Monday, 21 October 2013
It’s probably not quite the right term to use, but here we are in the dog days prior to Day One Departure.
Actually, The Astute Reader might be wondering how Hughesy’s mind, which has been known to travel strange paths, would come up with the dog days to describe a three-and-a-half hour spell before we get our rears into gear and set off.
More particularly, TAR might have a degree of difficulty equating the interactions between a bladder, a body clock sorely in need of adjustment, a cat who occasionally displays signs of intelligence, The Driver, The Golfer and the pre-trip preparations with anything involving canines.
It’s all in the atmospherics and a fairly brisk southeasterly looks like it wants to back around to the north. If it does, it will reduce Hughesy’s office to a sweat box and necessitate calling the air conditioning into play.
I was hoping here might be YouTubeage of this rather tasty bit of New Orleans R&B, but there isn’t, though the quest to see whether there was killed another minute or two.
One should probably go back to the bladder, which was the start of the whole shebang, but instead, I turn my attention to the Day One schedule, which is, in my view, equally to blame.
When Day One activities are limited to a drive to Townsville before a night at The Golfer’s Motel, there are issues associated with departure. You can’t just pack up and rock off down the road. You’re going to get to Townsville well before The Golfer has completed his regular cross-country ramble in pursuit of a small white ball.
Now, this isn’t necessarily a problem. If The Golfer isn’t at home, he’ll have warned the next door neighbour that visitors are expected. There’s a spare key over there, and Old Kel Next Door is usually on the premises to hand it over.
Under those circumstances, you can let yourself in and do something to fill in the time. Something could well equate to tapping out the Day One Travelogue to date. You don’t want to let yourself get behind with these things.
While you’re doing that, you could help yourself to a chilled article or two from the fridge. The Golfer would feel hurt if you didn’t.
But no, for some reason, if we haven’t been assured The Golfer will actually be on the premises The Driver prefers to arrive on the doorstep around six, which means we won’t be making final preparations for departure until around three.
As I type, it is just ticking over past midday, so there are around three hours to kill.
The best way to kill time is to limit the amount of it you have to deal with so Hughesy would be best advised to sleep in, leaving whatever needs attending to until as late as possible. That’s where those other factors really start to kick in.
Unfortunately, that comes right up against Hughesy’s body clock, which is attuned to rising somewhere between four and six. One could prescribe oneself an extra couple of draughts of sedative. With a night at The Golfer’s coming up, followed by around a fortnight of eating and drinking, that’s not advisable.