On the Friday morning that I left Australia, there was rain! I just had a rainwater tank installed and dramatically it started raining as soon as it was in. The whole process of setting up the tank was a drama. In the chaos of moving all my furniture and packing my bags, I had to grind out some tree roots so the concreter could put down the base pad. Then I had to worry about the plumber arriving in time to install the tank which sat at the front of the house for a week or two. In the meantime there were frantic phone calls to the man in the office who was trying to coordinate his over-stretched sub-contractors with declining rates of success. When the plumber appeared at 7.30 on the Wednesday before I was due to fly out, he took one look at the location of the base pad and said it was impossible to put the tank there because he couldn't move it into position. To my despair, he looked like he was just going to walk away from it so I raced next door to my neighbour, Tony, woke him up and begged for help. Tony used to be a formwork carpenter on building sites so he knows about foul-ups and how to get things done. He came over.
"G,day mate," he said to the young Sicilian plumber, who was already heading towards his ute. They studied the problem without saying much. Tony used his tape measure here and there around the tank and down the side of his house. Then they decided what had to be done. We had to take down the fence between Tony's house and mine, destroy Tony's washing line, clear up the side of his house which has the kind of clutter accumulated around most houses that have been lived in for a while, and slide the tank down the side of his house and into position. Tony took charge and within an hour the tank was in place and bits of Tony's house and our shared fence were scattered all over my back garden. It then took several hours for the plumber to locate and install the required pipes and pumps and declare that I now needed an electrician to wire up the pump!
More frantic phone calls to the man in the office and the electrician arrived the next day - a young woman who did the job quietly and efficiently. Tony also fixed up the fence the next day so that when my tenants moved in one hour after I left on Friday morning, he would be protected from their two primary schoolchildren. It takes a big effort from a lot of people to do one small thing for climate change!
It started raining that Thursday and carried on all through the night so that in my last minute scramble to empty my house, I was tramping mud in and out of the kitchen door. When my friend, Carol, called early on Friday morning to wish me safe journey, I was literally on my knees next to the phone washing the floor. I had spent the night at another friends house because by that stage I had no beds at home. He dropped me back at 5.00 in the morning on his way to work. When my other neighbour, Kerry, called at 9.00 to take me to the train station to catch the train to the airport I was still putting my boots on and trying to get my heavy case down the stairs. It wasn't until I was on the train and felt that delicious sense of weightlessness that comes when you are on the way and know that there is nothing else you can do, that I thought about my friends. They put me on the road and will be travelling with me through this blog.
So the flight to San Francisco via Auckland with Air New Zealand was very relaxing. Air NZ still allow a bit of space to shift your legs occasionally on their planes and they still serve free alcohol with meals. I watched 'The Bucket List' and '27 Dresses' and got almost a full night's sleep.
When we were descending into SF, I made the required mistake on the immigration form and had to get another one. When you have to fill in boxes, it is useful if the form is designed so the appropriate box is clear! Even on the form I handed to the immigration officer, I had respectfully left the section that said government use only and was told that I needed to fill in my details there. I mumbled about there being a different relationship between government and the individual in USA and he agreed with a smile and sent me down the nothing to declare lane. My sister was waiting for me as I trundled my case out into the arrivals area and I just felt that life was very easy! That will be the next installment.
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