A paddlesteamer and a look at life

This post has been written across a couple of days at work.

Spring is treating me well.  Now that the grey vampire of winter has retreated to her coffin for 9 months (and now that I'm reasonably well settled at work), life feels as bright as it's done in ages.  Every so often I think that I ought to compare each day's entries in last year's diary to this year.  I don't doubt I'm happier.  For one thing, I think that this time last year I was regularly working in the shipping container at the Signmakers as a way of avoiding the boss.  Here I haven't needed to play "boss can't find me".  And in any case, the folks I work with are great.

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In short, I haven't felt this good about turning up to work since I was with the now-defunct Riordan Legal.  I couldn't be much happier about that. I had the chance to ponder this sort of thing at the weekend.  I was in town on Friday night, which meant a walk home on a warm evening.

Old Melbourne Magistrates Court

It was the sort of warm evening that usually means it'll build up to a downpour of rain overnight, as indeed it did.  This was a bit of a nuisance as I was catching up with the Old Boy in town to take care of a few things and I got caught in the rain en route.  Anyway, business taken care of, he and I headed up to Shepparton.  Second Oldest Sister, Little Sister and JP were there when we arrived and it was good to catch up over dinner.

Sunday started early for me.  I'd signed up to run in "Sweat vs Steam", a race against a paddlesteamer on the Murray River that's held in Echuca each year.  I always find races against machines (the Great Train Race is another) philosophically fascinating: it intrigues me to pit human willpower against an engine that doesn't get tired and human muscle against steel that can soak up endless punishment.

Conditions were stunning for the race: an almost-cool morning and no clouds at all in the sky.  The course is 12.5 kilometres with only very small undulations.  It was well marshalled and there was no risk of getting lost.  I set out fairly briskly, with the idea being that if I could keep pace with the boat while it had the river current, I'd have the edge on it once it turned around and had to work against the current.  In the event, it still won, coming in at 51m46s (as against my 1h5m42s).  Nevertheless, it was one of my fastest times for the distance and so I was pleased about that!

P.S. Canberra, Echuca, Australia

The only shock of the event was finding I'd been put in the "Masters" age category, which to me translates as "old guy".  Maybe it's because I work with people a lot younger than me, but I don't feel old.  I'm certainly healthier than I was at 25, and I may even be a bit wiser than I was then (debatable), but I feel a lot younger than my birth certificate says I should.

Once the race was done I headed over the river to Moama to find a place to park and have a quick FaceTime with Grace and Rachel (I was fighting for their attention with Bill Nye the Science Guy: they love to learn!).  Then, I went to see one of the firm's clients in that town since she can't easily come to Melbourne.

I drove back to the farm by way of Mooroopna and Toolamba.  I have surprisingly mixed feelings about that part of the world now.  The job I held in Mooroopna, as those of you who know me offline will recall, was utterly miserable, even though I was glad of the money.  I'm certainly glad it's behind me.

It also feels odd not to feel anything much when driving through the operational area of the SES Unit I lead.  I understand there's been another change of controller there.  Once again, I'm glad I had the opportunity to lead the Unit for my full term of two years, and to take it through some challenging times.  One can be glad of an experience without feeling the need to repeat it.  I wish the Unit well, but I can't see myself returning to it.  This set of thoughts dovetailed with finding I was looking forward to SES training with my current unit on Monday night.  This was a multi-unit navigation and communications exercise and I found myself in the team assigned to running a staging area

Once again, it felt good to work in a team with no backbiting or I'm top-dog I'm-going-to-wave-the-rule-book behaviour.  The State Emergency Service is a great organisation, and when it's members are on form, they couldn't be better people.

My life since November 2011 has been characterised by impermanence: changing jobs, changing addresses, changing units and changing people.  I'm not sure I'll ever expect the world to be static again.  This is a little sad.  Regardless, right now I'm pretty certain life looks how it ought to look.