Getting ready to leave

 

Getting ready to leave.

Over the past ten years we have long since perfected the opening up and closing down of the house. What we did not anticipate was that the transfer of our time spent living in the different environments would actually become more difficult rather than less. Here on the island we spend days and days with just our own company. We live, laugh, love, talk, share our thoughts with each other without need for anyone or anything else. We have the occasional grumpiness if I am spending too much time on the computer - I do have work to do - or if Waldo is once more looking for his glasses, keys, a spanner, measuring tape, the piece of paper he put down ten minutes ago. But on the whole we just enjoy the joy of being together, without the need to wear watches when we do what we wish when we wish. That is of course within the limits of Kythera shopping hours!

In Cardiff it is a different matter. Because we love being on Kythera so much, we minimise our time in Cardiff. I organise our trips back around board meetings and other important meetings that I have. Consequently I usually try to pack in far too many meetings into the short space of time. There is also the issue of catching up with friends and relatives and as such we become poor friends in many ways. We do have an open invitation to most to come and visit us and have enjoyed good times. But Waldo and I spend far less time together when we are in Cardiff and I am usually far more stressed and difficult to live with. We both find it far more stressful just being in the UK. The need for security, the heaviness of traffic, the crowds wherever we go, the inability of most shop assistants to understand that their job is to serve and help customers, and the general selfishness and personal greed do not sit happily with a contented life.

So the psychological impact of the negative emotion of returning presses down on us for days. Totally irrationally we leave the packing and closing up of the house until the last possible minute - as if we don't do it, the whole event might go away. But of course what happens is that we leave it until a last minute rush when we both get hot and bothered and often make mistakes. But this time we do not have to do much because we will only be away a short time. I do not have to empty the refrigerator, we do not have to lock away lots of items, pack up for winter and put moth balls everywhere.

We don't need to collect all of our patio furniture up and bring it indoors. It will not rain before we return and there is no fear of theft here. But Waldo does like to put the trailer and Bobcat in the garage. Now our garage is massive; about 18ft by 20ft but pentagonal in shape. Along one wall is the tank for the central heating fuel and running along the top of it, almost full length of the wall is a work bench. Apart from the usual clutter of old bed frames, old mattresses, the complete piece of a fitted wardrobe (not yet rebuilt as garage storage space), car washing equipment, pool vacuum cleaner, paint and brushes, dust sheets, strimmer, chain saw, cut shelves for my knitting store (not yet put up), spare pieces of wood and lots of other things 'that might come in useful one day', we have to make room for quite a large wood saw bench; two long garden hoses; rakes and shovels, brushes and all manner of garden equipment; two huge cable 'cotton reels' (yet to be painted and made into patio tables); the trailer (5ft x 6ft) plus tow hitch fitting, the Bobcat with bucket and shovel attachments. With all of this we can still get two small cars into the garage when everything is in its correct place!

This morning it was time to put the Bobcat away. The long shovel across the front of the vehicle was attached and that was no problem. Waldo put down two pieces of wood where he wanted to 'park' the shovel (just in case we need to get ropes around it at some later time), drove into the garage, positioned the shovel over the pieces of wood, lowered it and left me to turn the levers to disengage the shovel. Of course when anything needs two people to be working with Heracles the Bobcat, Waldo mostly gets the drivers job. This means I have everything else to do; most of which requires physical strength, nifty footwork and usually means getting up to my elbows in grease, oil and dust. Disengaging the shovel means moving two levers through 180' which, on the face of it, is quite simple. As the machine has been working the shovel and the weight of anything in it (usually about half a ton of stone dust or the equivalent pressure of uprooting trees) has squeezed the two metal plates together with pressure much greater than even most Olympic wight lifters can bear. So opening these levers needs muscle.

The next job is to engage the bucket and arm attachment. This needs precision driving and again lots of muscle! First Waldo needs to bring Herakles very close the the attachment arms and completely in line - amazingly for such big steel equipment there is less than 1/4 inch of play. I then have to connect the two hydraulic pipes. Normally it would not be difficult to lift the collar of one, insert the other end into the pipe collar and let go. But, given the position where they are located and the stickiness of the hydraulic fluid it takes me some time to do this. Once attached Waldo has the connections to lift, lower, rise and turn the bucket and arm attachment. After a number of attempts he gets everything in line and once more I am called upon to close the 180' turn of the levers. My muscles are now rippling with power and glistening with hydraulic fluid! Oh yea!

