This Adventurous Age

TUESDAY 30 MAY     LITCHFIELD

Our day off. We spent it very quietly, relaxing at the van, although I did have to do our washing and clean up the van.

Boss 2 did had to make an early morning dash out from Darwin with hamburger rolls!

After lunch, I went for a little walk down around the back of the cafe’s large block area. There was a tip down there, in the rather scrubby area. Boss had done some burning off down there fairly recently and I was intrigued by things starting to sprout green shoots again.

Pandanus seem well able to cope with cool season burning

There were some self sown watermelon vines – seeds escaped from the tip rubbish, no doubt – but some critter had chomped into the ripening, hanging fruit. Feral pigs? Or large birds?

Something ate a big hole in the watermelon

No two termite mounds are the same

John took his laptop into the cafe, when it was quieter in the afternoon, and did an internet download via their line. We received some photos of baby grandson. I thought he looked like his mother’s brother – definitely resembled that side of the family.

John did an internet deposit into house sitter’s bank account. $180 of that was to cover an electricity bill she had paid – we would have to sort out later what proportion of that was hers, and what was ours, accrued before we departed from home. He added $300 for ongoing cat care costs – that should last for some time. He sent her an email too.

There were lots of birds around our camp, which was quite delightful. Today, I noted a varied trilled and an olive-backed warbler.

Well camouflaged insects

Since we hadn’t worked today, I felt a bit more like an evening meal, so raided the cafe for decent plates of cold meats and salads.

FRIDAY 26 MAY – SATURDAY 27 MAY     LITCHFIELD

Friday was busy, but within the routine that I was used to, by now. After the lunch rush died down, made quiches to stock up the supply in the fridge, which was getting down.

Boss and B left for their spell off in Darwin, in the afternoon, and other boss arrived out from there.

On Saturday, I made apple pies, in the individual pie tins that were usually used for quiche making. These were to sell in the cafe, in place of the usual cheesecake. I could not make cheesecakes, because there was no cheese, but there were some tins of pie apple.

Cafe serving counter

The getting  of supplies for the place was proving to be rather erratic. Apparently, the usual wholesale suppliers and/or transporters, would not deliver to the cafe, because of some big disagreement boss had with them. So the bosses and B had to go round in Darwin, buying what was needed, in person, and bring it out. There was a whiteboard in the kitchen, to record what was running low and needed – but that only worked if whichever boss was going to Darwin actually looked at it! It also meant that the quite bulky supplies of sliced bread and burger rolls had to be frozen, rather than arriving fresh every day or two.

I finished at 6pm on both days.

SATURDAY 20 MAY – MONDAY 22 MAY    LITCHFIELD

Usual work days.

The weekend was busy, again, especially Saturday, when I did not finish until 6.45pm, and John 6.30.

M settled in quickly and well. She was such a good worker. I gave her a couple of my aprons to use.

Monday was exceptionally busy – as much as at the weekend.

Boss had said we could have a three day break. On Monday, I suspected he may be regretting that – although he would be away too and other boss coping with the cafe.

We thought this generosity may have been a money saving exercise? Or maybe he was just trying to be nice and make sure we did not over work? With that man, it was hard to tell.

Turkey Bush Litchfield

The cafe was part of the WOOFER scheme, so we had a regular procession of young Europeans coming, to work a few hours a day, in return for keep. They were accommodated in a tent in the safari camp area, and scavenged for food like we did – although their duties usually included helping out in the cafe in the evening, serving and waiting food – so they got fed an evening meal, when there were dinner guests. Some only stayed a couple of days, departing when they thought they were expected to do too much, or when the boss was unpleasant to them. Right now, we had a lad in his early 20’s – called French John, to distinguish him from “my” John.

FRIDAY 19 MAY     LITCHFIELD

M started work today. Her jobs would  be housekeeping when the safari tents had been used, general cleaning about the place, helping with setting up for the bus buffet lunches, and clean up after. She would work 7.30am to around 4pm, with a half hour for lunch.

Safari Camp tent

I suspected that it suited the establishment more, to have M here as a full time worker, rather than the previous part-timer, whose hours were dictated by the needs of young children.

M was to take over the toilet cleaning and frog removal morning duty from John.

It was very pleasant to have our happy hour after work, with the three of us sitting outside the van, with our beers, mulling over the events of the day. We would  watch the large mobs of fruit bats fly out of the trees, at dusk, to commence their night feeding, against the backdrop of often brilliant sunsets. The little creek would burble away in the background.