TheBanyanTree: Hoping for a chopper soon

[Peter Macinnis]

I spend a lot of time in libraries, but even more at home, either 
researching stuff or writing stuff.  The snag is that there are always 
houses being done up around here.  Across the main road that we live on, 
a small team of Chinese have been working intermittently on transforming 
a run-down cottage: we think they must be contractors who work on the 
job when there's no other work going.

It's a high block, and on a regular basis, they drop large blocks of 
masonry, broken bricks and the like into a skip (aka a dumpster), and 
now we know the sound.  That's behind me as I look out the study window, 
with several intervening rooms, so it barely impinges.

To my left, a small block of flats, a narrow street and three houses 
away, has been extensively restructured, but most of the power tool work 
is at an end, the small diggers have stopped laying trenches, and I was 
looking forward to being able to open the window and admire the birds in 
the bushes outside.

Now a home, just two houses away and right in front of me is acquiring 
an in-ground pool.  That means digging a hole and removing the spoil 
through a narrow passage at the side of the house with a powered mower. 
  It runs up a ramp into a truck, and drops great lumps of sandstone.

That's fine, I can live with that, but the real problem is the digger 
that is making the hole.  Sydney is to be found on the Hawkesbury 
sandstone, a 200 metre/600 foot layer of sand that was laid down in a 
delta, a bit like Bangladesh, and then went hard.  It's Triassic, and 
that means it's been going hard for 200 million years, and it's *tough*. 
  I know, because in our last house, I worked a lot with bedrock, 
cutting drainage channels in it.

The digging device sends low frequency vibrations through the sandstone, 
and I think our building is probably shaking with them.  It's a sort of 
ride-on jack hammer, and the effect is like having your teeth drilled at 
the dentist, but without the assurance that your teeth will be better 
for it.

Anyhow, last week, we were advised that the shell of the pool was to be 
lowered into the back yard of the property.  It would be briefly noisy, 
but safe, they said.  We smiled.  That meant the end of the digger, and 
probably a few spectacular pics as well.

I was never in Vietnam, but the sound of a chopper brings about a 
similar reaction to the one you see in those who served there, dunno 
why, but it just does.  Still, it would be worth putting up with the 
racket, if it meant the end of the grinding rock-smashing monotony.

Alas, they are still digging today, and they aren't hauling any of the 
new spoil, so the chopper is several days away from being able to drop 
the shell over the house.

Problem: I have a book coming out in 11 days.  It began as a pot-boiler, 
a quick dash-off job that became lots of fun, so I put a lot into it, 
and the designers did likewise, and now it looks like being a big 
seller.  I'm not on royalties, but I got a good fee and it's still nice 
to sell well, and if I promote it the publishers look favourably on me.

So starting in eight days from now, I will be doing a lot of radio 
interviews by phone from home on the Tuesday, all in the name of 
publicity.  The rest of the week will be in assorted studios, including 
the "tardis" which will make it sound as though I am with people in 
studios in New Zealand, Tasmania or anywhere else in Australia.

Murphy's Law says that Tuesday will be the day the chopper will come. 
The book's about lawn and lawn-lovers, a sort of social history, so I 
don't mind if there are lawn mowers going outside, I can absorb angle 
grinders on the block of flats to my left, Chinese contractors dropping 
rocks behind me, even the jack hammers on the pool site in front of me.

But I draw the line at choppers.

Besides, if I'm on the phone, I can't take pictures.


-- 
   _--|\    Peter Macinnis             petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
  /     \   Chief Aconite of Macrame, the Scottish god of misshapen
  \.--._*   ashtrays, Gordian highlander wall hangings, vegetarian
       v    haggises and sporrans made from kitchen odds and ends.
            http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm