How a Digger Cured My Writer’s Block
When inspiration wouldn’t come, I found it buried under the driveway.
The Tyranny of the Blank Page
‘What’ll I write about?’ I asked the missus.
‘The garden,’ says she.
Our driveway has been looking the worse for wear these past two decades or so. There’s only so much weeding you can do in gravel.
Mind you, it has had its delights! For the past two years, in one patch of calamity, we were surprised by joy — tiny, colourful flowers bravely (if unwisely) popped their petals up amidst the blackened, moss-strewn, car tyre–impacted gravel drive.
But if there’s a time for everything under heaven — a time for weeds and a time for clearing; a time for decrepitude and a time for getting your finger out; a time for putting things on the long finger, and a time when neglect bites you in the bottom — well, the time came when we had to face it.
It was either refresh our driveway with a new layer of stones or battle through an Amazon forest of briars to get from gate to front door — like a sword-wielding prince poleaxing himself to reach Briar Rose.
Of Wolves and Work
And if we were to do that Herculean task, wouldn’t it make sense to extend the drive a bit? For one, our wild wolf Paddy — bould collie of boundless energy — could no longer churn up grass into mud and madness.
With the dodgy back, I didn’t feel up to taking off the topsoil myself. One lad looked at it and prophesied woebegone days for his spine were he to take it on.
‘What you need is a digger and a dumper,’ says he. ‘This job’s not for me.’
So I asked a local man with a JCB if he’d come and take a look. He would, says he.
‘I’ll be there on Friday.’
Friday came and Friday went. No man appeared.
To be fair, the weather was ghastly. You wouldn’t send a cat out in it — and he didn’t. He even rang to say as much. Fair dues to him.
He’d be there Monday, says he. Monday came, and no man appeared. I left him be, I think, till Tuesday. You know the script. He never came. So I gave up on him.
Enter the Right Man for the Job
Then I remembered another fella — a man with a digger and a dumper who’d done a daysent job for us before. Why hadn’t I thought of him earlier?
I rang him.
‘I’ll have a look at it,’ says he.
Within a day, he called over, looked, chatted, agreed a price — and last Monday, he arrived.
I’d thrown away me crutch from the sore back on the Sunday, so I was right as rain to help him when he arrived with a tractor, digger, dumper and roller.
Fresh from my five-day doctor-imposed rest, I felt tired before I even started.
A Matrix of Horror Beneath the Earth
I had to tell him where all the mines were buried so he wouldn’t hit any.
One was a radio fence buried just an inch underground to contain the hound.
Another was the oil pipe, from tank to boiler.
A third, the main water pipe from pump house to kitchen.
A fourth, a second water pipe.
A fifth, the underground electricity line from pole to house.
A sixth, another electric cable from shed to septic pump.
And seventh, a pipe from the house to the… well, the repository of digestive residue.
In short, there was a matrix of horror and danger beneath the earth!
As we built our home three centuries ago, I at least remembered where these dangers lay. Imagine the electrifying surprises of ruptured power lines, the aromatic release of a broken sewer, or the potentially explosive holing of the oil feed — not to mention my heartbreak if the dog’s radio fence were broken after I’d spent a month setting it up so the postman might escape unbitten!
I happened to witness the very moment he ruptured the radio fence. He became highly animated in the cabin of the digger and, while I can’t lip-read, I surmised his monosyllabic utterance began with an ‘F…!’
I howled with tears… well, no, not really. I took it surprisingly well. The wolf would have been thrilled, had he realised his prison walls had been felled.
Trust and Safety (and a Little Luck)
I set about fixing the snapped wire, securing the weak spot against future ruptures. It took some time — all the while as the digger danced around me. Trust is… a human with no hard hat crouched inches from a working digger.
I used to write about health and safety. Apparently, I’ve moved into research.
I trusted this guy — literally with my life and limb.
‘Are you happy?’ he asked when my repair was done.
‘I’m happy,’ I declared, the wire fixed, the radio fence restored. Sorry, Paddy.
The job took two days.
A Good Three Days’ Work
Next day — Wednesday — I’d planned a restful one, preparing for a Toastmasters contest that evening. But then I got a message from the professional hedge cutter, saying he could come that day.
I was exhausted before we began. But we worked together all day, got the job done — and that evening I washed, dressed, and competed in my club’s online contest.
I won.
Happy days,
Joe
Joe Armstrong’s acclaimed first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions. His second memoir Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
Happy days indeed!
Lovely, light, amusing writing. I love the picture of the man with the broken wire. The stuff about Paddy reminded me of past pets. When we were kids, we had a tortoise that frequently escaped its chicken wire enclosure. (In those days, it was acceptable to keep a tortoise in the garden in summer and hibernate it in a straw-lined box in the garage over winter.) It's amazing how far a slow but determined tortoise can get!