Playing in the rain

I’m starting this post on the train from Euroa to Melbourne.  It’s been a pretty incredible few days.

The most striking part of the weekend was Friday night.  I’d planned to get the train from Southern Cross Station to Euroa to spend the weekend up country.  The weather had other ideas; they looked like this -

Storm cells, Melbourne, 14 Dec 2018

When I saw the map of those storm cells I decided I’d be more use turning out with my SES unit than having dinner with Mum and dad.  I caught a tram through a deluge of rain and then drove over to Northcote LHQ.

Oranged up and ready to roll!

The unit received about 40 requests for assistance and I was sent out in Rescue 3 with Thao and Gabriella. Thao was crew leader and I was driver.  Our first job was repairing a roof from the inside (replacing a tile, which I’d only done from inside a roof in training). The second job was essentially structural damage to a roof and way beyond our ability to fix.  We assisted the households to take steps to mitigate the damage.  By this stage it was getting on for 2300, which meant food and coffee were in order.

Northcote Rescue 3 at Northland McDonalds

This was followed by one more job, sandbagging a garage which was likely to flood in another downpour. Operations wound up for the night. We returned to LHQ and were dismissed.  It was a strange feeling to be on one’s way home and to see people drinking on their patios or on their way home from a night out.  One had the odd impression of two entirely different worlds existing in tandem without much touching each other.  This, I suppose, is the case with much emergency response.

I was in bed by 0200.  I knew I was still probably needed at the farm and so I was up again about 0620 to get the 0700 train from Southern Cross to Euroa.  All credit to the V/Line conductor who understood why I hadn’t been on the previous nights train and didn’t require me to buy another ticket.  It seems silly to say it but buying breakfast from the trains buffet felt kind of glamourous, even if it was merely coffee and an egg and bacon roll!

Dad picked me up from Euroa and we headed out to the farm.  They’d had perhaps an inch of rain up here, which won’t go astray at all.  First job of the day was feeding out to cattle and tracking down some kind of damage to the backhoe.  As the day went on I couldn’t help but monitor the storm cells hammering Melbourne.  Towards the end of the day Dad and I headed over to the new property at Nagambie.  It’s a fertile looking place with good soil and water storage.  All being well we’ll get cattle on there in the next fortnight or so.

 

 

I was stunningly tired by evening and crashed into bed by 2100 and was asleep by 2200.  And I slept well.  All the way up to 0055 when my goddamn pager went off!  I was of course far too far away to be any value, so I turned over and went back to sleep as well as I was able till about 0830. 

The rain came back this morning and so today has been on the quiet side.  Rain meant that drenching cattle wasn’t an option, and so the highlight of the day was a couple of hours FaceTime with Grace and Rachel who are all geared up for Christmas.  I love how natural communication by technology has become for them.  I’m sure that they’d prefer to have a normal home life with a normal dad, but since that not an option, well, Dad is a face in a screen and that’s how it is.  They know I love them and I’m as much “there” as I can be.

And now?  I’m on the train for town (just passed through Broadmeadows). This is the last week that the office will be open before Christmas.  I will be busy; and hopefully all will be well.