Once Waldo lifts and pulls the bucket attachment towards him, there are arms on the top with sockets which must fit exactly over a ball. Gently does it. Then with a long handled extension socket spanner I tighten up the nut on one side. Because the nut on the other side is rather misshapen I have to use pipe grips this time. Both must be fastened tightly and I am amazed (and secretly delighted) that Waldo just accepts that I can do it and makes no attempt to come behind me tightening things up.  He reverses into the garage because the weight of the arm on the front means that he would not have headroom clearance otherwise. As it is he has less that half an inch and I just have to be patient as Herakles goes up the slight slope to the garage, finding the flat floor just a coat of paint's width between the top of the protective cage around the Waldo and the door frame. Waldo is left to clear up the tools and rags whilst I come inside to wash and get some much needed cold drinks.

As I potter in the kitchen I cannot help but reflect that Waldo does not turn a hair at the fact that I get stuck in with what is often considered 'man's work'. I often tell him that he would have to go a long way to find a woman who would be willing and able to do a lot of the fiddly, dirty and sometimes technical things that his helper needs to do. He expects me to know what mole grips are; pliers, spanner sizes and all the paraphernalia of men's tool boxes. He expects me to have the strength to take the other end to lift furniture, lengths of wood, tree trunks, cement pipes and such.

As I reflect, I realise that for most of my life the men with whom I have spent time have had me working besides them. When I was on the farm my uncles saw me as another farm hand. If I wasn't prepared to be a 'little girl' and do women's things in the kitchen with my aunt, preparing picnic lunches, cooking huge meals, cleaning tripe, salting bacon, collecting and washing eggs for sale, then I couldn't be anything other than an outside pair of hands. Health and safety in those days did not seem onerous and so up to the age of about 12 I was too short and too weak to do much more than drive the tractor up and down the fields during haymaking. At first my little legs would not reach the pedals from the seat and so I had to drive standing up, jumping with all my weight on both feet onto the brake when needed!

I used to long for the day when I could be 'big and strong'. I certainly developed muscles when helping my aunt milk the cows. There was no electricity at the farm and so this was done my hand. At first it was my job to put hay in the mangers for the cows. I would take an armful of hay, walk between the animals and push the hay in between the metal bars at the front of the cows. I was only able to carry enough hay for one animal and so the unfed animal would move as far as it's neck halter would allow to try to get to the feed. This action would trap me between the two animals' necks and I would have to work up my muscles punching and pushing until they moved apart. It was much better exercise than a boxer's punch bag! Later, as I progressed to milking I worked on the muscles of my wrists and fingers - anyone who has milked a cow will know exactly what I mean. It is no job for weaklings or the faint hearted.

Feeding calves and lambs, lifting the animals into pens, mucking out and all the jobs of farming soon develop muscle strength. One of the annual jobs was to dip the sheep. This was usually done by different farmers in a locality on different days so that those not dipping could come over and help the one who was. Some farmers had a special trough, others merely damned up a stream (that was of course before the days of environmental concerns). A foul smelling yellow fluid was mixed with the water and the sheep herded to one end. Then, one by one they would be pushed or thrown into the yellow mixture. Men with dipping poles which were long poles with a curved crosspiece at one end would  put the crosspiece on the sheep's neck and make sure they went under the surface and had a good dipping. Mostly once dipped the sheep scrabbled free. Every now and then one could not get a grip and the dipping pole would then be used to push the animal up the bank and out of the water.  Before progressing to the experienced work of handling a dipping pole, the youngsters job was always to push the sheep into the water. Most of the sheep were reluctant to go and did everything to resist. Sheep are fairly stupid animals anyway when it comes to going where you want them to go. One day I seemed to be the only youngster around and so, together with the sheepdog, I was lifted into the 'push the sheep into the water' pen. It was hard work and the dog was beating me two or three to one, but he had the advantage of his bark and the sheep were afraid of him having come across his authority and threat of teeth before. I was only a little human and so, for the most part, they took no notice of me. One sheep was particularly stubborn and to get more of a purchase to push I did what I knew never to do, I turned around and pushed him with my back on his bottom. I could get far more purchase on the muddy ground that way. Of course, the inevitable happened. The dog saw that I was struggling, came over and gave a yelp at the sheep, the ewe dived into the murky water and I fell over backwards after her! I was actually in there for some time before one of the pole dippers realised I was not a sheep! I grabbed the pole and he dragged me across the whole length of the disinfected water and pushed me as I scrabbled up the bank where the sheep climbed up. Nobody was terrible concerned. Somebody, I think it was my uncle, wiped my face with his handkerchief and I was put back into the pushing sheep into the water pen again!


