So Much Time?

Where are we? 

Jones Hill, Gympie. Part rural, part suburb. We are within an expanding housing estate with many new builds. 

Time? So much time? 

Every other day we have someone, usually a very well-meaning individual, remark on how much time we must have on our hands!  Or they ask what we have recently done that’s exciting. Of me, women often ask, “Are you knitting? Do you crochet? You must have so much time now.” “Which books have you read lately?” Of AJ, "How's your golf coming on?" 

Politely we answer, but before we are tempted to roll our eyes, we remember that folk do not grasp the intricacies of our lifestyle.

Before the wheels of the van can roll, countless tasks must be ticked off. Checklists are our go-to. Everything must be secured and ticked off. Inside and out. Once the campsite is set up, the interior also needs setting up to function smoothly. There is a checklist for that too. Everything must be placed where it belongs. ALL. THE. TIME.

The day usually begins with a walk. A long walk. Or with an attempted workout session. 

After a shower we have breakfast. A good one! Stamina is needed for the day. Morning devotionals, Bible reading and prayer – THE most important ingredient for said stamina – are slotted in somewhere too. Often while we walk.

The van must constantly be kept clean, or we have uninvited passengers – the creepy-crawly kind. Usually, there are tyres to inflate and then deflate. (A must for towing.) There is fuel to be sourced. Water to be sourced. Yes, we must plan where to get water. 

Like you, we can simply open a tap in the van, but it must first get into the tanks beneath us, before we can open the tap. That can be hard work and take a good chunk out of the day.

In between daily tasks, there are routes to work out, reservations to make (if necessary), supplies to be shopped for (we cannot carry a month’s worth in a van), and washing to do since we only have enough to wear for a few days. House sitting research and agreements are time-consuming. Making doctors’ and dentists’ appointments takes on a whole new dimension, as you ponder the calendar to see where you will be at that point.

Inevitably there is something to fix. Or something to reattach to the wall. Or something to store under the bed, which requires taking everything off the bed that you have temporarily placed onto the bed to get it out of your way.

And then there’s the admin! Logbooks to update for the taxman. Expenditure spreadsheets. A budget to monitor. Annual payments to schedule. Job research. Warranties to maintain through annual inspections. Online advice to monitor, to keep up to date with State requirements. Since we mostly work online, we have a commitment to update and maintain computers. Software updates. New software to learn. Technology tutorials. 

Social media! Keeping followers happy. Replying to multiple messages from the four corners of the world is a pleasure, albeit a challenging one. Thus, these blog posts. Interacting with others is what it’s all about … after all it’s called social media. Conversation, like tennis, cannot be maintained only from one side. And one doesn’t lurk! Lurking is … in the same camp as being a peeping Tom. It takes me a long time to write and publish a blog post. 

Suffice it to say that I write and read, read and write; write and read … mull over … sleep on … edit. Read, edit, read; rewrite and read. Then edit some more! You get the picture?

“Time waits for no one,” said someone somewhere. How true! When you look again, midday is encroaching. My man believes in meals at a certain time. It’s the way he was raised, and the way it’s been done for 43 years of our togetherness. But it’s good because once the main meal of the day is done, the afternoon affords more time for tasks. (Shall I let you in on a secret … by 3 pm I’m usually horizontal for 30 mins, struggling to remain vertical. But even then, I simultaneously listen to a grammar podcast or read editing theory. Oh, for a good fiction book! Maybe one day. *sighs*)

House sitting

When house sitting, the home must be kept scrupulously clean or else the task is that much harder once we’re ready to vacate. When we have house sittings booked back-to-back, we find ourselves in a strange house, cooking in a strange kitchen, sleeping in a strange bed, and so on, every 2 to 3 weeks. And goodness … can we move in?! 

Computers, screens, printer, toiletries, clothing, linen and towels (yes, we use our own), groceries and more are carted in. Everything we use that isn’t ours must be replaced in its spot after use, or we will not remember where it belonged. Our grocery supplies join the homeowners’ in their grocery cupboard and fridge. Each of our items need to be marked, or at the end of the gig we’re going, “Which is which?” “Whose is whose?”  “Is this my mixed herbs, or hers?”  “Is this our tomato sauce, or theirs?” “Are these frozen mixed veg ours?” “Is this hand soap ours?” It’s even more confusing when both shop at the same stores and favour the same products. In some cases, we move so often, that when AJ is looking for something, for example, I’ll say, “It’s on the counter” … when that was at the previous place. In the current house it has a new spot. Sometimes it does my head in. AJ’s too.

