h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After almost a full week in the avocado packing shed I am a bit achey
and my bedtime is now 8:30pm! There's a lot of upper body exercise
involved in this job, which is probably good for my stiff spine. It's
needed a bit of TLC in the last couple of days and thankfully J has
a wonderful wheat-filled heat pack, which worked wonders on Tuesday
night. Of course we're on our feet all day too and one evening I got
home, sat down and experienced both my legs tingling all over! Beer
sorted that one out... taken internally, not rubbed in.

For those of you who were amazed by my avocado research last week:
here's some more facts and figures.

I work an 8 hour day, packing a box of avocadoes every 3 minutes. Each
box contains an average of 24 fruit. Therefore I pack 3,840 avocadoes
each day. That's 19,200 every week. And each one pays me 0.03 cents.

That last figure is especially for J, who wanted to know. Sad
girl... Not a bit like me

So other than aches, what happens in the packing shed? Due to the
constant clatter of the conveyor belt and avocadoes filling the
hopper, I can't hear a thing, so conversation is out. The one time I
did try to have a chat to one of my fellow-packers, I lost
concentration, got animated and threw two avocadoes at her! So I keep
to myself now, until the break. To maintain a little sanity I hum,
whistle and sing out loud.

Today I sang the whole of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
(the album) and then started on some Roy Orbison. I don't remember The
Beatles singing For The Benefit Of Mr Kite for an hour, but in the
Childers packing shed it's a loooooooong song. I'm still humming it,
interspersed with Only The Lonely. Trouble is, I don't have either CD
here and I'm itching to listen to them now

Several of you have suggested that perhaps I could think about turning
this Witter into something rather more organised, like a book. To that
end I attended a Writers' Seminar at Queensland Uni last weekend. I
think it's the first time I've been in a room with 35 people who are
serious about writing and being published. My impending magazine
articles meant that I wasn't a complete fraud, but as for writing
anything longer than a couple of thousand words... well, that's going
to be hard work. It was a really interesting and informative day, from
which I came away loaded with contacts, reading and avenues to follow.
Not least of the latter is the Bundaberg Writing Group, which meets
every month. I'll go along to their next get together in June and
decide whether to join them or not.

On the home front we have had two goatlets (okay, okay.... kids) born
this week. Clever old Blossom dropped them on Sunday morning, when we
were out at the market and was feeding them by the time J spotted
new bleatings in the paddock. On Tuesday evening we sat on top of the
duck dam wall and watched the wee ones gambolling like lambs. All four
feet off the ground at once and looking awfully surprised when they
missed their landing zone and fell over.

WEAR YOUR EARPLUGS(SHOULD BE SUPPLIED BY YOUR EMPLOYER) OR YOU WILL SUFFER INDUSTRIAL DEAFNESS, BELIEVE ME I KNOW HOW NOISY SHEDS AND MILLS CAN BE........

What's that deary........ Too late...... You're mumbling again,........ oh, it is very noisy here, he, he, he

at least I am not the only person who has music in their heads whist they do boring work

http://www.f.kth.se/~ruus/

The original poster! Brilliant research, Gnomon!

Hi, Frenchbean,

So glad to hear from you. I have been wondering where you were - in the packing shed obviously. No wonder you go to bed at 8.30pm - that's a bit of a killer isn't it? I saw some avocados today when shopping but completely forgot to see where from. Any idea where yours go

I agree with the EARPLUG messsage. You need to do it asap. Some employees of the now defunct MG Rover are suing for loss or impairment of hearing. Better to do something about it now than suffer later.

Spotted an item this evening about 160 whales stranded off the coast of Western Australia, near Busselton. Nowhere near you I know but close (in Australian distance!) to where my friend lives. I bet she was down there feeding the volunteers who have apparently got most of them back to sea.

Take care with the back and the ears. Look forward to your next missive.


Websailor

Got some earplugs today, Hel2 That'll cut me off completely

Wow - fantastic link Gnomon. Thank you!

Websailor I think all of our avocadoes go to Woolworths in Australia. None overseas as far as I know. Even in the global economy, I think Australia to UK would be too far I seem to recall seeing a lot from Israel in my local Tesco in Scotland.

Fb