Preparation of a pitch

In preparation for the Christmas gathering it was determined that no Christmas would be complete with out an all inclusive game of cricket. So Barry kindly volunteered himself to become the first official curator of the Alexandra St Cricket oval (this being our first Christmas in residence).

The Day started as any other day with my usual preparations and heading off to work at around 8:00am. Barry started his day in the usual way and headed off from Blackwater at about 9:00am. He made the two hour journey in to Rockhampton with out anything of consequence happening and arrived mid morning according to plan. It all looked like it would be over for Barry before I returned home from work and he would be at home with his dog fed and relaxing for his own dinner.

We had previously determined that the oval was to be situated on the otherwise disused area to the back of our house yard that was to be reserved for the eventuality that our landlord might attract a light industry to the three bay shed towards the back of the allotment. With this area not presently in use and the grass in a grossly overgrown state Barry’s first decision was that the lawn mower was not going to do this in a single cut. He would in fact have to set the blades as high as they could possibly go, cut the grass and then reset the blade height to lower setting for the second cutting. So he proceeded with the blades set high and was off to a good start.

Barry worked on for the morning with his distinctive black hat molded down over his head and all but covering his shoulders. It was down by the shed that disaster struck, Barry did not see the large baser brick hidden in the long grass as the lawn mower careered in to it. The lawn mower was rendered unusable.

After some hours of repairs carried out on the lawn mower Barry comes to the decision that he will do better to temporarily abandon the old lawn mower which belongs to his father in law in favor of a new mower (he will just have to repair the old one before returning it). The day drags on.

It is 6:00pm when I return home to see a rather exhausted Barry just finishing off the second round of mowing on his brand new mower. After spending a couple of hours buying a mower and arranging means of getting it to our place Barry will be glad to put this saga behind him. He is understandably tired and frustrated as he comes in to the fish and chips that we have rapidly purchased for the unexpected dinner party. At 7:30 Barry’s tired family climb into the family vehicle headed to Blackwater. They leave behind them one ride on mower in need of repair.