I am waiting to pick my lad up from school and the blizzard snow is hitting the car hard, which is causing slight drifts to settle on the windscreen. Out of the steamy side window I see Cyril and George, the two Buncrana town gardeners filling in a hole with what looks like asphalt.
I pluck up courage and wind down the window, letting the icy breeze into the cabin and shout over unhelpfully “I didn’t know you were now on the tarmac gang.” “We’re filling up a hole where a tree used to be.” George shouts over. “Someone ran into it with their car last week and snapped it.” He indicates with his two hands the circumference of the trunk that got demolished.” “It’s not tarmac, it’s soil.” He says. I feel a bit guilty. I park on this stretch of road every school day and hadn’t even noticed the tree was there, let alone that it had been taken out. Mind you, I do find myself sleeping in the car at this time of day, so observation isn’t on the top of my list. There’s just something very relaxing about that ten minutes before the school breaks up for the day and I tend to drift off in a daydream giving little thought to the outside world.
WET TIME
I wind up the window to keep the cold out and watch George and Cyril out toiling away in the wintry weather. When I worked for the parks gardens in Nottingham we would have never ventured out in this type of weather. We opted for something called ‘wet time.’ We were ever vigilant of the clouds and if ever a drop of rain, or snow, hit the ground we made straight for the main building on the park. In here we had a room with a pool table, television, kettle and most importantly a big oil heater that we could sit on to warm our bones.
VIRTUAL GARDENING
We had a lot of ‘wet time.’ The downside of this was that we jeopardised our chances of getting a works bonus, which was something that most of us got used to having and would be loathed to go without. So it was time for a bit of creative form filling in of our time sheets to ensure that we always got top bonuses, regardless of the moralistic implications of taking money under false pretences from an already financially stretched Council. Even though wet time wasn’t on the bonus list, we always managed to fit in a bit of virtual sweeping, pruning and weeding to put on the form, sweeping was best put on the list on a windy day in autumn as the foreman couldn’t tell if you had done it or not.
BIRDS
One of my favourite jobs in the rain was to go and feed the 45 budgies and golden pheasant in the aviary on the park, I used to get half an hour a day for doing that although the numbers dwindled somewhat because the rats kept eating them. I ended up being paid half an hours wages a day for looking after two surviving budgies and when those died I still managed to get paid for looking after virtual budgies until the foreman noticed the cage was empty six months down the line.
DOWN THE BOOKIES
Norman, the gravedigger was a master at filling in the finer details to get us top bonuses every week and he used to go through our forms for us in his office, which happened to be the local bookmakers. He had his own chair and cup and we would give him the sheets on a Friday so he could cast his professional eye over them to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. There was a price to pay though and we had to dig the odd grave or two for him when there was a big race on. It was worth it though….
I suppose I should say here that we made up for the hibernating in wet weather by working hard at any other time… Well, I can’t. In summer, my favourite job was watering the bowling greens. I loved this as the sprinkler fitting rested on the hosepipe and the force of the water sent it up and down the green, giving me plenty of time to sunbathe and talk to friends. I fell asleep one day, (it was rather hot and I had previously had a late night) leaving the sprinkler flowing in one place for three hours as it got stuck on a kink in the pipe. The bowling green was under three inches of water which wouldn’t have been a bother if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a county match on. I was given a rude awakening by the captain of the local team who wasn’t too pleased…. I beat a hasty retreat splashing my way through the lake that used to be their perfect playing surface, dragging the pipe behind me. I did do an honest days work occasionally, for example….actually I can’t think of any at the moment. It’s funny how you forget things…
I pluck up courage and wind down the window, letting the icy breeze into the cabin and shout over unhelpfully “I didn’t know you were now on the tarmac gang.” “We’re filling up a hole where a tree used to be.” George shouts over. “Someone ran into it with their car last week and snapped it.” He indicates with his two hands the circumference of the trunk that got demolished.” “It’s not tarmac, it’s soil.” He says. I feel a bit guilty. I park on this stretch of road every school day and hadn’t even noticed the tree was there, let alone that it had been taken out. Mind you, I do find myself sleeping in the car at this time of day, so observation isn’t on the top of my list. There’s just something very relaxing about that ten minutes before the school breaks up for the day and I tend to drift off in a daydream giving little thought to the outside world.
WET TIME
I wind up the window to keep the cold out and watch George and Cyril out toiling away in the wintry weather. When I worked for the parks gardens in Nottingham we would have never ventured out in this type of weather. We opted for something called ‘wet time.’ We were ever vigilant of the clouds and if ever a drop of rain, or snow, hit the ground we made straight for the main building on the park. In here we had a room with a pool table, television, kettle and most importantly a big oil heater that we could sit on to warm our bones.
VIRTUAL GARDENING
We had a lot of ‘wet time.’ The downside of this was that we jeopardised our chances of getting a works bonus, which was something that most of us got used to having and would be loathed to go without. So it was time for a bit of creative form filling in of our time sheets to ensure that we always got top bonuses, regardless of the moralistic implications of taking money under false pretences from an already financially stretched Council. Even though wet time wasn’t on the bonus list, we always managed to fit in a bit of virtual sweeping, pruning and weeding to put on the form, sweeping was best put on the list on a windy day in autumn as the foreman couldn’t tell if you had done it or not.
BIRDS
One of my favourite jobs in the rain was to go and feed the 45 budgies and golden pheasant in the aviary on the park, I used to get half an hour a day for doing that although the numbers dwindled somewhat because the rats kept eating them. I ended up being paid half an hours wages a day for looking after two surviving budgies and when those died I still managed to get paid for looking after virtual budgies until the foreman noticed the cage was empty six months down the line.
DOWN THE BOOKIES
Norman, the gravedigger was a master at filling in the finer details to get us top bonuses every week and he used to go through our forms for us in his office, which happened to be the local bookmakers. He had his own chair and cup and we would give him the sheets on a Friday so he could cast his professional eye over them to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. There was a price to pay though and we had to dig the odd grave or two for him when there was a big race on. It was worth it though….
I suppose I should say here that we made up for the hibernating in wet weather by working hard at any other time… Well, I can’t. In summer, my favourite job was watering the bowling greens. I loved this as the sprinkler fitting rested on the hosepipe and the force of the water sent it up and down the green, giving me plenty of time to sunbathe and talk to friends. I fell asleep one day, (it was rather hot and I had previously had a late night) leaving the sprinkler flowing in one place for three hours as it got stuck on a kink in the pipe. The bowling green was under three inches of water which wouldn’t have been a bother if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a county match on. I was given a rude awakening by the captain of the local team who wasn’t too pleased…. I beat a hasty retreat splashing my way through the lake that used to be their perfect playing surface, dragging the pipe behind me. I did do an honest days work occasionally, for example….actually I can’t think of any at the moment. It’s funny how you forget things…