Secretly I used to try weight lifting but the only weights we had on the farm were 56lb iron weights used on the balance scales to weight out half hundredweight sacks of potatoes. My progress was slow but deliberate. At first, two tiny hands could not shift the weight. Then I was able to tilt it slightly. Then came the day when I could just about lift it with two hands, but had t0o be really careful that I didn't drop it on my toes. As a young teenager I progressed to being able to lift one to shoulder height with one arm. Then I progressed to having one weight in each arm. This was soon out to the test when I was called upon to help my uncle deliver the bags of potatoes which my uncle sold around the town. He had always driven a tractor and it was possible to get from our house to three relatives farms and lots of friends' farms without actually going on the main road but just using their land. Thus he did not have a road going driving license and it was I who sat in the car as he practiced for his test. This was a hair raising experience as he drove the car as he had the tractor; slowly, deliberately and with the complete understanding that whatever happened he had the right of way.

Before he passed his test the family came up with the idea was that because I had a driving license, I would drive the tractor through the town and he would deliver the potatoes. This only happened a few times because as soon as it was realised that I could equally carry a half hundredweight sack of potatoes on each shoulder, there was no need for him to be taken away from his work. So for a number of years, in the potato season, I could be seen on a Friday evening after school delivering sacks of spuds. I used to laugh when going around the posher houses where my parents lived. The men of the houses mostly worked in Cardiff in some profession or senior management position. They were the sort that shaking hands with them was like catching hold of a piece of liver as no sinew, muscle, or skin surface had ever held anything heavier than cutlery, rubbed against anything rougher than tweed or manipulated anything more awkward than a badly balanced pen. These men would see me lifting the sacks off the trailer and rush out to help.

'No. No. I'll do it.' I would insist. 'Just lead me to where you want them left.'

I knew that there was an easy knack of lifting the sacks off the truck and dumping them on the ground somewhere. The men who tried to lift the sacks from me would invariably drop them immediately. It was then left to me to pick them up from the floor, a much more difficult challenge and one that was far beyond their ability. They would retire with wounded pride and after a while it was only the cheery women who came out to see me, I knew where to put the full sacks and they would just have the money ready.

My father was not a farmer, but being one of five boys, and wanting a son himself, did not really know anything about females. When I came along he decided from an early age that I would be an honorary boy. Now in many ways that was good because he brought me up without any gender stereotypes and made me believe that I could be anything I wanted to be. It also meant that I was brought up to share a game of golf with him. This was in the days when men were men and did not use such things as golf buggies or bags of clubs on wheels. No, in those days you walked the whole 18 hole course and carried your clubs on your back. Thankfully I already had the potato sack training and was able to keep up with his 6ft, military fit figure striding up hill and down dale of the nearby links course.

One of the other benefits of being an 'honerary male' was that I was to drive as soon as possible. Now I could already drive a tractor and since I was about 14 had been taking my mother's car over the fields of my relatives' land, so doing a driving test was no particular challenge. But, on the grounds that my mother was merely a hopeless woman, it became my responsibility to check the car which we shared. So I had to learn how to check oil and water, fill up as necessary, check the tyres and put air into them, change a tyre, know about potential brake wear and other things which meant listening to the engine, checking pedals for 'floppiness' or kicking tyres.

Waldo's great passion is cars. As a qualified motor mechanic he loves anything to do with engines, speed and that sort of technology. His parent's farm had electricity because he rigged up power from a generator and wired the house and outbuildings. When it came time to join up to the power grid, everything passed muster on the first inspection. The only part of the system which became defunct was the fact that Waldo had rigged everything up so that the generator could be started and closed down simply by him putting his hand out of bed and pulling on a cord. No getting up and going out on cold frosty mornings for him. No braving the cutting wind on a dark night for him. It was comfort all the way.

Our shared backgrounds in farming, our shared love of cars, gives us a lot in common. Kythera allows us to express that as we tend the house and garden and all of the equipment that goes with it. Or perhaps it is that we are going back to childhood when we are here that makes us love it so much? It certainly has that privileged feeling of childhood; safety, love, freedom and few responsibilities of work.