Friday, August 10, 2007

Shivers

I’ve been flat as a tack recently. Morose, especially around the house all day long by myself. I’ve been waiting to find out whether I’ve got more writing work coming or if I need to go and look for some myself, and in the meantime I’ve been …bored.

But today something happened to take my mind off things. Some men arrived to pull down the big old tree that has been shading the carpark of our block of flats, probably since before the flats were built. It was a good tree, and it did a really good job of shading the searing hot hurty gravel of the carpark, through which you have to scamper on tip-toes on your way to the pool in summer. However, Corporate Services said that it had to go. So it had to.

Corporate Services didn’t give us any warning that this was going to happen. The first I heard about it was when a bush-ranger-looking guy knocked on our door to see if I knew who owned the cars that were parked under the tree out the back. I said: “Sorry mate, can’t 'elp ya,” in my flattest Townsville accent, so that he’d know I really meant it, and was about to close the door when he added “Cos we’re cutting down the tree today.”

And at that point I thought I might go and have a look at what was going on. I have spent a bit of time trying to stop this kind of thing from happening, after all. I changed out of my jarmies, and when I got out to the carpark it was clear that the fellers had had no luck finding out whose cars they were - they were on their way to removing one of them with a tiny loader.

One of the fellers must also be wanted in another state, because he jumped clear of my photo with alacrity. The guy who'd ripped the arms out of his work shirt and was wearing it with footy shorts told me that if I caught the other guy on film, he’d break my camera. Riiiiiightio.















The original bush-ranger looking guy backed down the drive with the offending car in tow.

Then he "parked" it in the street with the other abandoned vehicles before getting on with the business of chopping down the tree. Note the grass growing up under that classic black Holden ute - it's been there a long long time. In this shot you can also see the number plate of the car from our place, in case you recognise it and want to know what's happened to it. Also, see those two takeaway coffees on the dash? They've been there for at least a year.

The actual tree-removal was very quick in the end.
Before:



And 15 minutes after:


















Let the long hot shadeless summer begin!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

How long have you been waiting to legitimately refer to someone as a 'feller'?

tunabake said...

oh my god! threats by townsville he-men; i would be scared...i can't believe they pushed the cars out of the way with a small digger...you need to get back to the big smoke naomi
xx

Anonymous said...

I see it's all happening in Towns-Ville! :) That's so Tv though fellers jumping outta photos, threats, moving cars etc.. hehe
Wish I could come and we could do water aerobics together. That would be cool and help a little with your boredom.

tunabake said...

water aerobics!!! hanna and naomi you should go, i went last week to water aerobics and really felt the benefits - although i couldn't walk properly for a few days after :)claire x

Naomi said...

Hanna and I went all through last summer when she was living in Townsville. It is really really good for you .. but much easier to go when there's someone to chat to all through class.