The Removalists Have Left by 10.00 With The First Truckload

The removalists come at 7am. All the way from Mullum. I didn’t hear them drive, not a peep and the barn is right by my bedroom. Funny, hey, but then sleep is my best skill

I’m awake at 9am. I hear voices now. “No, no, no,” or something. “No no no.” For some reason I think it is Jimmy, but it isn’t. I think it is the truck backing as close to the barn as it can.

I wander bleary-eyed out into the kitchen. Mark tells me to go and take a look at the gorgeous removalist, Chucky. I get a photo. Oh, I guess, he’s cute, in a straight boy, AFL player, rugged surfie kind of way.

I smoke two joints before I head off to my room to get ready, but I do my journals instead.

The removalists have left by 10.00 with the first truckload. The rest is going to be picked up on Monday. Half of the barn has been emptied. They have some deal that Mark and Luke’s stuff will be picked up as a return trip deal to Mullum.

It is only now hours until they move, not days, not weeks. It's all happening. What seemed liked months off, is now right upon us, here, now. This is it. They are going.

Mark and I go out and collect firewood in the forest, to leave the new owners supplied. I mustn’t be such a nice person, as I think it is insanity, it is the 01st day of summer, tomorrow.

Mark and Luke are leaving Bolago on the first day of summer. It just makes me feel sad.

Mark asks me to sweep out the shipping containers. He really does need therapy for the destruction (mother) Margaret Waterdale had on his logic concerning cleaning. 

My voice breaks into incredulousness, “WHAaa…t?” but I pull myself up fast. “Okay, sure.” Be a good sport, do what is asked. But shipping containers that are open to the elements in such terrain. Really? Swept out? Please?

Mark’s eyes search my face for any sign of mutiny.

“No problem.” Smile. “Happy to.”

It all has to look the part. The presentation has to be just so. I know. Damn you Margaret!

Mark wants it to look perfect, he wants his dream to be polished and to be its very best self.

I have tea breaks. Many. I work by the cup of tea every half hour rule.

I rearranged the barn with Luke and clean the fridges. Mark took photos for the manual he is creating for Stu, and he disappears for quite some time in the afternoon.

I have pot breaks. That’s the marijuana kind and not a set of jars, you understand.

Mark is finishing the packing of the trailer to be towed behind the Range Rover.

Never give lunch duty to the person who doesn’t eat. (Anorexic) Leah kept saying she was going to make lunch, but her anal cleaning drives kept proving to be too strong, so Luke stepped in. Thankfully. Just before the boy’s got angry. Read, I got cross.

The phone and internet were cut off in the afternoon, as Mark and Luke delayed their departure for one day. The telecommunication termination should have been tomorrow, if they had left on time, of course. Yesterday.

I took photos around 7pm, as the light fades.

The house got packed up and the barn got packed up and then there seemed to be an end to the list of thinks that had to get done.

LouLou heads to her place to sleep. She leaves us a bud of pot, to make up for our dwindling supply.

Mark and I move the ten or fifteen, huge sheets of Masonite, late, it is dark. Apparently, they are heading north too. We are just about around to the front of the barn, from the shipping container behind, when the wiring on the trailer breaks and the trailer tips over backwards sending the ten sheets of wood crashing to the ground and my foot. Fortunately, they fanned out as they hit the ground and most of their weight was taken by the ground, only half of the later sheets landing on my foot. It was close, I was lucky.

Luke got Chinese and we watched TV.

Mark is in pain, his back is over worked. He goes to bed early.

The, actual, last night seemed some what anti climatic, everyone was too exhausted. We stared at the TV screen blankly, stuffed.

Mark comes back out and wants medical marijuana for pain, but we have run out of papers. 

I offer to go. Luke asks me if I am really keen. I say I’d go to help someone’s pain. He laughs cynically. I call him a bitch. We laugh.

Am I that transparent?

Mark says he is going back to bed not to worry.

Luke says not much later, “Yeah, go on, then we could have joints for tomorrow too.” 

“Be careful,” he says, as I go, which I think is sweet. It’s raining, you are stone…

The road is long and the weather has turned to “not so nice.” I imagine every set of lights that comes into view behind me is the police, because I am paranoid. Woodend is deserted, the servo the only bright light in town.

Mark is out on the couch when I get back.

I check my messages from home.

Anthony left this message on the X Street phone.

I’m tired, tired, tired. Very tired and emotional… get back to me when you feel like it.

I presume that means he is pissed.

David left a message too.

Putriffariffacation. Muffin. Muffin. Hello! Hello! Hello!

Eternally positive…

… except for the 28th day of his cycle when he crashes and burns in a depressive state.