 

There are the inevitable small tasks written on a list. And often, when we attempt to use the vacuum cleaner, it needs a cleaning service before it is effective. Or the toilet leaks. Or the kitchen sink leaks. Or a plug doesn’t seal. There is always something that AJ needs to mend.

 

There is usually a garden to water and keep tidy and lawns to mow. Some gardens take hours a day, some a couple of hours a week. Also pot plants … at some gigs there are myriad numbers (plants that I have never seen before which I pray over, for fear of killing them … 🥴😅), tucked away in every nook and cranny, hanging from beams, parading at doorways and then sometimes there are few. I favour the manufactured kind, that do not need water!

Perpetual scanning of your surroundings for critters takes massive amounts of focus and awareness-energy. And time! “Close the door!” “Close the screen!” is the continual cry, as we watch for snakes, spiders, geckos and even toads, which love to slip in by a door. 

The mozzies and midges aim to eat you alive. The big 5 in Africa are mostly contained behind fences. Here, even an insect screen cannot keep the smallest ones out and everything is on a mission – to zap, to bite, to kill, or to move in with you. As I type now, I’ve swatted the back of my neck, feeling something unseen crawl on me. Perhaps it's all this talk of the critters. And I keep spotting that gecko that slipped in two days ago when it dropped off the outside of the door into the house … he’s behind the cupboard in this room. Every time, every time, I spot it, I think it’s a snake.

Just yesterday we had an Air Conditioner go thud, thud, thud, on us, and stop. The hottest day of the year! Feel temp 40C. Upon investigation outside, there it was – a snake – unceremoniously (as our son-in-law remarked) wrapped around the blades of the unit’s fan. Unable to identify it, I phoned the local snake catcher. He arrived 30 minutes later, without me having taken my sweltering eye off that unit. I grinned when I noted that he’s as old as we are, and also takes double the time to get down on his hands and knees to investigate. 

When the cover came off, out came a recently deceased snake, still in its death throes … for a call-out fee of $110. Ugh! 

It’s against the law to kill a snake in this country (or so we have been told), but darn … who can afford a snake catcher? So next time, guess what?! If we are unable to send Scaly-the-snake off to a safe spot, it will be la-la-land for either one of us or for Scaly, as we attempt our own capture-and-release.

While in the Gympie region, if the telephone rings and we receive a request for help from our beloved daughter, everything is put on hold for a good 4 or 5 hours, and off we go to do grandparent duties. We’ve chatted with grey nomads in campsites, who have bravely confessed that their kids don’t know where to find them. And when they do, they quickly move on, leaving them to catch up again. 

So?

“So?”, you may remark, “this is no different to my day, and I get to make things, to read, to gym etc.”

Well, maybe it’s just me/us … but at the end of each day we’re pooped! I hit the sack at 8 pm, AJ not long after. We are up again at 5 am, only for it all to start over. Again, I say, this is the life we have chosen. This is the life we are making the most of. Independence and survival are at the top of the list for us. Where is the time to enjoy a good book? Where is the time to quietly knit or sew? Where is time for sightseeing and doing exciting things? And playing golf takes the better part of a full day!

No … not for us. We had our turn in Qatar. Now, it is not our turn.

Nevertheless, now and then we do get to have fun moments, and they are valued, to be sure. Sometimes they pounce upon us unexpectedly. They can arrive without fanfare. Many times, they are over in a flash … if you weren’t alert and mindful, they’d pass you by. Even some planned moments are merely fleeting. But thankful, grateful, and blessed we are.

 

Thanks for stopping by. 🌼

Blessings. 

Images: 

All tree frog cartoon images by Alexa from Pixabay

Bug image by 17314653 from Pixabay

Frog ornament image by 165106 from Pixabay

Frog in the boat image by Eveline de Bruin from Pixabay