Richard goes on a trip.

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,

He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.

He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,

Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.

"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,

I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."

* * *

When I couldn't think of what to write this morning this poem popped into my head. We must have learnt it when I was in 3G or maybe 4G or 5G.

"Ironbark is a rural locality in the City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia." I had to look that up online.

This is not a picture of Ironbark.

Not Ironbark.

So, why am I going on about Ironbark?

Well, I got up to no posts to read from the boys. Nothing new from either Peter or Robert. Hey, that's not really unusual. Robert has probably been playing cricket and is tired - he talks a lot about fielding. Peter? Well, when I rang him at just after 8am yesterday he was still in his Dutch Oven. Hadn't even had time to drop his phone in the bath.

* * *

You probably read the title to this post and wondered where I was going. No, I'm not travelling to Ironbark. I'm actually talking about a different type of trip. The sort of trip that old(er) people have. The sort that Peter specialises in at the golf club.

Yesterday was rubbish collection (and recycling collection) day. The guys usually come pretty early and yesterday was no exception. I had four bins to 'put away', our recycling and rubbish bins and the same two bins that belong to our elderly neighbour whose paper we also deliver. We have had lots of rain and you have to walk on wet grass to return our bins to their rightful place, so I decided to wear my big heavy work boots. As is my normal plan, I do Val's bins first. I grabbed her two bins and took off up her drive. There are three big concrete slabs on her drive and the first two do not sit evenly. These slabs are probably each about 3 metres long. One concrete slab sits about 2 or 3 centimetres higher than the one before it. This is what one of my big boots bumped into. I must have been moving at a bit of a pace because my body was thrown forward, leaving the two bins to fend for themselves. The only memory I have of the fall is the pretty extreme pain I suffered when I hit the stoney concrete. My right hand and my right leg took the brunt. I must have screamed out because Val heard me and came out to help. Getting up was a very hard job. I had to use my damaged hand for momentum until I could get my other hand onto the top of one of the bins - the side of a bin really, as they were both laying on their sides. 

We managed to get the bins up to her garage and I limped home to put our bins away. Then I went inside to inspect the damage. My right knee was bleeding right through my trousers and my right hand was stinging badly and bleeding in places. I seemed to go into shock for a few hours. Shelley patched me up. Thanks darling. Fortunately, I sort of felt much better by mid-afternoon. My recovery was helped by a glass of Cleanskin. As my mother used to say, "It'll either cure you, or make it worth having."

On the up side, I was able to get some good violin practice done later in the day. I guess I was lucky that my left hand seemed to escape injury, though the little finger feels a bit stiff this morning. I'm going to pop into Wellington to get a spare set of those Violino strings while they are available. The music shop is very close to Peter's new apartment. Maybe, in the near future, Peter will be able to get my strings for me? I guess it'd be wise to give him a lesson or two on choosing violin strings first.

Go the ABs tonight!

Ciao tutti.