'BEACHED'

If you enjoyed ‘Dishonourable Discharge’ here is the start of the next leg of my trials and tribulations!

 ‘Keep your hands away from moving machinery and don’t shit in the fire bucket’ was Fat Barry’s concluding comments to our daily health and safety lecture or ‘Tool Box’ as it’s known down under.

Donning our safety helmets and life jackets we trooped out of the site hut into the pale pre-dawn light and trudged down the sandy path to the jetty where our workboat awaited us. Swinging on board ‘Kiwi Wayne’ took the helm while ‘Jimmy the Knife’, me, Jerry my bruv and ‘Veggie Bill’ held tight as the boat cut a swathe through the still waters of Botany Bay. In the distance, lights of the dredgers and spreaders flickered as we prepared ourselves for another fourteen hour shift on the Sydney Desalination project or cockup as it was better known.

I’m getting ahead of myself, when we last spoke from the pages of ‘Dishonourable Discharge’ I was closing the door of a hotel bedroom in Cyprus.