FRIDAY 30 JUNE – SATURDAY 1 JULY    LITCHFIELD

I managed to grab some time, in between kitchen duties, to make some phone calls and contact L and R, our house sitters from last year. The family circumstances that had made them unable to commit to sit for us this year, had changed. They were currently doing a sit in SA, but could take over ours, from 20 July – three weeks away. That would be a great piece of good fortune for us. They were very happy to do it. So I arranged that, there and then.

Had to do our usual work for the rest of the day, despite a racing mind and feeling very distracted. Then had much discussion through the evening.

What would we do until 20/7? We wondered how bad the house really was, in terms of needing cleaning? What would happen to D’s belongings? We certainly did not want her back in the place, even when she was released from hospital.

It was decided that John must go home and sort everything out. That made me feel a bit better about things. It would cost us, though, in terms of John’s lost wages, and air fares. At this peak season time of year, fares would be at a premium.

We contacted son, who had work history in the travel business, to try to get John onto a flight.

We thought John might remain at home until L and R arrived.

At least, that would give John some respite from the increasing unpleasantness of boss 1. Actually, even boss 2 seemed to be throwing the odd tantrums these days, though those were not directed at his employees.

Recent attempts by boss 1 to make John’s life harder included a ban on him using the blower to remove leaves from the gravel paths  around the cafe – on the grounds that the blower created corrugations in the ground. Only hand raking was to be allowed – unless it was boss using the blower.

Corrugated path?

On another occasion, John and French John were tasked with picking up – by hand – any stone in the large car parking area that was bigger in diameter than a 10 cent piece. That was an awful lot of stones, and after a few hours spent on same, one day, the task lapsed and no more was said about it.

Staff showers

WEDNESDAY 28 JUNE     LITCHFIELD

The day was routine.

The evening was livened up by the cutting of pilot S’s hair, after the cafe had closed for the night.

The staff group and WOOFERS were sitting outside on the lawns  after tea – a rare occurrence, because we usually all went our separate ways. But some of the ranger staff from the National Park had come to visit, for drinks, and a couple of the local people, who were involved with the art venture in the gallery rotunda, were also there. There were no guests in the safari camp and no diners. The gathering turned fairly raucous, fairly quickly!

S commented that he really needed a hair cut. John volunteered to do it, and went off to the van to get the gear I used to cut his hair.

John started the clipping process, by torchlight, but then local lady K got in on the act and finished it off, amidst much hilarity.

Fortunately, using clippers with a set length attachment, there wasn’t too much that could go wrong.

It was a fun night.

TUESDAY 27 JUNE   LITCHFIELD

We both had the day off.

We got the usual early start, in order to take Truck to Darwin for the radiator core to be replaced.

Travelled in via the dirt road route.

We were getting a bit low on fuel, so John topped up the tank – with just $7 worth, at Berrimah, on the way in – $1.44cpl.

Collected the hire car again – this time, we had to pay for it.

Went back to the Cool Spot for brunch, again. Then  browsed some shops to fill in time.

Truck was ready to go by early afternoon.

Filled the fuel tank at Coolalinga, on the way out – $1.37cpl.

THURSDAY 22 JUNE     LITCHFIELD

I had the day off. John was needed, because there was a BBQ group booked in, and a big lot of other bus numbers for lunch.

I just wandered around and generally relaxed.

Thought about my mum, who would have been 94 today, were she still alive. She would have been delighted by the life I lead these days – lots of travel and different experiences.

There is something sentinel-like about these pandanus

FRIDAY 16 JUNE – TUESDAY 20 JUNE   LITCHFIELD

These were routine days to begin with.

Boss 1 seemed to be feeling in an unusually expansive mood on Friday morning. He really was quite mercurial. He decided that we should have a staff breakfast, starting at 8 and opening the cafe a little later than usual. We sat out on the lawns in front of the cafe, eating grilled haloumi cheese that he had made for us, and drinking coffee. It was a pleasant start to the day.

The boss swap happened as usual on Sunday, with boss 1 and B heading off to Darwin.

But boss 2 came down with some sort of flu bug, during Sunday afternoon, and took to his bed in the old caravan.

That left the three of us to look after the evening trade at the cafe.

I had to wing it a bit with the evening menu items. Fortunately I had observed the men making things like the special rice they served with the poached fish. Also fortunately, only a couple of meals were required on each night – and they were items I knew how to do. Also fortunately, the dinner guests did not stay late.

As well as staying on duty for the evening meals, I had to start early in the mornings, due to having the cafe open for breakfast from 8am. I did a couple of 12 and 13 hour days.

Each of the two nights that boss was off crook, I closed up the cafe and took the register tray to his caravan, before heading off to ours. I didn’t know what the bosses usually did with it, but I wanted to be safe.

We had noticed that each of the bosses, when heading off for their turn in Darwin, took a heap of cash out of the cafe register. The register itself did not work properly – hitting the keys only rang up that sale and opened  the cash drawer, it did not tally any ongoing amount. So there was no record generated. We felt this was risky – made it easy for any light fingered staff. i.e. some of the WOOFERS, who we overheard talking about helping themselves to some pocket money. There was no way of knowing what should be in the till. I decided the book keeping here must have been somewhat hit and miss!

When we first started work at the cafe, wondered if there was a cash flow problem – that might have accounted for the fact of no produce deliveries. For a while, wondered if we would get paid! That seemed delayed, but we had received some wages now, and could only hope that they got all caught up – and that the compulsory superannuation got transferred as it should. This was especially so as all of John’s wages were to be salary sacrificed into super! But, sometimes one had to both trust their gut feelings about people – and I felt boss 2 would do the right things – and just have some faith.

John was given Tuesday off. He enjoyed his leisure, but of course it meant no wages for that day. But I needed to start at 7.45 to open the cafe, and was needed to do the bulk of the kitchen work. Although boss was back on deck, he was still not feeling great and went off to have an afternoon sleep.

I finished at 6.15, when he came up to take over and do the dinner shift.

THURSDAY 15 JUNE     LITCHFIELD

We had another relaxing day at camp, until just after lunch.

Then B appeared at our camp – unusual in itself. She said we’d had a phone call to the cafe and we were to phone M – John’s cousin. John went up and did that. They were at the caravan park in Batchelor.

We drove in to meet up with them, for a little while. After arriving at the park, and setting up their camp, they had gone to the store/PO to check for mail. They have the same surname as us, and the lady informed them that the mail had already been collected by someone from the cafe. Eventually, they twigged that it was probably our mail and that we were working there.

We had an enjoyable catch up, for a few hours. Tried to persuade them to come and camp at the caravan park next door to the cafe, but they had to meet friends in Darwin so were on a tight schedule. We continue to be ships in the night with these two, meeting up with them at unpredictable places on our respective travels.