to put their grapes into.  With a bit of spare time before we went back to collect the filled buckets from the 6 pickers I had time to do some picking.

Yup, it was easiest to climb into that bag and stuff away.

The boxes were filled so Tim trundled down the aisle as I threw and then stacked the filled boxes, weighing anything between 5 kgs and 11kgs.  Going too slow doesn't help, it just means I have to run with a box of grapes to catch up.  Then to the Italian press and it all starts again.  2.5 metric tonnes later I thought I’d finished, but none of it.  All those 150 boxes need to be washed for tomorrow.  Luckily I can skive out of tomorrow as it is the annual ‘Round the Vines’ 10kms run, where at the many drink stations there is a choice of water, water melon or wine.  That’ll be a rest.  But back on Sunday.  I tell you what, it is bloody hard physical work and its not what I thought retirement is about.

.

The pickers.

Down the lines stacking 5 high, 7 -11 kgs, 3 wide, 5 deep. 75 boxes.

At the grape press ready to chuck em in.  Pinot Gris with Pinot Noir.

Everyone has made me feel very welcome and it's been great to have little snippets of a tutorial from the head wine maker, although I did think she was testing the apprentice out when she gave me a taste of an apparent chardonnay that looked more like the ascites drained from  someone's abdomen who is suffering with a cancer.  I never tasted ascites so I can't tell you if there was any similarity other than looks, but the chardonnay tasted good!  I was very pleased to be given it in a 2013 glass which of course was the year Wigan Athletic beat Manchester City in the FA Cup.

The closest I get to the wine is a glass for my lunch. c'est bon n'est-ce pas

However, I am back on Sunday morning.

By the time I get back I am so darned worn out I haven’t got the energy to go around the estate to see how the possum traps are.  What worries me is that after 3 days they maybe a bit rank.  Poor things.

The other day in our life, after I thought of you was when our container arrived.  As you may remember its eta was Jan 5th, it arrived into Welly on Jan 30th.  We thought we’d have it 3 -4 days later.  It arrived here on March 17th.  To add a little bit of something to injury the driver got lost between Wellington and here.  I was beginning to think we were less likely to see it than Elons musk necklace of satellites, but with the amount of star gazing I do I think the chances of that are higher.  Any way it arrived.  It is such a first world luxury, but it is kinda nice to have some of our own furniture, familiarity and clothes around us.  It was becoming a bit tedious wearing the same clothes that we left Coventry with on December 2nd.  I so wanted clean underpants.  I was over turing the outside in and inside out on alternate days.  We left UK with 32kgs each.

As we unpacked things we were being awarded the ‘what did we pack this for’ award.  Gold award went to a 16 roll pack of Sainsburys toilet paper. 

The ‘Blimey’! Award went to the phenomenal number of coathangers that have arrived.  I think they can only have reproduced in an exponential way whilst locked down at sea.  I mean what do you do to fill your time in lockdown?  Rumour has it that …….. Life can get tedious in lockdown. If there is a coat hanger shortage, it’s our fault.

We claim ‘The Good Intention Award’ by virtue that the local charity shop already has 4 boxes and there is more for them.  It’s a bit like a M & S sale; ‘the more you spend the more you save’, except for us it's ‘the more you unpack the more you get rid of’.

The ‘OMG’ award.  I bought some Martinborough wine for gifts before we left.  The very first bottle I unwrapped was the bottle I kept for ourselves.  A bottle of Palliser, Martinborough wine.  Palliser winery is 19 kms away.  It could be the bottle of the largest carbon footprint ever.

Why would anyone retire?  It is exhausting.  And that is just 2 days in the life of a radiographer. 

And on the third day was the Martinborough Round the Vines 10kms run.  A fun and stunning run running through the vineyards.  As we all know running has a high incidence of early onset dehydration so there are 5 water / drink stations.  Performance enhancing drugs are actively encouraged and at the drink stations you have a choice of either water or wine.  Sir Mo and Sir Bradley never turned their noses up at drugs so why should I?  They were even endorsed by the queen.  Wine enabled a modestly good 51.36 time, and if any one is worried, I’m refusing to be tested.  But check this out.  At the drink stations there is live entertainment.  As I arrived at Ata Rangi I heard the grand and loud rendition of ‘I’m a Believer’.   I kid you not.  Oh the days of the DW at Wigan, 40 seconds before kick off were re-lived as the mighty crowd blasted out into our own version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_cFKMTlWUQ

We are in Covid days and the virus is virulent.  PPE is essential as is QR code scanning and distancing.  Ali ran her 10kms in full PPE, gloves, mask, visor and gown, and won a prize for individual best dressed.  No one was allowed to run within 2 metres of her.  I’m not sure that Kiwis got a lot of the significance.  (I went as ‘me’, Ali’s petulant and persistent virus).

Ali did have people scanning her qr code, I’ll be using it for contact tracing.  Eat yer heart out Dido!

To fit in with the title I’d say we bought a car on the first day, but we bought it last week.  A Yaris Cross hybrid.  There is more technology in the indicator than all the cars I’ve ever had starting from a Citroen Dyane and including a VW Golf and a peugeot 206, so as you can see I’ve been at the cutting edge of automotive development.  Now I’m told with a beep if I’m going to sleep and veering towards a white line, it worries that I can’t tell if there is a car in front of me so it slows down, Sam Nav whispers sweet nothing instructions to me and to cap it all it has a TV in which I can watch on going episodes of reversing.  I fear it maybe the closest I ever get to a TV.  However, it doesn’t have a bloody CD player; I managed without a tape player in the last car but no CDs!  Technology is too good for its own good.

The Billy Bailey performance.

“And would you like a groper tonight madam”?

Just a letter from Jacinda, that’s all.

You may never hear from me again, I’m booking to go on a 2 day chainsaw course for the 2 of us.

If you want a more accurate account you could try: richetal.wordpress.com and there Ali will tell you is actually happening.