Tarring, hoeing, dyking... it's all in a day's work
In recent months I have spent far too much time sitting in front of my computer.
There are several problems with this situation. One is that there are many, many things I would rather be doing, and most of them involve being outside the house. Another is that it is far too easy to waste time on the computer and this time-wasting just exacerbates the whole situation.
I can’t do anything else until my work is done, and somehow I just can’t seem to get myself in the right gear to do it. So I am stranded with the laptop for yet longer. And because of the bright screen and my chronically bad posture, each day ends with sore eyes and an aching back.
I am aware, of course, that wasting time is just as easy while outside, but time wasted in the open air is never really wasted, and it certainly doesn’t leave you with that hollow feeling that computer-use inevitably produces.
Tarring is not my favourite job. In fact it ranks pretty low on an increasingly lengthy list of current and previous occupations. But it requires being outside (obviously), and interacting with people, which makes it 10 times better than numbing my brain in front of a screen. So I was delighted to be out on the roads at the beginning of the week, getting myself covered in the filthy sticky black stuff.
Filling in potholes is a fairly regular task. It involves, firstly, heating a barrel of tar over an open fire (probably not the textbook method), then rolling it a quarter of a mile down the road, to try and make it as smooth and lump-free as possible. This is often the most entertaining part of the day – chasing after the barrel as it sails merrily down the road towards... well, you never quite know until you get there.
Once that’s done it’s just a case of filling in all the holes in the road with chips (stone, rather than potato) and covering them in tar, poured from an old metal watering can. Simple. Only the intervention of wind, other traffic or lumps in the tar (“turds” is the technical name) can get in the way. Which they do. Often.
At the end of the day I usually have to scrub my hands and face with rough sandpaper and wash my hair in diesel just to return to a normal state of cleanliness.
Thursday was spent rather less messily, mending two large holes in the Hill Dyke – the tall, dry stone wall that separates the northern and southern parts of the isle.
There is an art to dry stone dyking, but, as this was my first attempt at the job, I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t have it. My skills were more on the level of say, doodling – acceptable in private, but hardly desirable for public display. I enjoyed myself immensely though, so all was well. Between four of us we filled both holes by the end of the afternoon. And with the warm sun beating down, I could hardly think of a better way to spend a day.
Yesterday, feeling guilty about ignoring our garden for so long, I went down to try and tackle some of the weeds that have been making themselves at home there. With a dogged enthusiasm that I have never before felt for the task, I hoed myself almost senseless, filling fishbox after fishbox with weeds. I returned home, six hours later, with my back aching and my eyes sore, and immediately switched on the computer.
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